So, they did a measurement, and it turns out that time appears to be running in two directions, forward and backward. Now it's a long, boring read (NO I shouldn't say that!) but events in the future affect the past, that's the conclusion. In the quantum world, the future affects the past: Hindsight and foresight together more accurately 'predict' a quantum system’s state Can the past be changed by the FUTURE? Bizarre quantum experiment suggests time can run backwards I wonder if I concentrate hard enough then maybe I can send a message to my past and future selves... just to see how they're doing... Hmm, I got a fudge it response I wonder what that means. Oh well. I like that they're so convinced of their work they're going to be running experiments later to see if cause and effect holds up under the two directions of time.
I think that the real dimension of this phenomenon should be quite limited and limited to the world of the particles. Well uncertainty principal makes reference to measurable quantities describing a status of a particle and it says that with more accuracy you know a parameter of the matrix and with less accuracy you will know the others [if you know exactly the speed of a particle, quantity of motion if we want, it's improbable you will know exactly where it is ...], but this uncertainty becomes more little and little up to disappear in the macro universe [we can measure the speed of a tennis ball and with a camera recording its flight we can know exactly where the ball was in any instant, instant meaning a time which is significant for humans]. I guess that we can project the same principal on the conceptualization of time [adding time to the matrix of parameters we are measuring]. Since a particle is in a "cloud" of statistically possible positions, we can simply add the dimension of time to the system of reference and that particle will be in a cloud of statistically possible positions in the space-time [some of those positions will be in the past, some of them in the present, some of them in the future]. But this effect, I suspect, like the uncertainty phenomenon, tends to disappear while we approach the macro universe [so that I do doubt that what I will do tomorrow will affect what I'm going to do today in an hour ...].
This would imply a deterministic Universe if time runs in both directions. Basically there is no free will. We are destined to have already lived our lives. Of course, to us we still maintain an awareness of choice but the future has already taken place. At least on the quantum level.
Lets just say it this way..... Time does not (*)(*)(*)(*)ing exist... its a human tool to help us understand our reality, it does not actually exist as a tangible force.
Past=====>Present<======Future So as I understand this, and admittedly I could be off the mark. In a time symmetric reality...our present moment, for the basis of discussion, we'll define the present as today as I type this; is a product of both the past and the future. Common sense dictates that of course what happens in the past effects the present. Newton's arrow of time. This follows reality as we all experience it. What is really weird however, is that on the quantum level what occurs in the future equally effects the present. The arrow of time runs in reverse. This flies against all known physical laws, particularly entropy, the 2nd law of thermodynamics. A broken window does not fix itself, a car does not make itself. However indeed at least on a quantum level, the future effects the present, so something must be going in reverse. Some sort of hidden variable, perhaps another dimension or multi-verse wherein the physical laws are not the same as our Universe. I suppose on a romantic level, when you look into the eyes of your significant other and tell them, we were meant to be...it's no joke. Our lives are in some aspects pre-destined. We're not aware of the future's influence of course but it appears to have a quantifiable effect on the smallest level of our being, our quantum selves. We are destined to be who we are. This would have tremendous philosophical implications if such is the case. Our laws, our idea of right and wrong is based upon free will, but perhaps our will,our ability to choose is purely illusory. The choice has already been made and our present now, is being effected by it equally to our past selves. We are only aware of the past however. For whatever reason the Universe has set up roadblocks to perceive our future selves.
This seems something of a deflection to me. Time and Space were the things said to exist a priori that is, before all else, and many cosmologists say this means they must exist outside of the reality they come before. It is easy, therefore, to say they are just manmade abstracts but that makes no sense, just as reality makes no sense without them. Empty space is far from empty. Could there be Dark Time?
This whole idea generates thoughts about the Law of Probability. The uncertainties here seem to be suggesting that choices or factors now are related to factors appearing later and visa versa. It reminds me of flipping a coin and seeing heads come up way out of the ordinary for a long sequence, whiLe we KNOW that a string of tales will definitely start appearing at some moment in time. We can even bet on that.
So then there is no need for an Observer at all, in spite that wave functions do not seem to collapse unless they are observed. Your idea would appear to cancel out the well accepted and BASIC axiom of Quantum Physics, i.e.; the Copenhagen Interpretation
Kant said Time and Space exist apriori, mentally, for all humans. apri·o·ri ˌā prīˈôrī/ adjective adjective: apriori relating to or denoting reasoning or knowledge that proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience. Space seems to be a function of Matter which requires it in order to have a place to exist. This does not seem to be required for (mass-less) Energy though. And Energy must exist without Time, because it becomes Power when used for any duration. Energy without Time is what defines the speed of Light, since time stops then. It also seems important to note that anything that is not energy moves less than the speed of light, hence is already a measurement of Time itself. As particles speed up, Time slows down, reaching zero time a "C." So speed is a clock ticking for everything except light (energy, in general).
It's not really "my idea." I'm just interpreting what appears to be implied by an experiment that provides evidence quantum particles can be influenced by future events; their past probabilities change by future measurements. It is truly bizarre. It is counter-intuitive to our reality. It implies deterministic qualities.
Now it's true that the wave function is real, like in my other thread: Wave function gets real in quantum experiment. But if you read the article there there was some wiggle room if there's exotic physics. Retrocausality is, I think, what we have here.
That's not necessarily true. What if the Universe/reality was created to reflect our spiritual choices? So our visible choices might be deterministic, but they would actually be determined by our spiritual choices, of which we may have free will. Just an interesting perspective.
Perhaps it implies that time at some level of reality, doesn't exist. Past, present, future, exist all at once. Time is an abstraction dependent upon something moving. Movement has a quality of time inherit in it when observed by consciousness. But perhaps past present and future are all one thing, and this is what the experiment is implying.
Yes, that's true. It's called non-local time. What I think this experiment is saying is that 9 times out of 10 the past of its system progresses towards what happens in the future.
does it really effect the past or is it more like a vibrating string of a guitar the particle is vibrating, if you look at it with a light beam, the light beam stops the particle from vibrating (or takes a snapshot at that point in the vibration), thus when you look back, you only see the string in a stopped position where you looked the particle is like a string (or really just a vibrating particle) if you measure it, it's like stopping a guitar string, thus all the previous points look stationary rather then a wave if you measure a particle that entered the right side of the slit during the vibration, it will always point back that that same route it took to get there, as these measurements are post slit .
We know there are places in the Universe that are older than us. This tells me that 'time' exists in front of us although our awareness is pegged to this moment and the next moment, etc. When we see a star which is 5 billion light years away from us, we are seeing the future...not our future but actually someone else's present. If we could step into 'our' future, this would be a disaster since all of us would be trying to manipulate the future events...everyone would be a lottery winner. Why would we wish to step into our past? If we don't have a memory of a past event, or place, then how could we go back to the past? We can't simply 'go back' because where would we be going? IMO, time, as humans perceive it, is a one-way movement forward...
Danger, Will Robinson. You have committed the cardinal sin. You have surreptitiously substituted an egocentric reference frame for an allocentric reference frame. You assumed they're the same thing, but they're not. There is no such thing as "past" and "future" in the physical universe, there is only "now" (the current moment). "Past" and "future" can only be defined relative to an egocentric reference frame. And that has to be synthesized, it does not exist "by itself" in the physical world.
We're not talking about brains we're talking about particles. Particles being sent through a system and it appears that the future affects the past.
Again, "future" and "past" are egocentric terms, defined (and only definable) from an egocentric reference frame. Y'all may be decent physicists but you're lousy philosophers. "Future" and "past" require an observer. (Or, equivalently, they require the assumptions of an observer).
Excellent. You acknowledge that the perception is the central issue. Everything else is a model, and mostly those models make terrible assumptions (like linear time, for instance). Everyone understand the Einsteinian thought experiments related to relativity. (Well, what if you were a spaceman traveling at the speed of light.... and etc...). But not many people understand that the brain is relativistic, one can not make the ordinary assumptions about "time" in such an environment. A neural reflex arc trying to determine whether or not activity is occurring at a specific time and place, is in fact an observer. And, every observer has a reference frame, which needs to be described relative to the embeddings of the observer and the thing being observed. In the Einsteinian experiment, we're probably "pretty safe" in assuming that the embeddings of the two astronauts are similar, however more generally this is a bad assumption.
So this Internet conversation could have been predicted with 100% accuracy mere moments after the big bang if only one knew all the underlying math? (Which we clearly, at least at the moment, do not.....)
The experiment does seem to indicate that past and future are more than reference frames, they actually exist in relation to one another. It's more than just "now." And, I'm not a physicist.
If there existed Universe time which was used by all inhabitants and travelers in the Universe, at least our time reference would be within the same time system. However, because of the vast distances involved, we can never communicate with each other at the same Universe time. For example, it might be 13.7 billion o'clock in one galaxy and 4.7 billion o'clock in another galaxy, yet Universe time would need to be 13.7+1 billion o'clock. This also implies to me that we have at least 9 billion more units of time in our future. I don't think I acknowledge that time is a perception? Time on Earth is not perceived but quite real based on very critical measurements and references. The same would apply to those living on Jupiter, however, the time system on Earth won't jive with the time system on Jupiter, but this does not negate that both planets have 'real' time systems...
As I understand this theory, time symmetric Universe, the causative actions occuring in the future, provide time symmetric ripples which move backwards in time and effect the present as equally as advancing causative actions from the past effect the future. By all appearances a radioactive isotope spontaneously decays...we can take two equal radioactive isotopes and one will decay before the other...seemingly this occurs randomly. What this theory suggests, is these randomly decaying actions are not random at all. Something in the future, some future causative action is rippling backwards in time and causing the isotope to decay. The difference in decay rates is not random, but causative and the causation is from the future as equally as it is from the past...however we, as observers can only perceive a forward arrow in time. Only in very narrow circumstances can we, as observers, detect the future effecting the past and this occurs through the process of weak quantum measurements which do not create decoherence. In our macro, classical world of reality, we cannot detect the future effecting the past. Although our fates may be pre-determined, we must still go through the motions of volition, of having perceived choices. I believe an analogy could be made, we're mere puppets controlled by an underlying puppet master which transcends both space and time....time is symmetric, it moves equally forward as it does backward, we just can't normally perceive it moving backwards. My interpretation anyway, and you may take that with a grain of salt as I am by no means a trained scientist.
