Can retrocausality solve action-at-a-distance? + Consciousness is made of atoms, too

[Syne]

Oh btw, consider this "interpretation"---

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...wards.html

Yeah, "seem to run BACKWARDS". The results do not conflict with any other accepted QM interpretations. This is a take on the delayed choice experiment, which is nothing new. The setup they describe does not necessarily show retrocausality. The results of such experiments are only a conundrum if you dismiss the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM, or others that assume wave function collapse. And even if you do dismiss wave function collapse, it never demonstrates a clear violation of causality, which would require gaining information faster than the speed of light allows. And even dismissing all that...the results of any QM experiment are always probabilities determined over many consecutive runs, so you cannot even determine which specific atom had the second grate "randomly" effect its path.

These are all very basic fundamentals in QM, but science writers like to make hay of very little.

I never said retrocausality was invalid

Really now? It appears you don't know what you are claiming here:

"Does assuming retrocausality make anything work better? No. It just appeases our desire for a single, unified view of physics. IOW, retrocausality is wishful thinking."

You are assuming things that were not said. Does assuming retrocausality make anything work better? No, because the results are no different than any other valid interpretation of QM. It is wishful thinking to assume that an interpretation that is experimentally no different from many others will unite QM and relativity without any experimental evidence to support that assumption.

You are just making the typical error of people who only know science from reading these over-hyping science writers. Did you even read the actual paper that article refers to?

[Magical Realist]

The setup they describe does not necessarily show retrocausality.

Really? Then explain it thru some mechanism that doesn't involve retrocausality. And while you're at it, explain "spontaneous frustrated emission" without retrocausality. I'll wait.

You are assuming things that were not said. Does assuming retrocausality make anything work better? No, because the results are no different than any other valid interpretation of QM. It is wishful thinking to assume that an interpretation that is experimentally no different from many others will unite QM and relativity without any experimental evidence to support that assumption.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm directly quoting what you said. And if as you claim "retrocausality is wishful thinking" then it is defacto invalid. I hate to burst your bubble, but you screwed up. How does that feel? lol!

Here's another retrocausality supporting experiment:

http://www.livescience.com/19975-spooky-...ement.html

And here's yet another study supporting the bidirectionality of time at the quantum level:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...083011.htm

And here's a good article summarizing research in this field prior to 2010:

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/01-...the-future

[Syne]

The setup they describe does not necessarily show retrocausality.

Really? Then explain it thru some mechanism that doesn't involve retrocausality. And while you're at it, explain "spontaneous frustrated emission" without retrocausality. I'll wait.

Wave function collapse explains it through action at a distance. The probability of the wave function is spread over the entire space encompassing the slit, or similar determining device, and the observer, or detection device. When the wave function collapses, upon observation, it also collapses at the slit. This would seem to imply faster than light communication, but since we cannot gain information about the system superluminally, time-directionality is not violated. The probability simply collapses to the observed result at all points simultaneously.

I assume you're talking about inhibited spontaneous emission. I'm not very familiar with it, but from what I can find, it seems the above explanation also holds. Can you provide info on an experiment that you think favors retrocausality above other interpretations?

You are assuming things that were not said. Does assuming retrocausality make anything work better? No, because the results are no different than any other valid interpretation of QM. It is wishful thinking to assume that an interpretation that is experimentally no different from many others will unite QM and relativity without any experimental evidence to support that assumption.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm directly quoting what you said. And if as you claim "retrocausality is wishful thinking" then it is defacto invalid. I hate to burst your bubble, but you screwed up. How does that feel? lol!

Retrocausality as the means to unify QM and relativity is wishful thinking at this time. We just don't have experiments that favor one interpretation over the various others. I get that you're committed to thinking you're right, but that just doesn't change the facts. It would help if you'd ever learn the difference between QM experimental results and QM interpretations though.

Here's another retrocausality supporting experiment:

http://www.livescience.com/19975-spooky-...ement.html

And here's yet another study supporting the bidirectionality of time at the quantum level:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...083011.htm

The first one is just repeating the old pipe dream about using entanglement to communicate faster than light. We are no closer to achieving that than we've ever been. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem

The second one merely seems to add more data points upon which to calculate the result of the wave function collapse by taking readings on its evolution over time.

[Magical Realist]

Wave function collapse explains it through action at a distance. The probability of the wave function is spread over the entire space encompassing the slit, or similar determining device, and the observer, or detection device. When the wave function collapses, upon observation, it also collapses at the slit. This would seem to imply faster than light communication, but since we cannot gain information about the system superluminally, time-directionality is not violated. The probability simply collapses to the observed result at all points simultaneously.

I assume you're talking about inhibited spontaneous emission. I'm not very familiar with it, but from what I can find, it seems the above explanation also holds. Can you provide info on an experiment that you think favors retrocausality above other interpretations?

No..collapse of the wavefunction in space does not explain how an event that occurs later in a particle or wave's trajectory can alter that particle or wave before the event occurred. This can only be explained retrocausally, as all my links make abundantly clear. You obviously don't understand the implications of these experiments and what they logically entail. Hence your claim that they don't prove what they were designed to prove.

"The quantum guessing game suggests ways to make both quantum computing and the quantum control of open systems, such as chemical reactions, more robust. But it also has implications for much deeper problems in physics.

For one thing, it suggests that in the quantum world time runs both backward and forward whereas in the classical world it only runs forward.

"I always thought the measurement would resolve the time symmetry in quantum mechanics," Murch said. "If we measure a particle in a superposition of states and it collapses into one of two states, well, that sounds like a process that goes forward in time."

But in the quantum guessing experiment, time symmetry has returned. The improved odds imply the measured quantum state somehow incorporates information from the future as well as the past. And that implies that time, notoriously an arrow in the classical world, is a double-headed arrow in the quantum world."

I assume you're talking about inhibited spontaneous emission. I'm not very familiar with it, but from what I can find, it seems the above explanation also holds.

No..I'm talking about frustrated spontaneous emission, which I already posted about earlier:


Other hints of causality’s two-faced-ness have been staring physicists in their one-way faces for a long time. Take for example the curious phenomenon known as “frustrated spontaneous emission.” It sounds like an embarrassing sexual complaint that psychotherapy might help with; actually it is a funny thing that happens to light-emitting atoms when they are put in surroundings that cannot absorb light. Ordinarily, atoms decay at a predictably random rate; but when there is nothing to receive their emitted photons, they get, well, frustrated, and withhold their photons. How do they “know” there is nowhere for their photons to go? According to physicist Ken Wharton, the answer is, again, retrocausation: The “random” decay of an atom is really determined retrocausally by the receiver of the photon it will emit. No receiver, then no decay. As in the Rochester experiment, some information is being passed, via that emitted photon (whenever there eventually is one), backward in time."-------------http://thenightshirt.com/?p=3920

[Syne]

Wave function collapse explains it through action at a distance. The probability of the wave function is spread over the entire space encompassing the slit, or similar determining device, and the observer, or detection device. When the wave function collapses, upon observation, it also collapses at the slit. This would seem to imply faster than light communication, but since we cannot gain information about the system superluminally, time-directionality is not violated. The probability simply collapses to the observed result at all points simultaneously.

I assume you're talking about inhibited spontaneous emission. I'm not very familiar with it, but from what I can find, it seems the above explanation also holds. Can you provide info on an experiment that you think favors retrocausality above other interpretations?

No..collapse of the wavefunction in space does not explain how an event that occurs later in a particle or wave's trajectory can alter that particle or wave before the event occurred. This can only be explained retrocausally, as all my links make abundantly clear. You obviously don't understand the implications of these experiments and what they logically entail. Hence your claim that they don't prove what they were designed to prove.

You don't understand because you are trying to cram simultaneous action at a distance into your retrocausality box. In space, later in a trajectory simply means further apart and nothing "happens" earlier because the probability doesn't collapse to the result until observed. You don't seem to understand basic QM...which explains why you don't know what QM interpretations are.

I assume you're talking about inhibited spontaneous emission. I'm not very familiar with it, but from what I can find, it seems the above explanation also holds.

No..I'm talking about frustrated spontaneous emission, which I already posted about earlier:


Other hints of causality’s two-faced-ness have been staring physicists in their one-way faces for a long time. Take for example the curious phenomenon known as “frustrated spontaneous emission.” It sounds like an embarrassing sexual complaint that psychotherapy might help with; actually it is a funny thing that happens to light-emitting atoms when they are put in surroundings that cannot absorb light. Ordinarily, atoms decay at a predictably random rate; but when there is nothing to receive their emitted photons, they get, well, frustrated, and withhold their photons. How do they “know” there is nowhere for their photons to go? According to physicist Ken Wharton, the answer is, again, retrocausation: The “random” decay of an atom is really determined retrocausally by the receiver of the photon it will emit. No receiver, then no decay. As in the Rochester experiment, some information is being passed, via that emitted photon (whenever there eventually is one), backward in time."-------------http://thenightshirt.com/?p=3920

LOL! That's the same thing as inhibited spontaneous emission. Look it up. Again, simultaneous action at a distance upon observation explains that equally well. Have you ever even heard of the Copenhagen Interpretation?

You're apparently so out of your league here that you have no hope of recognizing your ignorance. It's called the Dunning–Kruger effect. Apparently I suffer from its corollary, assuming things easy for me are equally easy for others.

[Magical Realist]

You don't understand because you are trying to cram simultaneous action at a distance into your retrocausality box. In space, later in a trajectory simply means further apart and nothing "happens" earlier because the probability doesn't collapse to the result until observed. You don't seem to understand basic QM...which explains why you don't know what QM interpretations are. Rolleyes -

LOL! Uh no..a simultaneous event will not alter a state that preceded it in time. It will only effect all states at the same exact moment. The only way an event can effect what came before it is if the future sends back information in time to change the state of the particle in the past. One simultaneous event wouldn't do that. Unless you are claiming the wave function is spread over time as well as space. In which case we'd have retrocausality just as the experiments prove.

LOL! That's the same thing as inhibited spontaneous emission. Look it up. Again, simultaneous action at a distance upon observation explains that equally well. Have you ever even heard of the Copenhagen Interpretation?

You look it up. I already know what it refers to. Remember? I'm the one who first mentioned it.

You're apparently so out of your league here that you have no hope of recognizing your ignorance.

And so you're back to your petty insults. You really don't understand these experiments at all do you? I shouldn't have wasted my time posting them.

[Syne]

You don't understand because you are trying to cram simultaneous action at a distance into your retrocausality box. In space, later in a trajectory simply means further apart and nothing "happens" earlier because the probability doesn't collapse to the result until observed. You don't seem to understand basic QM...which explains why you don't know what QM interpretations are.  Rolleyes -

LOL! Uh no..a simultaneous event will not alter a state that preceded it in time. It will only effect all states at the same  exact moment. The only way an event can effect what came before it is if the future sends back information in time to change the state of the particle in the past. One simultaneous event wouldn't do that. Unless you are claiming the wave function is spread over time as well as space. In which case we'd have retrocausality just as the experiments prove.

And to be expected, you have no clue about the probable nature of QM. You do not see these results from a single particle, but only from many particles that satisfy the probability spread of the wave function, whether you think it collapses or not.
"Any explanation of what goes on in a specific individual observation of one photon has to take into account the whole experimental apparatus of the complete quantum state consisting of both photons, and it can only make sense after all information concerning complementary variables has been recorded. Our results demonstrate that the viewpoint that the system photon behaves either definitely as a wave or definitely as a particle would require faster-than-light communication. Because this would be in strong tension with the special theory of relativity, we believe that such a viewpoint should be given up entirely." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%27...onclusions

The calculation always include the entire experimental apparatus, and the result only observed after enough info collected. You simply cannot definitively tell what occurred when because of quantum indeterminacy.

LOL! That's the same thing as inhibited spontaneous emission. Look it up. Again, simultaneous action at a distance upon observation explains that equally well. Have you ever even heard of the Copenhagen Interpretation?

You look it up. I already know what it refers to. Remember? I'm the one who first mentioned it.

You haven't mentioned the Copenhagen interpretation once in this whole thread. Do you not realize how simple it is to check that claim? Are you a pathological liar or is this a special occasion?

You're apparently so out of your league here that you have no hope of recognizing your ignorance.

You really don't understand these experiments at all do you? I shouldn't have wasted my time posting them.

I would rattle off a list of QM fundamentals that I have already schooled you on in this thread, but I'm getting bored.

[Magical Realist]

The calculation always include the entire experimental apparatus, and the result only observed after enough info collected. You simply cannot definitively tell what occurred when because of quantum indeterminacy.

Yes, but the wave function evolves over time. That's what Schrodinger's equation is about. It goes forward in time. It cannot determine states that preceded it, as these experiments have shown, unless there is retrocausality going on.

You haven't mentioned the Copenhagen interpretation once in this whole thread. Do you not realize how simple it is to check that claim? Are you a pathological liar or is this a special occasion?

You're not very good at keeping up are you? I haven't mentioned the Copenhagen interpretation at all and am not doing so now. Go back and read my statement again to figure out what I'm talking about.

I would rattle off a list of QM fundamentals that I have already schooled you on in this thread, but I'm getting bored.

Don't even try to impress me. I already know how you operate and how much you pretend to know. You can't even read the articles posted in this thread. You cherry pick sentences out of them that appear to support your claims while ignoring everything else that is said in them. Why should I expect you to know anything about retrocausality? Ofcourse you're bored. I'm bored of you too, because you simply don't know what you're talking about.

[Syne]

The calculation always include the entire experimental apparatus, and the result only observed after enough info collected. You simply cannot definitively tell what occurred when because of quantum indeterminacy.

Yes, but the wave function evolves over time. That's what Schrodinger's equation is about. It goes forward in time. It cannot determine states that preceded it, as these experiments have shown, unless there is retrocausality going on.

It is the time-dependent Schrodinger equation that tells us how the wave function evolves over time. Did you catch that? I said "time-dependent". Retrocausality specifically relies on the time-independent equation, and only when the total energy of the system is time-independent. But even then the total wave function is still time-dependent.

"Retrocausality is sometimes associated with the nonlocal correlations that generically arise from quantum entanglement,[24] including the notable special case of the delayed choice quantum eraser,[25] however, verifying nonlocal correlations requires ordinary subluminal communication: the no communication theorem prevents the superluminal transfer of information, and fundamental descriptions of matter and forces require the full framework of quantum field theory in which spacelike-separated operators commute. Accounts of quantum entanglement that do not involve retrocausality emphasize how the experiments demonstrating these correlations can equally well be described from different reference frames, that disagree on which measurement is a "cause" versus an "effect", as necessary to be consistent with special relativity.[26][27] The description of such nonlocal quantum entanglements can be described in a way that is manifestly free of retrocausality if the states of the system is considered.[28] Ongoing experiments by physicist John G. Cramer explore various proposed methods for nonlocal or retrocausal quantum communication, finding them all flawed and unable to transmit nonlocal signals." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausa...um_physics

The point is that the only experimental evidence that could possibly favor retrocausality over any other interpretation is superluminal communication. And you have yet to find anything like that.

LOL! That's the same thing as inhibited spontaneous emission. Look it up.

You look it up. I already know what it refers to. Remember? I'm the one who first mentioned it.  

Unlike you, apparently, I did. It's the same thing. http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10....ett.47.233

I would rattle off a list of QM fundamentals that I have already schooled you on in this thread, but I'm getting bored.

Don't even try to impress me. I already know how you operate and how much you pretend to know. You can't even read the articles posted in this thread. You cherry pick sentences out of them that appear to support your claims while ignoring everything else that is said in them. Why should I expect you to know anything about retrocausality? Ofcourse you're bored. I'm bored of you too, because you simply don't know what you're talking about.

If you could be talked out of your ignorance, it would have happened by now. Go talk to an actual scientist and see how far you get. Or just keep believing over-hyping science journalists and bloggers...and people who see ghosts...and fairies...and god only knows what else. Retrocausality is a favored MacGuffin of paranormal enthusiasts.

[Magical Realist]

The calculation always include the entire experimental apparatus, and the result only observed after enough info collected. You simply cannot definitively tell what occurred when because of quantum indeterminacy.

Yes, but the wave function evolves over time. That's what Schrodinger's equation is about. It goes forward in time. It cannot determine states that preceded it, as these experiments have shown, unless there is retrocausality going on.

It is the time-dependent Schrodinger equation that tells us how the wave function evolves over time. Did you catch that? I said "time-dependent". Retrocausality specifically relies on the time-independent equation, and only when the total energy of the system is time-independent. But even then the total wave function is still time-dependent.

"Retrocausality is sometimes associated with the nonlocal correlations that generically arise from quantum entanglement,[24] including the notable special case of the delayed choice quantum eraser,[25] however, verifying nonlocal correlations requires ordinary subluminal communication: the no communication theorem prevents the superluminal transfer of information, and fundamental descriptions of matter and forces require the full framework of quantum field theory in which spacelike-separated operators commute. Accounts of quantum entanglement that do not involve retrocausality emphasize how the experiments demonstrating these correlations can equally well be described from different reference frames, that disagree on which measurement is a "cause" versus an "effect", as necessary to be consistent with special relativity.[26][27] The description of such nonlocal quantum entanglements can be described in a way that is manifestly free of retrocausality if the states of the system is considered.[28] Ongoing experiments by physicist John G. Cramer explore various proposed methods for nonlocal or retrocausal quantum communication, finding them all flawed and unable to transmit nonlocal signals." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausa...um_physics

The point is that the only experimental evidence that could possibly favor retrocausality over any other interpretation is superluminal communication. And you have yet to find anything like that.

LOL! That's the same thing as inhibited spontaneous emission. Look it up.

You look it up. I already know what it refers to. Remember? I'm the one who first mentioned it.  

Unlike you, apparently, I did. It's the same thing. http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10....ett.47.233

I would rattle off a list of QM fundamentals that I have already schooled you on in this thread, but I'm getting bored.

Don't even try to impress me. I already know how you operate and how much you pretend to know. You can't even read the articles posted in this thread. You cherry pick sentences out of them that appear to support your claims while ignoring everything else that is said in them. Why should I expect you to know anything about retrocausality? Ofcourse you're bored. I'm bored of you too, because you simply don't know what you're talking about.

If you could be talked out of your ignorance, it would have happened by now. Go talk to an actual scientist and see how far you get. Or just keep believing over-hyping science journalists and bloggers...and people who see ghosts...and fairies...and god only knows what else. Retrocausality is a favored MacGuffin of paranormal enthusiasts.

I'll just keep believing what the actual evidence and experiments show while you continue to spue your ignorance on this subject Mr. Panentheist. lol!