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Author | Topic: the underlying assumptions rig the debate | |||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
Firstly, I have often seen it said that supporters of evolution will accept any wild idea rather than admit to the existence of a creator. But the suggestion given here qualifies as exactly the sort of wild and implausible that is meant (more so than the ideas actually attacked by this means).
I am far from sure that modifications of the past are in fact possible, but if they are I see no reason that human actions could rewrite reality on a major scale - and if it is possible I woudl expect it to require some very special circumstances which don't seme to apply. Even if miraculous intervention is assumed then we are still left with the dubious theology of God either causing the effects Himself or setting up what amounts to a booby-trap. If, on the other hand we assume that ordinary human actions can rewrite the past wholesale then pretty much anything goes. We could blame anybody for anything. If I suggest that Fall occurred because Randman started this thread there's no way to show that that is wrong. The whole idea is non-productive and that is an excellent reason for keeping it out of the vast majority of discussions. I would finally suggest that it would be very odd to suggest that a debate was "rigged" because one side wasn't biased enough.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
I am not disagreeing with quantum entanglement. Nor did I see anyone else disagree with quantum entanglement. Your "general reply to all" seems to be nothing of the sort.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
No, my position is that at the quantum level the past is often not written in the first place. From this point of view the "delayed choice" experiments indicate that an indeterminate past can be forced into a determinate state - not that there was a determiante past which changed.
Your ideas not only require that a determinate past may be changed, they also require that this occurs on the macroscopic level as well as the quantum level. That is also not required by quantum entanglemnet (or quantum theory in general). So in short it is not that I miss your pont - the equation of quantum entanglement with the rewriting of the macroscopic past - it is simply that I reject it as false - because it IS false.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: My point is that the past is not materially affected. At the macroscopic scale nothing noticable has changed at all. But your argument requires a wholesale rewriting of the past at the macroscopic level. In short your assertions go way beyond what you are able to support, and it is entirely possible to reject your views without rejecting quantum entanglement.
quote:That is wrong, wrong wrong. There may be parts of the past that remain indeterminate but that does not entail that those parts of the past that have been determined could be changed. quote:If you are referring to the so-called "delayed choice" experiments, they offer no support for such an idea. They don't even try to measure the role of consciousness and there is no reason to suppose the results would be any different if the conscious choice were to be replaced by an unthinking mechanical choice. quote: That would be misleading. I do not agree that the macroscopic past can be changed through QM. You'd do much better appealing to GR. But even then you'd still have to deal with the arguments in my first post to this thread.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
The past is not materially affected because the newly determined state is consistent with all past observations. Only future observations can potentially be affected.
quote: It would be better for you to explain why it is entailed. However, if the only change possible is for an object in a superposition of states to be fixed in a single state then naturally objects that are already in a determined state will not be affected. As I have pointed out the only "changes" available to you leave past observations unaffected.
quote: As should be clear from the context my point is that the delayed choice experiments do not test for any role for consciousness. There is no reason to beleive that a "choice" contolled by a random number generator would produce any different result. Conscious choice as such may not play any significant role.
quote: And that works both ways. You have only faith that changes to the macroscopic past are possible through QM. As I understand it, the science tends to support my position over yours, and with the philosophical and theological problems with your position brought out in my first message to this thread it's hard to see why you keep arguing. k Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: I'm only stating my position here, which is to my understanding consistent with QM. If you claim that it is wrong it is up to you to substantiate your position.
quote:To the best of my understanding they do not affect the past in the way you suggest. In fact they work by erasing the influence of the past - according to the link you provide they render it impossible for past observations to be contradicted. From your own link:
Obviously, the interference pattern can be obtained if one applies a so-called quantum eraser which com-pletely erases the path information carried by particle 2. That is, one has to measure particle 2 in such a way that it is not possible, even in principle, to know from the measurement which path it took, a8 or b8. This seems to support my view that past observations are not contradicted. If they could be then why would we need to erase the information that might produce a contradiction ?
quote:I have already given reaons why your hypothesis is sterile. In the absence of significant arguments for it, why should I consider it any further than I have. Why can't you be openminded enough to admit that your idea is simply speculation and quite likely false ? quote: Since I was responding directly to one of your comments, made in this thread, and quoted in the earlier reply it seems unlikely that I am mixing up threads. As to your long quote, lets get to the meat:
quote:And the way it is affected is that instead of being a superoposition of states it is one single state. That's it. In other words it presents absolutely no support for your idea. I'm not sure how well supported Zeilinger's ideas on entanglement in macroscopic objects are. Certainly my own reading indicates that the idea that macroscopic changes automatically collapse the wave function was widely held.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Which does substantiate my posiiton on the actual point at issue - whether it is possible to disagree with your ideas without disagreeing with quantum entanglement. As for the quantum eraser it is specifically described as erasing information which would make it possible to track the photon's path. Thus it works by removing any way of telling that the photon's path had "changed". I repeat my point - if it is possible to simply change the past as you suggest, why is such a thing needed ? If your view were correct, what difference could it make ?
quote: Your assertion is that the past can be changed form one fixed state to another. Changing from a superposition of states to a fixed state is not that and does not support that.
quote:Which is why it is evidence against your position. It relies on information not being available even in principle. But your view requires changing a lot of information that was knowable in principle. Thus the experiment contradicts your claims. quote:If the best you can do is point out that a tentative point might be wrong then it seems that you don't have much of a case.s
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: I beleive that this is an equivocation. I was referring to the distnction between a superposition of states and the "collapsed" state. nless you are claimign that there is no collapse and that everytihng always exists in a superposition of states (which makes nonsense of your position) you are claiming that the past is changed from one collapsed state to a different collapsed state.
quote: As I reminded you in the first place this discussion started because you denied that my position was even possible. Further I will point out that I have directly addressed your interpretations of the experiments you referred to and pointed out flaws.According to the very experiments you referred to the superposition of states only exists when the information that would allow us to narrow down to a single state is not available. Yet the only "changes" in the experiemnts rely on superposition. It is no argument from incredulity to state that that proves that the experiments you brought up do not support you claims quote: Changing from a superposition of states to a collapsed state is not the same as changing from a collapsed state to another collapsed state. The closest you have got requires the use of a quantum eraser which makes the previous collapsed state unknwable in principle. Needless to say there is nothing to perform such a role in your original argument nor any prospect of such a thing.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: I have already explicitly stated that according to your sources if the path information is knowable the superposition is collapsed. Thus the photon is forced to follow a single path. So your two questions are not about points under dispute. Your view requires that a path a photon takes can be changed, retroactively, even when the path information is knowable. That is contrary to what your sources claim.
quote:You need a more general case. If the state is knowbale then a superposition of states cannot exist. Which is a big problem for your ideas. quote: No, according to your sources it is enough that the answer is knowable. Asking the question isn't necessary.
quote:However, as I have pointed out it does not occur in a way that changes one collapsed state directly to another. As I keep having to repeat the only change available is the change from a superposition of states to a single state, a changee that can only be reversed by erasing the information that would allow us to know the collapsed state . That is not what your argument requires. You need a change from a collapsed state to a different collapsed state, and you've got no sign of anything like a quantum eraser that could affect an entire planet. quote:Which your sources seem to agree with - hence the need for quantum erasers. quote: No, I am not ignroing that issue. I make explicit reference to what quantum erasers do. You can get a different result only if you eliminate the information that would let you know the first result. That is what is "erased".
quote: Uhfortunately for you that isn't all you were saying. You were claiming that the past is completely fluid. Your own sources explicitly refer to limits which are extremely problematic for your view. Quantum erasers - or rather the need for them - are a big problem for you. So is the idea that the knowability of a photon's path - rather than actual observation - produces a collapse. Both of these make the past more difficult to change - in ways that cause great problems for the idea expressed in your OP.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
It's time to go back to the OP.
Your example was that at one point death did not exist then Adam did something and as a consequence the past changed so that death DID exist. The initial point cannot be a superposition of states including states where death does not exist. Otherwise you could not claim that death did not exist. If it is a superposition of states excluding the possiblity of death then you are stuck. There's no way to change that. So youmust be referring to a collapsed state - and therefore you need to somehow produce a superposition of states which does include the possiblity of death. And according to your own sources that requires erasing all the information that would allow us to determine whether death did or not exist in that past. This is why the issue of knowability and the requirement for quantum erasers hurts your case. (And contrary to your assertion I've explained why several times). So how exactly is Adam supposed to do all that and then somehow produce the collapse which results in the presence of death ? The same goes for any other significant change in the past. The evidence of that past has to be erased - rendered completely unavailable even in principle - before any such change can take place. According to your own sources.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
No, I'm not jumping ahead. I'm just clarifying the objections I have already made by pointing out the claims made in the OP which run into trouble with the sources you have produced.
quote: And it is evidence that your ideas don't work in reality. The quantum eraser arranges the situation such that the "original" collapse can have no effect - the path of the photon is rendered unknowable - that is how it works. So the whole situation is such that even if the path after the second "collapse" were different it could not be known. So the actual impact on the rest of the universe is zero.
quote: However, if you are trying to construct an argument that your view is scientifically plausible then appealing to miracles is pointless. If you need miracles, then your view isn't scientifically plausible. So why bother ? Why not just say it's a miracle and have done ?
quote:That is a red herring. To say that death does not exist, Either the state is collapsed to the extent that death does not exist, or it is in a superposition of states excluding death. quote:Morality is not part of QM. Moreover if morality is objective the information available in principle would not change. Since your sources are quite explicit that it is the knowability that matters, not even actual measurements, it appears that there is no relevant difference. quote: Actual human knowledge makes no difference. It is enough that an informed observer could determine the result. This point argues against you, even if you somehow managed to incorporate morality into QM in some way that could help you.
quote: And this is not a relevant point for the reasons given above..
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote:It seems to me that I am considering factors that you are not. Such as the way in which quantum erasers work. quote: I repeat my response to this point from the previous post.
The quantum eraser arranges the situation such that the "original" collapse can have no effect - the path of the photon is rendered unknowable - that is how it works. So the whole situation is such that even if the path after the second "collapse" were different it could not be known. So the actual impact on the rest of the universe is zero.
quote: That would be the past that is not and cannot be known. According to your own sources.
quote: Ands this is precisely the poblem for your views. You want changes to the knowable past, which requires you to resort to miracles, thus undermining the whole point of invoking QM and the sources you use.
quote: Provided one fails to consider the points that what is in pricniple knowable has not changed and that moral questions are not part of QM. As I pointed out in my last post.
quote: But you have not shown that what is in principle knowable changed in any way. ANd the very fact that such "changes" rely on the chnage being completely indetectable rules out any nooticiable change - directly contrary to the major and very noticable changes you invoke.y
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: There doesn't need to be one, according to your own sources. All that matters is what an informed observer COULD determine, if one were there.U
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
quote: Even if you are right this is no good to you. You want to change the path that the photon did take and you want it to have a significant effect. And your own sources say that that can't happen.
quote: By my understanding only one of these groups could possibly exist. If there were any measuring apparatus that the first group could use, for instance, the quantum eraser would fail.s
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
From Randman's link:
As long as no observation whatsoever is made on the complete quantum system comprised of both photons our description of the situation has to encompass all possible experimental results. The quantum state is exactly that representation of our knowledge of the complete situation which enables the maximal set of (probabilistic) predictions for any possible future observation...
...If we accept that the quantum state is no more than a representation of the information we have, then the spontaneous change of the state upon observation, the so-called collapse or reduction of the wave packet, is just a very natural consequence of the fact that, upon observation, our information changes and therefore we have to change our representation of the information, that is, the quantum state...
...Any detailed picture 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 system consisting of both photons and it can only make sense after the fact, i.e., after all information concerning complementary variables has irrecoverably been erased.
Edited by PaulK, : Provide reason for edit here.m
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