 Does backward causation mean that a future cause is changing something in the past? Talking about forward causation we think of the cause as the event that produces its effect or brings it about. It is not part of our notion of forward causation that the cause changes anything in the future. A cause determines what the effect will be. Regardless of whether one is an advocate for presentism, the growing block universe, or eternalism, one never considers the cause as an event that will make the future different from what it will be. Indeed, without the forward-directed cause the future would have been different from what it is going to be.