>>13084
>I don't think Consensus cares about the hashed message being separated from the key, as it could just apply them and see it.
Yes, if Consensus can see the original message before the time it should be revealed, it can respond.
This can be either because it can ignore a spatial or temporal separation. Either one cannot make a protected space to do the computation and store the message, or Consensus can retrocausally observe the message revealed in the future.
>The point was that the projected image "knew" which of the particle bursts were being recorded and which ones weren't, indicating that it's a "system" which disregards time -even if no one watched it in real time, the intent to observe via the recording was enough to change the outcome.
The observer effect is real but is generally believed to not be retrocausal. The experiment is probably the delayed-choice quantum eraser.
>It means the intent to observe cannot be derived from the procedure, and it remains in the state where we can't know if Schrödinger's cat is alive or dead. That's where magic is effective.
But if the observation is made, you do see the cat alive or dead. And things generally don't remain unobserved forever.
What I've tried to hint at with this is a
method to approach magic. From a scientific perspective the strangest thing about magic is that it connects consciousness to the world in ways other than how consciousness appears to be embedded, in a body. It seems that in order for magic to function, there must be an unknown mediating agent or agents (in the technical sense of agent, a goal-directed system which takes percepts and produces actions) that maps imprecise conscious intentions in magic to detailed effects on the world (or the reverse). This holds even if idealism is true since something still needs to generate the appearance of the material world. The mediators are also not necessarily separate from from the self and could be part of the subconscious, but we consider them separate for this approach. What then is the natural scientific way to study magic, is to find the boundaries, constraints, capacities, and goals of these mediating agents. This can be difficult as they may adaptively conceal themselves. But through systematic experiment, such possibilities can be restricted.
Now in the case of one such supposed agent, Consensus, the goal is not to unconditionally enable public verification, but to construct an experiment that ideally constrains the kinds of Consensus that can interfere with it to those that are omniscient, omnipotent, etc..
If Consensus cannot extract some human intentions, can a commitment scheme be hidden in the human mind?
If Consensus can observe the future, how far ahead? In how much detail? How many times can it retry to reach a desired outcome? What parts of the world can it influence?
Stronger experiments in this case are those that require a more powerful Consensus to interfere with them.
From this view OP's possible mechanisms correspond to:
>Retro-causation: it was going to happen anyway, but only if the spell is cast. This opens up another line of research (timelines, etc.).
Mediators map future events to magical intentions, or "cause" both from an acausal position outside time.
>Probability influence: it was probable enough, or far enough in the future for a sort of butterfly effect to make it happen from whatever state the world was in when the spell was cast.
Mediators are local, connecting the magician's intent to specific outcomes, which then propagate effects mostly conventionally.
>Collective unconscious communication: similar to probability influence, but only actions mediated by people or living beings change, with their subconscious cooperation.
I'll extend this beyond a special case of mind-mind probability influence. Consider a primarily idealist world, composed more of mind than matter. In this world, magic (even that which appears to affect matter) is mostly just unconventional mental states and channels, and the translation to material effects only needs to occur at the "display level". The mediators doing the translation here would likely be global or less related to the context of the specific magical act.
At least that's the approach I favor with more knowledge of science than magic. Now if only someone would find strong proof of magical effects but thread's dead.