so like visions of supernovas from distant galaxies - by the time light reaches we know how long ago it happened

stuff like that?

No, the speculative idea is that the future has causal efficacy over the things "preceding" it, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality

The best way to predict the future is to study the past, or prognosticate.

Robert Kiyosaki

Rich dad poor dad author?

The future affects the past. The subjective value of the past is undetermined and can only be determined in the future.

Example:

Hillary spends 100 billion dollars on her election campaign.

Trump spends 100 million dollars on his election campaign.

Is Hillary or Trump's campaign worthwhile?

The dollars cannot change, but the value of the dollars can (and will) change by the popular vote.

Thats different. Op is asking if our actions in say present affect the past. For example does this post change the outcome of the op question...no. this question assumes their is only 1 timeline. If past is changed does the present continue on the way it does or does a new one branch off?

This post was edited by kalelvszod on Jul 5 2015 06:04pm

That's a strange question. It would seem that if the material fabric of the present were to intersect with itself sometime in the past, that indeed the whole of the future-present reality would not go with it. It certainly seems that the same technology needed to intersect the material present with the material past would create a new branch of reality (or at least a new branch of science!)

The Zen Buddhists say that nothing is immutable, everything changes. I've taken that to imply that there is no foundable concrete material past, or that the material past is not stored in a sort of quantum strip but rather exists only in the present.

space and time are both fluent theoretically, therefore time travel is possible and there are so many variables it would be foolish to think the future you return to will be exactly the same. all it takes is for you to stop someone from going right instead of left or talking to someone you shouldnt have. that would cause a ripple effect imo altering the lives of millions however miniscule it may be. so i think its impossible that future can predict past or vice versa just b/c the future would constantly be changing and if it does then that would create that multiverse. time travel discussions are always one big mindfuck.

Illuminati.

There is no future or past, just present. Only thing that determines (like what we call "time") the present is something called "entropy".