Retroactive quantum communication

Wed, 2012-04-25 03:21

#2

Aeroz

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Arenamontanus wrote:
So either you believe in free will or an unchangeable past (or, like me, you become a compatibilist and ignore the whole business).

It only screws with it if you are bound with the illusion of linear time. See its not retro-active, the choice occurs before the pairs are received and the sequence from our linear perspective is showing opposite. We are seeing A B C (a is the transmission, b is choice to alter it, and c is receiving it) as A C B but we have this preconception that how we perceive events occurring is the actual order of events. Question is what happens when you intentionally try to keep what happened. My honest guess is, you cant. The effect has happened which means the cause will occur, because it already did. Or maybe we will notice an odd occurrence that the mere ability to alter it, makes it impossible to work. [edit]giving it some more thought I think I know what would happen, to our perspective, nothing. Imagine sequence of events as a train. By running with or against it we can alter our perspective of how fast its moving but you see part after part pass. Back is the future, front is the past, next to us is the present Someone in the back pushes a button to turn on a light, which we see in the present. Before the event occurs we cut the line so it cannot. The future is seen and the button isn't pressed. Still the light did turn on, we saw it. That hadn't changed. The button was pressed and it turned on, all we did was destroy our ability to see the cause. So to us it will look like that light turned on with no cause. There was an event that caused it, but we didn't see it. From a quantum level, this might seem to generate particles and energy from nothing. But from what I know of quantum physics, thats not unusual. As a disclaimer, I am not a physicist. Just about all of my knowledge is self-taught, so if someone better educated says what I typed was nonsense. Go with them on this

Wed, 2012-04-25 03:48

#3

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Arenamontanus wrote:

Quote:
Note that in a conspiratorial fashion, Victor’s choice might not be free but always such that he chooses a separable-state measurement whenever Alice and Bob’s pair is in a separable-state, and he chooses a Bell-state measurement whenever their pair is in an entangled state.
So either you believe in free will or an unchangeable past (or, like me, you become a compatibilist and ignore the whole business).

Free will is only an issue for dualists, soI see why you don't see much point in debating the issue ;) But it is a bit like religion: a lot of people believe in it, and even though I know it is mostly a futile discussion, I have a really hard time just ducking the issue when it comes up. But leaving naive free will aside, constraints on Victor's choice might not be unreasonable. It seems very far fetched that quantum level events could not just reach back in time but also manage to actually affect Victor's choice (it seems you'd need to not just affect an unreasonable amount of matter (in his brain, or the workings of an arbitrarily complex random number generator) in the right way to get the needed outcome seems. But if say the many worlds interpretation is true, and branches that are not consistent with quantum mechanics are simply pruned, then the anthropic principle alone would explain what was happening, rather than any actual causality violating mechanism, wouldn't it?

Wed, 2012-04-25 05:10

#4

Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Hmm, delightful. I think I’m going to induce some serious brain damage today with this little piece of scientific news. I’m also pretty sure there’s a lot of non-dualist who believe in free will – believe being the key word here. Last week I attended a talk by two professors from Munich who tried to defend the concept.. When they were asked why do they actually think free will is real their answers were: [list] [*] this belief is our instinctive reaction, because we want to dominate our environment; [*] because lack of it would make personal contact with other people difficult [as they are non-agents] [*] because we have to teach our children that they are responsible for their actions. [/list] I hoped some some scientific answers and what I really get was ‘It would be nice if it was so’.

—

Wed, 2012-04-25 06:18

#5

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Marek Krysiak wrote:
I’m also pretty sure there’s a lot of non-dualist who believe in free will – believe being the key word here. Last week I attended a talk by two professors from Munich who tried to defend the concept.. When they were asked why do they actually think free will is real their answers were: [list] [*] this belief is our instinctive reaction, because we want to dominate our environment; [*] because lack of it would make personal contact with other people difficult [as they are non-agents] [*] because we have to teach our children that they are responsible for their actions. [/list]

I didn't say I didn't believe in free will - I said it wasn't an issue unless you were a dualist. But of course I don't buy into the dualistic understanding of free will. Those two professors, but they're clearly dualists. Perhaps they'd deny it, but they're still thinking in dualistic terms. Look at their definition of agents. It clearly isn't contained in the materialistic understanding of the brain, where it is just matter and energy interacting. Apparently, agents are a dualistic concept, not physical but able to affect the matter and physical processes in our brains - and they can only imagine meaningful interaction with physical entities controlled by such dualistic agents. That's extremely dualistic thinking. A materialist would, just like the dualists, recognize the concept of agents and see it as a defining property of entities worth having a personal contact with. But where the dualists see a dissonance between their dualistic understanding of (free willed) agents and the scientific understanding of how our brains work, a materialist simply regards the concept of agents as emergent properties of things like human brains. Compare it to our understanding of sex and attraction. Sure, we might rationally understand that attraction and the desire for sex is an evolutionary quirk, a short cut to get us to procreate, aimed at the act rather than the result, and using beauty as a measure for identifiable genetic fitness markers. But that doesn't mean that we stop seeing and reacting to beauty when we aren't looking to have children. Our brains still respond to it with attraction, and we still want to have sex. Like wise with agents and free will. Our brains identify it in other humans and ourselves, even though our scientific understanding is quite different. In fact agent identification seems to run rampant and we assign it to everything from humans to animals, even natural and random events if we're not careful. The idea that personal contact, meaningful relations, morals, even finding meaning in our life, that it should all hinge on NOT understanding that the world isn't dualistic and there really isn't free will, is just as silly as claiming that we wouldn't want to have sex for fun if we understand evolution. For the materialist, free will is just a property that we recognize, mostly in other complex, adaptive systems, and I only see problems arising if you begin to elevate free will to a dualistic concept, in which case it will obviously fail when you try to apply it to a non-dualistic world. The responsibility argument is just silly. You don't even need to knock down dualism to counter that one. If I was a dualist, and had to train a fully deterministic, adaptive AGI robot in my household, I'd teach it responsibility for its actions, and it would learn responsibility because it would depend on my support (like a child) and I'd have proper incentives in place. Take a bunch of robots trained in that way, and then remove human oversight and give them new, untrained AGIs, and they'd teach them responsibility too. Heck, even a bunch of untrained robots would probably develop responsibility and morals if left to their own devices. Just like how a lot of very stupid animals developed morals through simple evolution (and probably a lot of that is carried in the genetic code rather than just culture).

Wed, 2012-04-25 14:21

#6

Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Smokeskin wrote:
I didn't say I didn't believe in free will - I said it wasn't an issue unless you were a dualist. But of course I don't buy into the dualistic understanding of free will. (...) Just like how a lot of very stupid animals developed morals through simple evolution (and probably a lot of that is carried in the genetic code rather than just culture).

I’m afraid you’re preaching to the choir right now, as I pretty much agree with every point you made, Smokeskin. As I said - I was mildly disappointed with their arguments. But I think there's a difference between 'being a dualist' and 'thinking in dualistic terms'. Our language, culture, methods of thinking, so called common sense - all those have a history of dualistic influence. Sometimes we just don't see that certain parts of our reasoning are dualistic in nature, because those parts are so basic and rudimental they became transparent for us. You could entertain a certain belief and at the same time express ideas that are clearly contradictory with it. I don't think they considered themselves dualist - but hey, it's just another reason to prove them wrong, isn’t it? I wish the time for Q&A with them was longer as it could have been a really interesting discussion. EDIT: I cut the later section and reposted it separately.

—

Wed, 2012-04-25 13:09

#7

Aeroz

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Marek Krysiak wrote:
Hmm, delightful. I think I’m going to induce some serious brain damage today with this little piece of scientific news. I’m also pretty sure there’s a lot of non-dualist who believe in free will – believe being the key word here. Last week I attended a talk by two professors from Munich who tried to defend the concept.. When they were asked why do they actually think free will is real their answers were: [list] [*] this belief is our instinctive reaction, because we want to dominate our environment; [*] because lack of it would make personal contact with other people difficult [as they are non-agents] [*] because we have to teach our children that they are responsible for their actions. [/list] I hoped some some scientific answers and what I really get was ‘It would be nice if it was so’.

There is scientific reasons to believe in free-will or to be more exact that what you do isn't predetermined. Your choices are controlled by very exacting electrical impulses. Electrons can, and do, teleport, vanish, appear from nowhere or even multiple places at once. Making their movement, according to our understanding of science, truly random. You can still make the argument, personally I think it just shows how limited our understanding is, but you can definitely make a scientific argument for free-will Found a video on it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNZQVyabiM Regardless YES YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS. Whether its random or predetermined doesn't change that its a choice. All it changes is why you made that choice. The very idea of logical thinking is that certain decisions should be made given certain knowledge and value systems. If there is a soul it certainly isn't something that get to kick physics in the balls and alter electro-chemical processes in your brain, just because. Its still ultimately just synapses firing.

Wed, 2012-04-25 14:13

#8

Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

@Aeroz Thank you, but I'd like to emphasize: those are not my arguments. I dissagree with them.

Aeroz wrote:
There is scientific reasons to believe in free-will or to be more exact that what you do isn't predetermined. Your choices are controlled by very exacting electrical impulses. Electrons can, and do, teleport, vanish, appear from nowhere or even multiple places at once. Making their movement, according to our understanding of science, truly random. You can still make the argument, personally I think it just shows how limited our understanding is, but you can definitely make a scientific argument for free-will Found a video on it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNZQVyabiM

You say: ‘free-will or to be more exact that what you do isn't predetermined’. Those are not the same. This is a very big ‘to be more exact’. The fact that the effect of a given process is unpredictable due to randomness of the quantum world does not mean [em]you[/em] are the cause of this randomness. Human brain is a macroscopic object – human cells are smaller, but they still belong to the macroscopic world. There’s no way they have any effects on the quantum level – unless Penrose’s theory of quantum nature of consciousness is real, which I think it isn’t (but Mr Penrose is a much smarter guy than I am[1], so who knows). This is just trading determinism for a random chance.

Aeroz wrote:
Regardless YES YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS. Whether its random or predetermined doesn't change that its a choice. All it changes is why you made that choice. The very idea of logical thinking is that certain decisions should be made given certain knowledge and value systems.

I’m pretty much aware that I’m responsible for my actions – in a sense that the system that is me is their immediate cause - and they are of such and such nature because of the state in which this system happened to be at the moment – and, last but not least, this is [em]I[/em], my subjective self, that will have to live with the consequences of those actions. I [em]don’t[/em] believe there was any moment of choice, a possibility for me to decide whether I do this or that. I don’t even see how I could make a true choice if I were given one – because there’s always some thought, some memory, some external stimulus that would affect me and my choice. It’s [em]I[/em] that did the math of cause and effect. It’s [em]I[/em] that was a handful of stones that fell from the mountainside. [em]I[/em] am the system that does the heuristics[2].

Aeroz wrote:
If there is a soul it certainly isn't something that get to kick physics in the balls and alter electro-chemical processes in your brain, just because. Its still ultimately just synapses firing.

I just hope we won't learn some day that the pineal gland was the secret all along;) ------------ [1] which isn't much to say, to be true. [2] or there's no [em]I[/em] if you ask Thomas Metzinger;)

—

Wed, 2012-04-25 14:20

#9

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Marek Krysiak wrote:
I’m afraid you’re preaching to the choir right now, as I pretty much agree with every point you made, Smokeskin. As I said - I was mildly disappointed with their arguments.

Yeah, I was presenting counterarguments to what they said, not towards you. Don't worry ;)

Marek Krysiak wrote:
But I think there's a difference between 'being a dualist' and 'thinking in dualistic terms'. Our language, culture, methods of thinking, so called common sense - all those have a history of dualistic influence. Sometimes we just don't see that certain parts of our reasoning are dualistic in nature, because those parts are so basic and rudimental they became transparent for us. You could entertain a certain belief and at the same time express ideas that are clearly contradictory with it. I don't think they considered themselves dualist - but hey, it's just another reason to prove them wrong, isn’t it?

Yeah, pouncing on people's cognitive dissonances almost feels like a civic duty at times ;) I totally agree that we think in dualistic terms, but I don't think that's a problem. We think about ourselves and other people as free willed agents. But free will does not exist in the real world, it is simply a "meaning" that we inject. Just like how we feel that certain physical forms have beauty, or how chocolate tastes delicious. Insisting that free will should actually exist in the physical world is like demanding physical objects should have a measurable "beauty" value, or that we could find actual taste in chocolate instead of just complex organic molecules. It is silly, and these things are obviously not material properties. A materialist wouldn't go look for them, or think they actually insisted in scientific terms - but a dualist might. And that's the difference, even though those two professors might not call themselves dualists, even when they put their thinking caps on and try to describe the world as it actually is, they stick to their dualistic ideas. And it works the other way around too. Thinking that social interactions and morality evaporates if we don't have free will is like thinking chocolate won't taste good if they're really just organic chemistry. And just be clear - I'm talking about where free will advocates gets it wrong, not you ;)

Marek Krysiak wrote:

Arenamontanus wrote:
Essentially, Alice and Bob receive photons. Victor can, a while later, decide whether they were actually entangled or not (which would allow or disallow using them for quantum encrypted communication). He cannot send information this way, since the only thing he can steer is whether Alice's and Bob's photons are correlated or not.
I'm having a real problem with this. I'm afraid that my question is going to be pretty naive but I just have to ask it: Victor can steer the correlation between A's and B's photons. A and B learn if Victor did or didn't entangle his photons. Isn't that exactly one bit of information? Victor's decision occurs [em]later[/em] than the measurement - so for how long the measurement could be postponed? Could we get Victor to make his decision after he receives two photons that just flew through a fiber-optic cable 1AU long?

A and B doesn't learn if Victor entangled the photon before they start comparing their observations, and even then it is only a statistical correlation. I don't see why there should be any limit to the postponement of the measurement, unless there was some chance of photons changing spin. However, it seems you could introduce a paradox. If the photons going to Victor was going through a coiled fiber-optic cable, so Alice and Bob could compare their results and send it back to Victor before he made the choice to entangle, and he always chose in the way least consistent with their measurements, wouldn't that be a problem?

Wed, 2012-04-25 14:18

#10

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Aeroz wrote:
There is scientific reasons to believe in free-will or to be more exact that what you do isn't predetermined. Your choices are controlled by very exacting electrical impulses. Electrons can, and do, teleport, vanish, appear from nowhere or even multiple places at once. Making their movement, according to our understanding of science, truly random. You can still make the argument, personally I think it just shows how limited our understanding is, but you can definitely make a scientific argument for free-will

If you tell a free will advocate that "hey, good news, your actions aren't predetermined, they're totally random!" he'll look at you funny. That doesn't give him an iota of free will where he's in change, it doesn't make anyone responsible for their actions, it doesn't make personal interactions meaningful. He'd probably think that random was worse than predetermined.

Wed, 2012-04-25 14:24

#11

Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

EDIT: This is the later section of the post I've edited earlier : EDIT#2: Sorry Smokeskin, I didn't notice you've already quoted it.

Arenamontanus wrote:
Essentially, Alice and Bob receive photons. Victor can, a while later, decide whether they were actually entangled or not (which would allow or disallow using them for quantum encrypted communication). He cannot send information this way, since the only thing he can steer is whether Alice's and Bob's photons are correlated or not.

I'm having a real problem with this. I'm afraid that my question is going to be pretty naive but I just have to ask it: Victor can steer the correlation between A's and B's photons. A and B learn if Victor did or didn't entangle his photons. Isn't that exactly one bit of information? Victor's decision occurs [em]later[/em] than the measurement - so for how long the measurement could be postponed? Could we get Victor to make his decision after he receives two photons that just flew through a fiber-optic cable 1AU long?

—

Wed, 2012-04-25 14:47

#12

Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Smokeskin wrote:

Marek Krysiak wrote:

Arenamontanus wrote:
Essentially, Alice and Bob receive photons. Victor can, a while later, decide whether they were actually entangled or not (which would allow or disallow using them for quantum encrypted communication). He cannot send information this way, since the only thing he can steer is whether Alice's and Bob's photons are correlated or not.
I'm having a real problem with this. I'm afraid that my question is going to be pretty naive but I just have to ask it: Victor can steer the correlation between A's and B's photons. A and B learn if Victor did or didn't entangle his photons. Isn't that exactly one bit of information? Victor's decision occurs [em]later[/em] than the measurement - so for how long the measurement could be postponed? Could we get Victor to make his decision after he receives two photons that just flew through a fiber-optic cable 1AU long?
A and B doesn't learn if Victor entangled the photon before they start comparing their observations, and even then it is only a statistical correlation. I don't see why there should be any limit to the postponement of the measurement, unless there was some chance of photons changing spin. However, it seems you could introduce a paradox. If the photons going to Victor was going through a coiled fiber-optic cable, so Alice and Bob could compare their results and send it back to Victor before he made the choice to entangle, and he always chose in the way least consistent with their measurements, wouldn't that be a problem?

Oh my.. Now my brain officially sizzles;) So Victor’s measurement could be postponed indefinitely (could we hold the photons inside a very strong magnetic field and store them ‘for later’, or would the field disentangle them?). So does Victor now have a FTL mean of transmitting information? I can [em]feel[/em] there’s a mistake in my logic, but I just can’t put a finger on it…

—

Wed, 2012-04-25 15:51

#13

Aeroz

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

@Marek, first I want to apologize for seeming to be upset at you. I meant the general you, people that think that having choices decided by chemical processes preclude you from responsibility. I actually think we might be the same and thats causing dissonance. By that I mean we bring up opposing opinions even if we disagree with them for the sake of fairness. I personally believe all things within the multiverse, which by that I mean the various dimensions that make up our reality, are set. That randomness is merely caused our inability to see the patterns. Vanishing electrons aren't blinking out of existence they just go to where we cant find them. If we could understand the functions of where they go, I believe we'd be able to know where and when. Ultimately its all a guess. I highly doubt our primate brains have any hope of understanding why these things happen. Heck, my money is still on an extradimentional ETI (God) blinking reality into existence

Wed, 2012-04-25 16:56

#14

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Marek Krysiak wrote:
So Victor’s measurement could be postponed indefinitely (could we hold the photons inside a very strong magnetic field and store them ‘for later’, or would the field disentangle them?). So does Victor now have a FTL mean of transmitting information? I can [em]feel[/em] there’s a mistake in my logic, but I just can’t put a finger on it…

The main problem with containing photons in magnetic fields is that photons aren't magnetic ;) But I think you do have FTL comms. Place Alice and Bob next to eachother, and the photon transmitter at the mid-point between them and Victor. You also have the means to send information back in time. With a 30,000 km long fiberoptic cable to Victor, Alice and Bob sends stock ticker names to Victor. If the stock has risen when he receives the message, Victor entangles, and Bob and Alice now have a 0.1 second lead on the stock markets which will easily make them fortunes.

Wed, 2012-04-25 18:38

#15

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

I think Victor can trap the photon in orbit around a black hole, or say in a box with perfectly reflective walls (available in any physics thought-experiment supply store). So yes, he can delay his decision arbitrarily long. Now in the basic experiment things are not too bad: Alice and Bob get a photon and do their measurements. They compare notes classically, and after repeating the experiment a number of times they find the correlations between their photons to be correlated with what Victor does. Sure, Victor might do the decisions a year afterwards, but the only question is how events conspire to keep the decisions consistent with the measured results - Victor might try to do the opposite, but for some reason (say a faulty instrument) he produces the right results. Free will: maybe I shouldn't have brought it up. But I had to :-)

—

Thu, 2012-04-26 04:25

#16

Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Aeroz wrote:
@Marek, first I want to apologize for seeming to be upset at you. I meant the general you, people that think that having choices decided by chemical processes preclude you from responsibility. I actually think we might be the same and thats causing dissonance. By that I mean we bring up opposing opinions even if we disagree with them for the sake of fairness. I personally believe all things within the multiverse, which by that I mean the various dimensions that make up our reality, are set. That randomness is merely caused our inability to see the patterns. Vanishing electrons aren't blinking out of existence they just go to where we cant find them. If we could understand the functions of where they go, I believe we'd be able to know where and when. Ultimately its all a guess. I highly doubt our primate brains have any hope of understanding why these things happen. Heck, my money is still on an extradimentional ETI (God) blinking reality into existence

There's no need to apologise. After all, this is the place where we can exchange our ideas and opinions, right? It’s in the nature of problems like this that they cause emotions.

Smokeskin wrote:
The main problem with containing photons in magnetic fields is that photons aren't magnetic ;)

Hm, you're right. Thanks for that. I'll have to read more.

Arenamontanus wrote:
(...) Free will: maybe I shouldn't have brought it up. But I had to :-)

Well, you know - it's not like we didn't know what we were getting into;) Besides, I’m sure somebody would have brought it up anyway – this topic is like a boomerang: it always comes back, usually not the way you thought it would, and sometimes causes serious head trauma.

—

Fri, 2012-04-27 16:49

#17

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

I have no problem believing in free will. It's that time moves forward that's a stickler.

Sat, 2012-04-28 04:19

#18

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
I have no problem believing in free will. It's that time moves forward that's a stickler.

One thing that has gotten me as a bit of a stickler when it comes to special relativity is the idea of temporal relativity. Don't get me wrong... I understand and acknowledge that time is [i]perceived[/i] to be going slower for objects at lower altitudes and higher speeds. I just have a hard time believing that this [i]actually time going slower[/i]. If we instead presume that time itself moves at the same pace in all places, and objects simply perceive it at different paces, suddenly there is no possible means of traveling back in time and most of these bizarre possibilities are rendered moot, with most of our understanding of reality staying largely the same. It's only because we work under the standard assumption that time actually varies that we have these arguments over whether it's possible to flip causality the finger.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sun, 2012-04-29 16:07

#19

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

I've been reading up on this a lot lately. Part of the problem comes from us having no real concept or definition of what 'time' is. There's no objective way for us to measure time (in part because we're all caught up in it). However, there are a few measurements which make it clear that time dilation, if it's an illusion, it's a pretty pervasive one. For example, there's a type of particle which decays in less than a second. However, we've detected them bouncing through out atmosphere, having arrived from the sun. How does a particle that survives one second manage to live for 9 minutes for that journey? The answer is, because of time dilation, it is only one second for that particle, but nine minutes for the rest of us. The free will/time travel isn't that much of an issue though, IMO. By Novikov, if you travel back in time, no matter what you do, either you won't be able to succeed in changing the past (due to whatever reason), or you'll discover that your previous understanding of the past was wrong, and you succeeded in changing it all along (like the story of the guy who goes back in time to meet Jesus, and during his search does all sorts of nice things and tells good stories, et al., until he pisses off the wrong people accidentally and gets crucified and remembered as the man he was searching for). This doesn't imply we don't have free will; at least, no less free will then we have already. But it does clarify that, while we had free will in the past, we don't have free will over our past actions currently, nor do we have free will in our future actions currently.

Mon, 2012-04-30 11:29

#20

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
I've been reading up on this a lot lately. Part of the problem comes from us having no real concept or definition of what 'time' is. There's no objective way for us to measure time (in part because we're all caught up in it). However, there are a few measurements which make it clear that time dilation, if it's an illusion, it's a pretty pervasive one. For example, there's a type of particle which decays in less than a second. However, we've detected them bouncing through out atmosphere, having arrived from the sun. How does a particle that survives one second manage to live for 9 minutes for that journey? The answer is, because of time dilation, it is only one second for that particle, but nine minutes for the rest of us.

Not necessarily an illusion, but simply something separate from time itself. I'm arguing that temporal dilation is a consequence of speed and gravity, much in the same way that momentum is a consequence of speed and mass. In fact, here's another thought considering momentum. If gravity and mass are inexoribly tied, momentum is a consequence of speed and mass, and dilation is a consequence of speed and gravity, is it at all possible that dilation and momentum may either be paired concepts or even [i]one and the same[/i]?

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
The free will/time travel isn't that much of an issue though, IMO. By Novikov, if you travel back in time, no matter what you do, either you won't be able to succeed in changing the past (due to whatever reason), or you'll discover that your previous understanding of the past was wrong, and you succeeded in changing it all along (like the story of the guy who goes back in time to meet Jesus, and during his search does all sorts of nice things and tells good stories, et al., until he pisses off the wrong people accidentally and gets crucified and remembered as the man he was searching for). This doesn't imply we don't have free will; at least, no less free will then we have already. But it does clarify that, while we had free will in the past, we don't have free will over our past actions currently, nor do we have free will in our future actions currently.

I've always presumed that it might be possible to view the past in some way, but likely not to affect it. Not a scientific claim, mind you, but something I've thought about due to the nature of the past likely being unalterable. Unless the past is in fact a non-existent concept of language and reality is an ever-changing thing that only exists in the now, the past exists permanently as a record that may be conceivable to view. I don't know about the future though. If free will exists, then the future does not. If the future already exists, then free will does not.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Mon, 2012-04-30 18:11

#21

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Decivre wrote:
Not necessarily an illusion, but simply something separate from time itself.

Again, what is 'time' :)

Quote:
I'm arguing that temporal dilation is a consequence of speed and gravity, much in the same way that momentum is a consequence of speed and mass. In fact, here's another thought considering momentum. If gravity and mass are inexoribly tied, momentum is a consequence of speed and mass, and dilation is a consequence of speed and gravity, is it at all possible that dilation and momentum may either be paired concepts or even [i]one and the same[/i]?

I'm sure arenamontanous will have more to contribute, but from my amateur reading, I don't know of anyone who has disproven it (except I believe that it's tied to acceleration, not just momentum? I can't recall precisely.)

Quote:
I don't know about the future though. If free will exists, then the future does not. If the future already exists, then free will does not.

Why is that? Does the past disprove free will?

Mon, 2012-04-30 19:11

#22

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Again, what is 'time' :)

Admittedly a concept we have yet to completely define, but we have at least an idea of what time is. In that same sense, gravity is in many ways a complete mystery... but we know of it, even though we haven't yet fully understood it.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
I'm sure arenamontanous will have more to contribute, but from my amateur reading, I don't know of anyone who has disproven it (except I believe that it's tied to acceleration, not just momentum? I can't recall precisely.)

Yeah, I really need to brush up on my physics as well. I haven't done any serious physics calculations since I stopped handling simulation servers.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Why is that? Does the past disprove free will?

Within the context of the past, it does. We have no ability to freely decide the outcome of events within the past. Therefore, the past has no free will... it is pre-ordained (or... present-ordained, I guess... since it has already occurred according to our chronological position). If the future is already written, then that would be the same... and we would simply be observers in a fixed universe. Clockwork toys working under the illusion of choice.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Tue, 2012-05-01 05:01

#23

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Even if the future isn't written, "we" are still clockwork toys. The basic physical processes in our brains completely dictate our every emotion, thought and choice. "To chose" is an illusion, it is nothing more than the feeling you get when electrochemical processes in your brain reach a certain configuration.

Tue, 2012-05-01 13:07

#24

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Smokeskin wrote:
Even if the future isn't written, "we" are still clockwork toys. The basic physical processes in our brains completely dictate our every emotion, thought and choice. "To chose" is an illusion, it is nothing more than the feeling you get when electrochemical processes in your brain reach a certain configuration.

Just because the processes within our minds is completely mundane and natural does not necessarily prove the impossibility of free will. Free will can very well be a mundane and natural concept, provided by the simple bioelectric processes of our bodies. You see it as people being slaves to electrochemical processes. I see it as people being electrochemical processes housed within a meat suit.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Tue, 2012-05-01 17:30

#25

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Decivre wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
Even if the future isn't written, "we" are still clockwork toys. The basic physical processes in our brains completely dictate our every emotion, thought and choice. "To choose" is an illusion, it is nothing more than the feeling you get when electrochemical processes in your brain reach a certain configuration.
Just because the processes within our minds is completely mundane and natural does not necessarily prove the impossibility of free will. Free will can very well be a mundane and natural concept, provided by the simple bioelectric processes of our bodies. You see it as people being slaves to electrochemical processes. I see it as people being electrochemical processes housed within a meat suit.

I think we're splitting words. We are electrochemical process, we agree on that. The feelings we have of a self, being in control, making choices, having free will, that must be an illusion, we also seem to agree on that. If you want to call the "people being slaves to electrochemical processes", that depends on definitions. If we're going by the dualistic definition of consciousness that most people have, then that's true. But it's a meaningless definition, and we should indeed redefine these concepts along what you said about "people being electrochemical processes".

Tue, 2012-05-01 19:18

#26

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Smokeskin wrote:
I think we're splitting words. We are electrochemical process, we agree on that. The feelings we have of a self, being in control, making choices, having free will, that must be an illusion, we also seem to agree on that.

I never said that the sense of self, of control, or of free will are necessarily illusions. The only real illusion I might have pointed to was the idea that we are the meat rather than the lightning running through it. I think free will is very existent, and not an illusion. While yes, most research today dictates that we have made our decisions far before our minds have come up with a reason for those decisions, this still does not negate the concept of free will... it simply proves that our minds decide before they justify.

Smokeskin wrote:
If you want to call the "people being slaves to electrochemical processes", that depends on definitions. If we're going by the dualistic definition of consciousness that most people have, then that's true. But it's a meaningless definition, and we should indeed redefine these concepts along what you said about "people being electrochemical processes".

I've never been a fan of the concept of the human soul. Of course, if we were to start calling those very electrochemical processes that drive us our "soul", I just might become more amicable to the term (admittedly, I'm starting to like "ego" more).

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Wed, 2012-05-02 03:04

#27

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Decivre wrote:
I never said that the sense of self, of control, or of free will are necessarily illusions. The only real illusion I might have pointed to was the idea that we are the meat rather than the lightning running through it. I think free will is very existent, and not an illusion. While yes, most research today dictates that we have made our decisions far before our minds have come up with a reason for those decisions, this still does not negate the concept of free will... it simply proves that our minds decide before they justify.

When you say that your sense of self and free will are not illusions, you seem to be in the realm of dualistic thinking. The point isn't that "we" make "decisions" before "we" come up with a "reason" - the point is that each and every one of those quouted words, as experienced, are fully determined by the basic physical processes in the brain. Consciousness is the brain's way of telling you what it just did. The reality is that the experiences we have are very, very far from the physical realities. Our sense of self and free will bears practically no resemblance to what is actually going on. If consciousness is merely a biproduct, or if that is simply how the neuronal clockwork ticking along feels, that's a harder question, but either way I'd call the experience an illusion.

Wed, 2012-05-02 03:22

#28

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Smokeskin wrote:
When you say that your sense of self and free will are not illusions, you seem to be in the realm of dualistic thinking. The point isn't that "we" make "decisions" before "we" come up with a "reason" - the point is that each and every one of those quouted words, as experienced, are fully determined by the basic physical processes in the brain. Consciousness is the brain's way of telling you what it just did. The reality is that the experiences we have are very, very far from the physical realities. Our sense of self and free will bears practically no resemblance to what is actually going on. If consciousness is merely a biproduct, or if that is simply how the neuronal clockwork ticking along feels, that's a harder question, but either way I'd call the experience an illusion.

This is an odd conundrum to me. Why is it that if free will exists, consciousness must be magical or supernatural in nature? To that same end, why is it that the concept of the mind being a biproduct of fully natural processes renders free will an impossibility? Why is it not equally possible for the mind to be completely natural, and for free will to exist?

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Thu, 2012-05-03 05:31

#29

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

What I said was that our experience of self and free will is certainly illusory, since what is really going on is extremely different from how it feels. If you want to talk about the existence of free will, you need to define it first. Some people have definitions that mean we can't have free will if our behavior is completely determined by physical processes in the brain - in which case we don't have free will. Others say that as long as our behavior isn't fully predictable, we have free will - in which case we have free will, with the provision that we could lose it with technological breakthroughs. I think it is a label we attribute to human behavior (and that of other complex, adaptive, intelligent systems), just like we find certain shapes beautiful or wavelengths yellow, and arguing about the actual existence of free will is like arguing about whether or not photons in reality have a property "yellow" and not just a wavelength.

Thu, 2012-05-03 13:53

#30

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Smokeskin wrote:
What I said was that our experience of self and free will is certainly illusory, since what is really going on is extremely different from how it feels.

I don't think that subjectivity necessarily equates to illusion. The difference between the way we sense things and what is really happening is a consequence of our limited ability to sense reality. We only do so through a selection of a dozen or two senses (most of which are variations on tactile sense). This makes our perception of reality no more illusory than blindness or deafness. It's a universal disability, not an illusion.

Smokeskin wrote:
If you want to talk about the existence of free will, you need to define it first. Some people have definitions that mean we can't have free will if our behavior is completely determined by physical processes in the brain - in which case we don't have free will. Others say that as long as our behavior isn't fully predictable, we have free will - in which case we have free will, with the provision that we could lose it with technological breakthroughs. I think it is a label we attribute to human behavior (and that of other complex, adaptive, intelligent systems), just like we find certain shapes beautiful or wavelengths yellow, and arguing about the actual existence of free will is like arguing about whether or not photons in reality have a property "yellow" and not just a wavelength.

My definition in a nutshell: Free will is Schrodinger's thought experiment applied to decision-making rather than a cat in a death box.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Thu, 2012-05-03 18:17

#31

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Decivre wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
What I said was that our experience of self and free will is certainly illusory, since what is really going on is extremely different from how it feels.
I don't think that subjectivity necessarily equates to illusion. The difference between the way we sense things and what is really happening is a consequence of our limited ability to sense reality. We only do so through a selection of a dozen or two senses (most of which are variations on tactile sense).

Let us take the senses then. I present you with an optical illusion, like one of those still images where rings seem to move. You see the movement - is it real? You can't deny the subjective experience you have, but do you actually believe there is movement? I expect you'd say no. The same with how free will feels. You can't deny sensing it in yourself and in others, but as to actually believing that in reality it works in the same way as your subjective experience of it, when everything we know about the brain says otherwise, that's far fetched.

Quote:
My definition in a nutshell: Free will is Schrodinger's thought experiment applied to decision-making rather than a cat in a death box.

I don't get it. You think quantum randomness gives you free will?

Thu, 2012-05-03 18:45

#32

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Smokeskin wrote:
Let us take the senses then. I present you with an optical illusion, like one of those still images where rings seem to move. You see the movement - is it real? You can't deny the subjective experience you have, but do you actually believe there is movement? I expect you'd say no.

Some people actually see no movement. Because it is an illusion, should they assume that there is movement? Organisms are master pattern-recognizers. One of the inherent flaws to this ability is that we oftentimes see a pattern where it isn't. In the case of optical illusions, our mind sees a specific pattern and discerns it as it has instinctively known to do. This does not mean it is viewing the world wrong, simply that it is interpreting what it sees wrong. An optical illusion does not make all of reality as it is viewed an illusion.

Smokeskin wrote:
The same with how free will feels. You can't deny sensing it in yourself and in others, but as to actually believing that in reality it works in the same way as your subjective experience of it, when everything we know about the brain says otherwise, that's far fetched.

But again, that isn't the same as an illusion. We do not perceive every light wave as a specific frequency, nor do our ears discern the specific decibels and frequency of a sound wave. This does not mean that what is picked up is illusory. On the other hand, we may not actually even perceive the truth of free will. Perhaps the version of "free will" we think is there is an illusion, but does that mean that it is impossible for something else to exist that we would, once we discover it, call "free will"?

Quote:
I don't get it. You think quantum randomness gives you free will?

Not quite, though that is a possibility. I don't doubt that there are biological processes which operate as deep as the femto level that we don't even realize is happening. What I was actually talking about was the application of wavefunction collapse with regards to thought and action. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, a particle can take a multitude of forms so long as it has not been observed, at which point all possible forms collapse into a single possible form. When applied to something on our scale, it would be like a door being simultaneously open and closed until someone looks at the door, at which point it becomes either or rather than both. Schrodinger thought it was ridiculous to apply this logic to the macro scale and showed how nuts it would be with the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, in which a cat is supposedly both dead and alive until the box it is contained in is opened. But I'm applying this on a smaller level, specifically on the level in which biochemical processes occur. In other words, free will is the potential superposition of multiple brainstates which occur simultaneously prior to a decision or action occurring. When the decision or action is made, all those possibilities collapse into a single possibility, which then occurs. This fits perfectly well with one of the most popular interpretations of quantum mechanics. Of course, it could also be wishful thinking, but whatever. I'm just enjoying the philosophical debate.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Fri, 2012-05-04 19:42

#33

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Decivre wrote:
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Again, what is 'time' :)
Admittedly a concept we have yet to completely define, but we have at least an idea of what time is.

If I may disagree, no, we don't. We have a concept of causality, but we have no concept of time because we are glued inside of it. We have no concept of how time flows, because we flow at the same speed of time. We have no idea about what directions it flows, or in how many dimensions, because we only experience one direction and one dimension. We can't observe or test time. We can't compare it. In this field, we're basically useless.

Quote:

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Why is that? Does the past disprove free will?
Within the context of the past, it does. We have no ability to freely decide the outcome of events within the past. Therefore, the past has no free will... it is pre-ordained (or... present-ordained, I guess... since it has already occurred according to our chronological position). If the future is already written, then that would be the same... and we would simply be observers in a fixed universe. Clockwork toys working under the illusion of choice.

We have no ability to change the choices of the past NOW. Yes, for us, the past is fixed, because we cannot affect it, and will never get another chance to affect it (at least, from our understanding of things). Perhaps, for this moment, the future is fixed (just like the past is). However, the critical difference is, eventually any single point of the future will be 'unlocked' as it becomes our present. That is the only thing that makes it different from our past (at least, we think).

Fri, 2012-05-04 22:38

#34

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
If I may disagree, no, we don't. We have a concept of causality, but we have no concept of time because we are glued inside of it. We have no concept of how time flows, because we flow at the same speed of time. We have no idea about what directions it flows, or in how many dimensions, because we only experience one direction and one dimension. We can't observe or test time. We can't compare it. In this field, we're basically useless.

That seems somewhat nonsensical to me, like claiming we don't understand what matter is because we are made of it. We can observe and understand time. Granted, there are some salient points you made. We cannot define how fast time flows, but we can observe dilation (which is, in effect, its flow; the observation of which is integral to our GPS system). One thing I will note that I've been saying for a long time; I think it odd to attribute things like "direction" and "dimension" to time. Direction denotes some spatial transition, such as movement. While time is an observable concept, and it has some form of progression, it does not move in the sense that an object moves through space. And while it is obvious that time and space are inter-related, I'm loathed to assume that it is somehow another dimension in comparison to space.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
We have no ability to change the choices of the past NOW. Yes, for us, the past is fixed, because we cannot affect it, and will never get another chance to affect it (at least, from our understanding of things).

How is that any different from what I said? The present is mutable, the past is not. Once something is part of the past, it ceases to be mutable. Since free will hinges on the mutability of choice, that means free will does not exist in the past, relative to the present. Is that somehow different from what you are saying?

nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Perhaps, for this moment, the future is fixed (just like the past is). However, the critical difference is, eventually any single point of the future will be 'unlocked' as it becomes our present. That is the only thing that makes it different from our past (at least, we think).

Maybe. It might also mean that the future does not exist yet.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sat, 2012-05-05 07:46

#35

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Decivre wrote:
We do not perceive every light wave as a specific frequency, nor do our ears discern the specific decibels and frequency of a sound wave. This does not mean that what is picked up is illusory. On the other hand, we may not actually even perceive the truth of free will. Perhaps the version of "free will" we think is there is an illusion, but does that mean that it is impossible for something else to exist that we would, once we discover it, call "free will"?

I'm sure you can appreciate the difference between how you experience yellow and the physical reality of photons. If you don't want to call that an illusion fine. But yellow as you experience doesn't actually exist. It is the same with our experience of free will - it just doesn't work that way in reality. Of course there is the possibility that we'll discover that our current scientific understanding is deeply flawed. Maybe we're not just electrochemical processes ticking away. But do you really want to go down the route of "I don't care what science says because new discoveries could change everything"?

Quote:

Quote:
I don't get it. You think quantum randomness gives you free will?
Not quite, though that is a possibility. I don't doubt that there are biological processes which operate as deep as the femto level that we don't even realize is happening. What I was actually talking about was the application of wavefunction collapse with regards to thought and action. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, a particle can take a multitude of forms so long as it has not been observed, at which point all possible forms collapse into a single possible form. When applied to something on our scale, it would be like a door being simultaneously open and closed until someone looks at the door, at which point it becomes either or rather than both. Schrodinger thought it was ridiculous to apply this logic to the macro scale and showed how nuts it would be with the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, in which a cat is supposedly both dead and alive until the box it is contained in is opened. But I'm applying this on a smaller level, specifically on the level in which biochemical processes occur. In other words, free will is the potential superposition of multiple brainstates which occur simultaneously prior to a decision or action occurring. When the decision or action is made, all those possibilities collapse into a single possibility, which then occurs. This fits perfectly well with one of the most popular interpretations of quantum mechanics. Of course, it could also be wishful thinking, but whatever. I'm just enjoying the philosophical debate.

Pseudoscience inspired by wishful thinking isn't really my thing. It sounds like you're saying the our consciousness has some control over quantum level random events - I guess that's the pineal glad of modern dualists. I think the problem here is that you're starting with philosophy and then tryng to make the science fit, instead of the other way around.

Sat, 2012-05-05 14:40

#36

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Smokeskin wrote:
I'm sure you can appreciate the difference between how you experience yellow and the physical reality of photons. If you don't want to call that an illusion fine. But yellow as you experience doesn't actually exist. It is the same with our experience of free will - it just doesn't work that way in reality.

Oh sweet non-existent god, please tell me we are not going to have a solipsistic debate about intersubjectivity. Look, we can pretend that yellow "as an experience" doesn't exist, but the fact remains that it is a permeable illusion that almost every human, and any number of machines can perceive. So apparently it is the best damn illusion to have ever existed. Do our perceptions of light appear on the quantum level? probably not. Luckily, the quantum level isn't only only level on which reality exists. Hell, for all intents and purposes it even has different laws of physics from the scale we exist. It's not really honest to say that it is the only reality, and we are all "illusions". Suddenly we will begin to argue about whether anything is existent, and then conclude that nothing exists.

Smokeskin wrote:
Of course there is the possibility that we'll discover that our current scientific understanding is deeply flawed. Maybe we're not just electrochemical processes ticking away. But do you really want to go down the route of "I don't care what science says because new discoveries could change everything"?

Except for the fact that everything we are talking about is still hotly debated today. Claiming that our current understanding is exactly how we should assume reality works is just as dishonest as discarding the science to pretend the world works the way you want it to.

Smokeskin wrote:
Pseudoscience inspired by wishful thinking isn't really my thing. It sounds like you're saying the our consciousness has some control over quantum level random events - I guess that's the pineal glad of modern dualists. I think the problem here is that you're starting with philosophy and then tryng to make the science fit, instead of the other way around.

It's good to know that you think the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is pseudoscience. I suppose we can just scrap that whole "uncertainty principle" nonsense.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sat, 2012-05-05 17:33

#37

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Decivre wrote:
It's good to know that you think the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is pseudoscience. I suppose we can just scrap that whole "uncertainty principle" nonsense.

The uncertainty principle has nothing to do with the Copenhagen interpretation. It is much more fundamental, a result of the basic mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. That structure is respected by all interpretations of QM (otherwise they wouldn't be interpretations but rival theories). Copenhagen introduces some very odd extra assumptions such as wavefunction collapse, which is why many do not like it. It doesn't say *what* causes the collapse, but the assumption that it is consciousness is not part of the original theory. That is something that is tacked on by cosmythologists. (Join us many-worlders. We have more fun, and in many more universes!)

—

Sat, 2012-05-05 18:12

#38

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Arenamontanus wrote:
The uncertainty principle has nothing to do with the Copenhagen interpretation. It is much more fundamental, a result of the basic mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. That structure is respected by all interpretations of QM (otherwise they wouldn't be interpretations but rival theories).

Not totally true. Heisenberg penned the uncertainty principle with the Copenhagen interpretation in mind. It is the very concept that the Copenhagen interpretation is based upon. While yes, the uncertainty principle could exist without said interpretation, they were intimately tied with the two were conceived.

Arenamontanus wrote:
Copenhagen introduces some very odd extra assumptions such as wavefunction collapse, which is why many do not like it. It doesn't say *what* causes the collapse, but the assumption that it is consciousness is not part of the original theory. That is something that is tacked on by cosmythologists.

True, the original theory (and my personal agreement with it) does not denote a need for consciousness, only an observing body. I've never been a fan of cosmythology's assumption that the universe works around us. I work under the assumption that observation can be due to any external entity animate or inanimate, relative to the scope involved.

Arenamontanus wrote:
(Join us many-worlders. We have more fun, and in many more universes!)

I'll wait until someone simulates a universe with different rules. Preferrably a universe that must be called "the universe of sexy, promiscuous and disease-free women and sports cars". And makes that simulation enterable via a brain interface. And gives me a copy of that simulation. And doesn't inform my girlfriend. At which point I will be the many-worlds theory's biggest spokesman.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sat, 2012-05-05 19:18

#39

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Decivre wrote:
Arenamontanus wrote:
The uncertainty principle has nothing to do with the Copenhagen interpretation. It is much more fundamental, a result of the basic mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. That structure is respected by all interpretations of QM (otherwise they wouldn't be interpretations but rival theories).
Not totally true. Heisenberg penned the uncertainty principle with the Copenhagen interpretation in mind. It is the very concept that the Copenhagen interpretation is based upon. While yes, the uncertainty principle could exist without said interpretation, they were intimately tied with the two were conceived.

It does not matter what the history behind Heisenberg's work is, because the principle turns out to be fundamental. Two complementary observables cannot be measured arbitrarily well at the same time because their measurement operators do not commute. That is a logical consequence of the structure of the theory. It is just as true for many worlds. Now I need to link up to my paradise universe simulation.

—

Sat, 2012-05-05 20:29

#40

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Arenamontanus wrote:
It does not matter what the history behind Heisenberg's work is, because the principle turns out to be fundamental. Two complementary observables cannot be measured arbitrarily well at the same time because their measurement operators do not commute. That is a logical consequence of the structure of the theory. It is just as true for many worlds. Now I need to link up to my paradise universe simulation.

I'm not saying the history matters, I'm saying that one is a logical consequence of the other. The Copenhagen interpretation was created specifically as a model centered around the concept of the uncertainty principle. The Copenhagen was built around the assumption that observation, due to the fact that is a form of manipulation, cannot occur without necessarily forcing all possible permutations of an event down to a single possibility. Hence the waveform collapse. So long as something is not observed, and therefore not acted upon externally, it could potentially exists in all possible forms simultaneously. And when you think about it, it's a slight variation on the many worlds theory. Whereas the many worlds theory assumes that all possible permutations exist separately within a potentially infinite collection of worlds, the Copenhagen interpretation assums that all possible permutations exist simultaneously until interaction occurs. The reason I talked about their relations was due to the fact that the Copenhagen interpretation relies on the uncertainty principle as its underlying concept. If the uncertainty principle were disproven tomorrow, then the Copenhagen interpretation would be gone as well. It's kinda like general relativity and special relativity; general relativity wouldn't really make sense if someone somehow debunked special relativity. (Not that either of these things would happen, I'm just trying to show the relationship between these concepts).

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sun, 2012-05-06 04:03

#41

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Decivre wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
I'm sure you can appreciate the difference between how you experience yellow and the physical reality of photons. If you don't want to call that an illusion fine. But yellow as you experience doesn't actually exist. It is the same with our experience of free will - it just doesn't work that way in reality.
Oh sweet non-existent god, please tell me we are not going to have a solipsistic debate about intersubjectivity. Look, we can pretend that yellow "as an experience" doesn't exist, but the fact remains that it is a permeable illusion that almost every human, and any number of machines can perceive. So apparently it is the best damn illusion to have ever existed. Do our perceptions of light appear on the quantum level? probably not. Luckily, the quantum level isn't only only level on which reality exists. Hell, for all intents and purposes it even has different laws of physics from the scale we exist. It's not really honest to say that it is the only reality, and we are all "illusions". Suddenly we will begin to argue about whether anything is existent, and then conclude that nothing exists.

Maybe you should try to actually read what I write and respond to that? I never talked about intersubjectivity, or anything even remotely like that. I said that when we probe the world with science, it can turn out that reality is different from how we perceive it. And when that happens, I'm trusting the science.

Decivre wrote:
It's good to know that you think the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is pseudoscience. I suppose we can just scrap that whole "uncertainty principle" nonsense.

The pseudoscience part was when you claimed that your free will had command over quantum level events.

Decivre wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Of course there is the possibility that we'll discover that our current scientific understanding is deeply flawed. Maybe we're not just electrochemical processes ticking away. But do you really want to go down the route of "I don't care what science says because new discoveries could change everything"?
Except for the fact that everything we are talking about is still hotly debated today.

This isn't a hotly debated issue. As far as I know, it's been a long time since neuroscience abandoned dualist thinking. These days, there's a very clear consensus that we're a product of the electrochemical processes in the brain. There are religious and philosophical objections, but that is of course meaningless.

Decivre wrote:
Claiming that our current understanding is exactly how we should assume reality works is just as dishonest as discarding the science to pretend the world works the way you want it to.

Rofl. Really? Humanity's scientific understanding has no more validity than how someone wished the world to work?

Sun, 2012-05-06 16:20

#42

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Smokeskin wrote:
Maybe you should try to actually read what I write and respond to that? I never talked about intersubjectivity, or anything even remotely like that. I said that when we probe the world with science, it can turn out that reality is different from how we perceive it. And when that happens, I'm trusting the science.

On the other hand, there's the possibility that reality is something that can be perceived in many ways. Just because science reveals another facet of reality does not mean that the reality we see is fake.

Smokeskin wrote:
The pseudoscience part was when you claimed that your free will had command over quantum level events.

I don't even remember using the term command. If anything, I said that free will [b]was a quantum level event[/b], not that it controlled them.

Smokeskin wrote:
This isn't a hotly debated issue. As far as I know, it's been a long time since neuroscience abandoned dualist thinking. These days, there's a very clear consensus that we're a product of the electrochemical processes in the brain. There are religious and philosophical objections, but that is of course meaningless.

Again, show me a single point in my entire statement where I actually mentioned anything out of dualist thought. I don't believe in a soul. I don't believe in anything supernatural. Claiming that I do does not in any way make your statement more relevant. The first step to arguing with an atheist isn't to tell them they believe in god. The Copenhagen interpretation is still one of the most widely-accepted interpretations of quantum mechanics. Unless we are claiming that a broad element of the scientific community is involved in "pseudoscience", along with greats like Bohr and Heisenberg (who coined the interpretation), I'm pretty sure it's not considered pseudoscience.

Smokeskin wrote:
Rofl. Really? Humanity's scientific understanding has no more validity than how someone wished the world to work?

Not what I said, is it? Science is all about testing reality to see if a theory is true or false. Simply working from what is known, without assuming that there are unknown elements, is a foolish endeavor. A scientist works with the information they have access to, but still acknowledges that information is a limited set. If we were to work solely on our current understanding, modern science would cease to work. Without exploring for the things we don't know, there would be no hypotheses, no discovery, and no further learning. Then again, if we want to talk about people ignoring modern scientific understanding, I can think of someone who brushed off one of the major interpretations of modern quantum physics as "pseudoscience".

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sun, 2012-05-06 14:31

#43

Smokeskin

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

I didn't even adress the copenhagen interpretation. I adressed your idea that it somehow supported that your experience of free will is correct. And like it or not, believing that you actually have free will makes you a dualist. I'm getting tired of your straw men, and of you switching opinions between posts. Try reading a the last few posts about science vs how you wish the world worked and see if you can spot some dissonance.

Sun, 2012-05-06 16:10

#44

Decivre

Re: Retroactive quantum communication

Smokeskin wrote:
I didn't even adress the copenhagen interpretation. I adressed your idea that it somehow supported that your experience of free will is correct. And like it or not, believing that you actually have free will makes you a dualist.

Then we're talking past each other. I never said that the Copenhagen interpretation supports my experience in free will [i]at all[/i]. Never even used a collection of words similar to that. I said that my interpretation of free will is an extension of the Copenhagen interpretation, applied to the processes occuring within the mind. I never stated that free will is fact. And no, the concept of free will is not inherently tied to dualism. I have said [i]repeatedly[/i] that I think free will is a byproduct of natural and physical processes. So unless you've got some other definition of dualism where both aspects of the mind are physical, I am not. Just because you say I believe in magic does not mean I believe in magic, and it's dishonest of you to repeatedly say that.

Smokeskin wrote:
I'm getting tired of your straw men, and of you switching opinions between posts. Try reading a the last few posts about science vs how you wish the world worked and see if you can spot some dissonance.

Really? I'm getting tired of being told what I believe by someone who apparently thinks I'm into pseudoscience. So I know exactly how it feels to be portrayed as a straw man.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]