  It has often been suggested that retrocausality offers a solution to some of
the puzzles of quantum mechanics: e.g., that it allows a Lorentz-invariant
explanation of Bell correlations, and other manifestations of quantum
nonlocality, without action-at-a-distance. Some writers have argued that
time-symmetry counts in favour of such a view, in the sense that retrocausality
would be a natural consequence of a truly time-symmetric theory of the quantum
world. Critics object that there is complete time-symmetry in classical
physics, and yet no apparent retrocausality. Why should the quantum world be
any different? This note throws some new light on these matters. I call
attention to a respect in which quantum mechanics is different, under some
assumptions about quantum ontology. Under these assumptions, the combination of
time-symmetry without retrocausality is unavailable in quantum mechanics, for
reasons intimately connected with the differences between classical and quantum
physics (especially the role of discreteness in the latter). Not all
interpretations of quantum mechanics share these assumptions, however, and in
those that do not, time-symmetry does not entail retrocausality.
