Vordatum

Vordatum is a term used in speculative philosophy and science fiction to describe a datum that encodes information about a state of affairs that predates the datum’s recorded time. It serves as a conceptual tool for discussing how present observations might imply earlier possibilities or conditions, while remaining consistent with the rules of the fictional system in which it appears.

Etymology and scope. The word combines the German vor, meaning before, with Datum, meaning a data point or datum. In most treatments, a vordatum is not simply a past event; it is a data point whose metadata includes an explicit temporal relationship to earlier states, allowing theorists to explore causation and epistemology without asserting real retrocausal effects.

Concept and mechanics. A vordatums metadata typically includes an earliest-state tag and a causal envelope that constrains allowable inferences about prior conditions. This enables debates about what could have happened before a given observation, or what prior conditions are compatible with current data, without violating the established chronology of the fictional model. Vordata may be described as strong or weak, depending on how tightly the earlier states are specified.

Applications and reception. In narrative worldbuilding and thought experiments, vordatums help illustrate questions about memory, prediction, and the limits of inference. In critical discourse, the term is often treated as a literary or analytical device rather than a real-world technical term, used to provoke discussion about data provenance, timing, and causality.

Variants and related ideas. Related notions include data provenance, time-stamping, and discussions of retrocausality in philosophy and physics. See also: retrocausality, data provenance, time-stamping.