#retroactivity

The real event has, at first, taken place in a certain sense ex nihilo, unforeseeably; only afterward does one comprehend its possibility. This is the temporal paradox, the inverted time, which characterizes the event as such. Such an event knows no foreseeability, since for this it would have to have been regarded as possible, and if this foresight had succeeded, it would not have taken place.

–Baudrillard, “The Event”