The Nature of Reality

reply to post by Astyanax


FTL comm. is possible, though some engineering hurdles are there, but doable
and am planning to build such devices in my garage.

reply to post by Astyanax

Quantum entanglement is more problematic. We have shown that it exists in laboratory experiments, but in these experiments the apparatus (and the observed results) are all stationary in a single frame of reference. They are also physically proximate to one another. Does entanglement still occur when the members of the particle pair are light-years apart? Or when one is moving at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light relative to the other?

Entanglement can occur when the particles are separated by any possible distance. Although we obviously wont be able to experimentally test it, the theory and evidence behind this is very strong. I can't see any reason two particles can't be entangled if they are travelling at different velocities. Even a slight difference in velocity will cause time dilation to occur, and I can't imagine that two particles will become unentangled if we change their velocities slightly. So something is not adding up here... we're missing something about the way these laws of physics actually work.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder

Theoretically, particles only become 'disentangled' when they cease to exist, either through mutual annihilation with one another or through absorption by other matter. That much is evident from theory. However, in practice, there may be other factors that foreclose on or modify the terms of entanglement. Consider, for example, how you would preserve a photon (or any other particle) in a particular energy or spin state while transporting it several light-years at a substantial fraction of c. Would that be technically possible? How? I don't think anyone has the faintest idea how it could be done; it seems impossible for any number of reasons.

Even a slight difference in velocity will cause time dilation to occur, and I can't imagine that two particles will become unentangled if we change their velocities slightly. So something is not adding up here...

The question is being put to experiment even as we speak. However, the problem is not that entanglement might not occur under such conditions but whether it is simultaneous, and what simultaneity means in this context. The question is far from settled—in fact, we are only just beginning to think seriously about it.

It is, I believe, no more possible to transmit information faster than light than it would be to travel at superluminal speeds oneself. FTL communication presents as many irresolvable contradictions as FTL travel.

reply to post by Astyanax

Consider, for example, how you would preserve a photon (or any other particle) in a particular energy or spin state while transporting it several light-years at a substantial fraction of c. Would that be technically possible? How? I don't think anyone has the faintest idea how it could be done; it seems impossible for any number of reasons.

We can transport entangled particles across the country, proving that entangled particles can be moving at different velocities and still maintain their partnership. Thus there's no reason what so ever that such a particle couldn't be slowly accelerated to the speed of light. If their state of entanglement was going to be broken due to a shift in velocity it would happen the moment we started moving one of them. The fact that the laws of physics remain constant within any frame of reference makes it very possible to achieve.

However, the problem is not that entanglement might not occur under such conditions but whether it is simultaneous, and what simultaneity means in this context.

The main property of entanglement which baffles us is the simultaneous transfer of information which happens between the particles. There is absolutely no way to explain this behavior with typical physics, which would usually attempt to explain any force, even gravity, as some type of force carrying particle which must travel through space in order to transmit the force. The instant nature of quantum entanglement makes such a force carrying particle impossible, and the only natural conclusion one can reach is that there must be some sort of invisible link between the particles, almost as if they shared the same memory space on a computer which generates reality; a change to that memory space effects both particles.

It is, I believe, no more possible to transmit information faster than light than it would be to travel at superluminal speeds oneself. FTL communication presents as many irresolvable contradictions as FTL travel.

The nature of quantum entanglement seems to show us that it's impossible to actually transmit structured information. Only random information can be transmitted with quantum entanglement. The real concern here is not FTL communication, the mere fact that entanglement can cause simultaneous reactions at two different points in space doesn't seem to jive with our understanding of time dilation.

No offense but Lol, both you guys / gals are just generating
gobbledegooky walls of text. Carry on.

To the OP. If what you are saying is in fact the facts, then the light coming from distant stars may well indeed be so many hundreds of years old to the star but actually billions and billions of years old to us from our point of reference. We could be seeing the light from a star that existed trillions of years ago from the edge of the known universe.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder

We can transport entangled particles across the country, proving that entangled particles can be moving at different velocities and still maintain their partnership. Thus there's no reason what so ever that such a particle couldn't be slowly accelerated to the speed of light.

Certainly. But it is not preserving the state of entanglement that is the issue here. The question is what 'simultaneity' can possibly mean when the concept is applied to particles travelling at relativistic velocities. That they remain entangled has, I find, already been demonstrated. However, we see from the linked abstract that the paradoxes of relativity are not avoided; each measurement, in its reference frame, takes place before the other! Such paradoxes, I believe, are what stand in the way of any kind of FTL communication.

*

reply to post by Fromabove

You're more or less correct. To clarify: the farthest objects visible to our telescopes are receding from us at a good fraction of the speed of light—that's why they're redshifted down to radio sources. The light we see radiating from these galaxies is, yes, billions of years old to us. And while that light from such a galaxy was making its way to us across the universe, the galaxy itself was moving away from its former position (that is, its position relative to Earth) at relativistic speed. In the time the light takes to reach us, inhabitants of that fast-receding galaxy will only count millions, or perhaps tens of millions of years since their galaxy occupied that position—rather than billions.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder

QM actually answers most of those questions.

Not exactly. You can formulate QM in terms of hidden variable non-local theory (de Broglie-Bohm interpretation), which is non-local (allows faster than light influence) and deterministic. You can also formulate it as probabilistic local (non-FTL) theory (the standard Copenhagen interpretation). You can formulate it as theory with more universes (Many-worlds interpretation), or even one where conscious observer plays a central role (Many-minds interpretation). These interpretations are all not distinguishable by experiment and all are consistent with observations to date.

Interpretations of QM

I am really starting to believe that the simulation theory may have some merit to it.


www.huffingtonpost.co.uk...

Even if we are indeed living in some sort of simulation, from our perspective it IS reality.

Originally posted by ChaoticOrderThis directly opens up the door for time travelling into the future, however there would be no way to return back to the past.

I just have a gut feeling this is wrong

reply to post by Maslo


As I mentioned in my last response to your first post, one of the things quantum mechanics hasn't answered for us yet is what role the truly observer plays. That is true, however I am highly skeptical of any theory which tries to interpret QM as a deterministic process.

A consequence of removing wavefunction collapse from the quantum formalism is that the Born rule requires derivation, since many-worlds claims to derive its interpretation from the formalism. Attempts have been made, by many-world advocates and others, over the years to derive the Born rule, rather than just conventionally assume it, so as to reproduce all the required statistical behaviour associated with quantum mechanics. There is no consensus on whether this has been successful.[24][25][26]

Many-worlds interpretation

I'm not really sure if this theory would actually be deterministic. Consider this part of the wiki article:

In the Copenhagen interpretation, the mathematics of quantum mechanics allows one to predict probabilities for the occurrence of various events. In the many-worlds interpretation, all these events occur simultaneously. What meaning should be given to these probability calculations? And why do we observe, in our history, that the events with a higher computed probability seem to have occurred more often? One answer to these questions is to say that there is a probability measure on the space of all possible universes, where a possible universe is a complete path in the tree of branching universes. This is indeed what the calculations seem to give. Then we should expect to find ourselves in a universe with a relatively high probability rather than a relatively low probability: even though all outcomes of an experiment occur, they do not occur in an equal way. As an interpretation which is consistent with the equations, it is hard to find tests of MWI that distinguish it from other mainstream interpretations.

The main idea behind this theory is that we only observe one outcome when we make a measurement, but all other possible outcomes occur also in parallel universes. However the outcome of our measurements is still defined according to a probability distribution. I'm not convinced of how this would be deterministic. It's important to keep in mind that this theory is talking about parallel universes, which is some what different from the concept of a multiverse in our own dimension. We could live in a multiverse with parallel multiverses.

In de Broglie–Bohm theory, there is always a matter of fact about the position and momentum of a particle. Each particle has a well-defined trajectory. Observers have limited knowledge as to what this trajectory is (and thus of the position and momentum). It is the lack of knowledge of the particle's trajectory that accounts for the uncertainty relation. What one can know about a particle at any given time is described by the wavefunction. Since the uncertainty relation can be derived from the wavefunction in other interpretations of quantum mechanics, it can be likewise derived (in the epistemic sense mentioned above), on the de Broglie–Bohm theory.

To put the statement differently, the particles' positions are only known statistically. As in classical mechanics, successive observations of the particles' positions refine the experimenter's knowledge of the particles' initial conditions. Thus, with succeeding observations, the initial conditions become more and more restricted. This formalism is consistent with the normal use of the Schrödinger equation.

De Broglie–Bohm theory

This theory seems rather weak to me, the assumptions above do not fit our knowledge of particle superposition, which arises from the uncertainty principle. If particles had precise matter of fact positions and trajectories, superposition and quantum tunneling wouldn't occur and we wouldn't be able to exploit that phenomena as we already do. This also does not explain the relationship we observe between momentum and position.

Historically, the uncertainty principle has been confused[4][5] with a somewhat similar effect in physics, called the observer effect, which notes that measurements of certain systems cannot be made without affecting the systems. Heisenberg offered such an observer effect at the quantum level (see below) as a physical "explanation" of quantum uncertainty.[6] It has since become clear, however, that the uncertainty principle is inherent in the properties of all wave-like systems, and that it arises in quantum mechanics simply due to the matter wave nature of all quantum objects. Thus, the uncertainty principle actually states a fundamental property of quantum systems, and is not a statement about the observational success of current technology.[7]

Uncertainty principle

I've thought about quantum mechanics and reality for some time now , even more so after reading Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance , then looking into Immanuel Kant - The critique of pure reason and David Humes work on the subject of reality and information and data we receive from our senses .

Hume would state that without our sense we cannot percieve reality and if we have no sensory information then reality wouldnt exist , much like if you closed your eyes the world would cease to exist.
Where as Kant argued that we continue to believe it exists due to priori , the basis that we take them as a given that time and space are continual

In this case however these priori can only be derived from knowledge and understanding of space and time , which are derived from human understanding which is derived from the senses and ultimately human consciousness

it really is mind over matter , the universes exists entirely due to consciousness
consciousness created time and space and so on until humans were created through consciousness , the whole universe is really just consciousness experiencing itself subjectively

much like bill hicks stated in his comedy stand up sketch about the positive '___' trip !

well thats my take on it all anyways

reply to post by sapien82

I've thought about quantum mechanics and reality for some time now , even more so after reading Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance , then looking into Immanuel Kant - The critique of pure reason and David Humes work on the subject of reality and information and data we receive from our senses .

None of these books offer any insight into quantum mechanics. Two of them were written long before the science even existed.

Quantum mechanics is not philosophy or metaphysics. It is physics, and what it tells us about the nature of reality depends on how we choose to interpret its results. The OP has chosen one kind of interpretation. As Maslo points out above, there are others. What does this mean? It means that, in the end, quantum mechanics tells us nothing definite about the nature of reality—except that it is not as we perceive it, but we knew that already.

This subject is very intresting and all but do we relly need one of these threads every couple of weeks?

For the record, if the universe is infinite or if there are infinite universes then it is almost certain that we live in a simulation. Very simple calculations demonstrate this beyond doubt. And this ain't some 'matrix' style simulation because there isn't an outside where everyone is lying in a bath of chemicals being fed by tubes.

reply to post by Astyanax


I never stated they offered anything into the insight of quantum mechanics , I only mentioned them because they discuss how humans percieve reality through our senses
Quantum mechanics itself wouldnt exist without humans experiencing reality and discovering the laws of nature and other laws of phsyics and the theories of quantum mechanics based on our experimental results of observation.

I brought it up because it is an important subject to discuss along side of quantum mechanics because if the double slit experiment indicates that reality manifests itself through observation then it all ties in nicely with their philosophy and that without our sensory inputs we wouldnt be able experience reality. So effectively humans had to be observing reality for matter to manifest in our dimension based on Humes reasoning
wherease Kant posed that the priori exist where we assume that time and space exist continuously which woulkd also explain our non observation of reality .

However as I pointed out these priori that space and time exist continously are determined by our understanding of space and time , which would require human observation to begin with in order to develop the concept of time and space. So before humans existed did the universe physically existed as there was no concept of time and space , So if we can prove of course that the earth was here for millions of years before humans came along and we developed the concept of time and space, someone or something had to be here observing the earth in order for it to manifest itself as matter !

I only pointed this out to bring further discussion of the subject

reply to post by merkins


Ok so if the universe or multiverse is indeed a simulation made by our future decendants ,then what would be the point in simulating consciousness if they already have consciousness with far more advanced science to research it rather than using a simulation they can draw from actual real consciousness from more advanced species

I understand that the theory is that they would indeed simulate previous ancestors in order to better understand them , why would they bother to simulate our individual consciousness for study because ultimately they would simulate us to study our behaviour to see how it differs to them , so that would indicate or at least in my opinion that consciousness is changing as well ?

I've often thought about this and can never get my brain around it, If the person traveling close to the speed of light and all matter traveling with them slows down bar light, how does the clock time slow down, the clock relying on the frequency of light to keep time, from my understanding quantum clocks still use light (laser) to function?

Personally I believe some of the facts we have been told about time strangeness are far from facts, just lil lies to keep us stupid, occupied and listening to the boss, (c'mon backyard science)

Hopefully we will see this conundrum solved in our lifetimes, if not I may have to start traveling fast to get there sooner

reply to post by sapien82


Why would the simulation be made by our descendants more likely our ancestors but even then that assumes a human is involved in the simulation. What an earth has creating a simulated universe got to do with us?

We make simulations all the time on one planet. In an infinite universe/multiverse the number of simulations quickly outnumbers the realities that aren't simulations, hence probability supports the simulation hypothesis.

If you ask a character in sim city whether theyre in a simulation they wouldn't have a clue. Same goes for us.

The simulated universe theory which I have read where the scientists or mathematicians who proposed it suggested that our decendants would indeed simulate their ancestoral past to see how humans at this time behaved to study us and what our time was like so they can better understand their past selves.

We do ask the question whether we are a simulation and have even given the question weight by our greatest minds developing a working theory to prove it
So if we are a simulation why would the creators of the simulation give us the ability to question if we are a simulation and why would they simulate consciousness to study it if it already exists in the distant future where consciousness at that point is far more advanced.

Thats my point the only reason I can think why our post human selves would simulate us now is to study our conscuousness as it was then . In which case consciousness must be evolving otherwise why study the past of humans and their behaviour when everything is already documented in literature about our history.

game simulations on earth at present do not simulate consciousness, and simulations do not possess the AI to question their origins and then study themselves to the point where they can prove they are a simulation.

if we are a simulation but not by our decendants but of another species where did they get the concept of humans and consciousness to which we as simulations are given the mental power to have imagination.

I just think that a simulation this grand would require some incredible computing power the like of which our species could only dream in order to simulate the multiverse and each and every humans collective consciousness and all of our ideas and imagination.

reply to post by sapien82

if we are a simulation but not by our decendants but of another species where did they get the concept of humans and consciousness to which we as simulations are given the mental power to have imagination.

Who's to say this isn't some sort of evolutionary experiment. The simulation might have started at the big bang and eventually we humans popped up as a natural result of evolution. We run evolutionary simulations all the time. Search evolving creatures on YouTube. We may be just one of countless similar experiments.