Thought experiment with light.

a reply to: glend

Interesting thought. Your post is giving me a headache.



I wonder if Einstein's theory of relativity would apply here.

originally posted by: ImaFungi
Does a single photon have the degrees of freedom to travel in 'every direction'.

In some cases probably so, in other cases like this one, no:

Synchrotron radiation

Properties of synchrotron radiation
...
High Brilliance: highly collimated photon beam generated by a small divergence and small size source (spatial coherence)

"Highly collimated" means the photons are more or less going in the same direction, and "small divergence" means not exactly the same direction but "small spread".

By the way if you have questions that aren't on topic for a given thread like this one, you should ask in the "ask any question...." thread, that's what it's there for. So I'm not sure how your question relates to the thought experiment in this thread, but I tried to provide an answer that sort of does so I posted it here, at least it's about photons coming from a source in motion (fast-moving electrons being bent around a curve in this case).

originally posted by: ImaFungi

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: ImaFungi

Mind you when you consider the possibility, of the photon having exited linear time . Or anything exiting linear time for that matter . Their is always the possibility that its everywhere at once. One timeless event, being decoded with a linear time concept.

I dont know what you mean by that or what you want it to mean. I dont know what you want the truth to be or why you want it to be that way, I dont know why and how you are satisfied with your knowledge enough to make such statements. Are you speaking for Truth? Are you an authority on Truth? Do you know what you just said is true? Or meaningful or sensical in any way?

Incoming data , is built into a model of reality, in your head, no where else its in your head. The whole of the perceived Universe is an internal, mental concept. If all the data came in at once, it would be information overload. Once something has exited the concept of linear time. It has also exited the concept of classical dimensional reality. Eureka!!, if their is no distance then it has to be everywhere at once. Which is what the Universe really is, when the concept of linear time is removed from the equation. If that is the real state of the Universe, then linear time is just a mental discipline to make the Data coherent, and create any number of infinite realities. This stands the test of all philosophical, and scientific reasoning. It creates the parallel Universe concept without problems. Its all in your mind, your reality is limited only by your cultural paradigm. You have to all extent, been programmed from early on, to accept this reality , as the coherent model , of what a human should be.

If the Universe is a mass of data packets, exchanging infinite bits of information, Then that's what we are, and its what we are doing to create this model of reality, the more information , we have in our memory dump, the more aware we are, of this reality, which is probably, one, of a limitless number of reality models. Energy does not even enter the equation, if our Universe is infinite ,then it is already and has always been, an event, outside of linear time, its not even remotely connected to our mental concept, of time, which we only use for coherency. Then it neither looses or gains energy, because it just is.

What if it not the photon that travels, but the wave of positive and negative super attraction?
The light still and at the generative centre of the matrix?
How will that effect your thought experiment?
a reply to: anonentity

a reply to: starswift

I don't know, but our reality has to be mostly coherent, although not perfectly so, it has to be logical and reasonable, and filled away in a retrievable memory dump , within the linear time frame. Quantum seems to be on the edge of reason , for this Universe, so its conceivable its still being created to fit, the current reality. Like its counter intuitive, until the reason for the counter intrusiveness is worked out.

Can't find anything to disagree with ; )
Good luck with the counter intrusiveness.
a reply to: anonentity

originally posted by: anonentity
Like its counter intuitive, until the reason for the counter intrusiveness is worked out.

I think we probably already know the reason it's not intuitive. Our intuition is based on gathering fruits and berries, and killing rabbits.

If we were beings the size of a couple of atoms, (if such a thing was possible) then I suspect the behavior of nature on that scale would be more intuitive. In other words, our intuition is based on our experience and our experience is with objects consisting of many, many atoms.

Regarding different perceptions in people's minds, sure, if you interview 10 different witnesses to a robbery you'll probably get 10 different versions of what happened, so perceptions do vary. However if you watch the security cam recording, that takes a lot of that noise out of the equation and while the recording is not perfect it may be more reliable than the recollections of any of the 10 witnesses. So, to the extent that the minds' perception of reality may not be reality, in that example it's because our imperfect human perception and mind perceive some kind of distortion of reality, and the distortions are different for different people.

Similarly I suspect no person posting in this thread including me has a flawless perception of reality, however it seem apparent that some perceptions agree with experiment more than others so at least we can use science to sort out some of those distortions.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The only problem that I see with the security camera analogy , is that you still can have the ten different people, looking at it, and coming to the usual ten different conclusions. The only joy being you can keep going back to the footage, and clarifying the events. Which is a playback in two dimensions, of an event which has two dimensionally exited linear time.

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: Arbitrageur

The only problem that I see with the security camera analogy , is that you still can have the ten different people, looking at it, and coming to the usual ten different conclusions. The only joy being you can keep going back to the footage, and clarifying the events. Which is a playback in two dimensions, of an event which has two dimensionally exited linear time.

Point taken, we've seen this on UFO videos posted here on ATS, where some people see a bug or a bird and others think it's an alien space ship, so you can't get agreement on that, but you might be able to get agreement that it looks like a black dot about 3-4 pixels in diameter that moves across the camera frame 3.7 seconds.

a reply to: ChiefD

Your post is giving me a headache.
I wonder if Einstein's theory of relativity would apply here.

Einsteins theories still stand true as we would never see photons break through time in our observable universe only clues that something just isn't right with our view of the universe. We sill have a lot to learn and it take a great many more einsteins to break through the veil.

originally posted by: glend
Einsteins theories still stand true as we would never see photons break through time in our observable universe only clues that something just isn't right with our view of the universe. We sill have a lot to learn and it take a great many more einsteins to break through the veil.

There are problems with our models but what you linked to is not one of them, it's a behavior fully predicted by the wave functions in quantum mechanics. If you start thinking wave function and stop being stuck in a paradigm thinking about false particle concepts, the "problem" goes away, as explained around the middle of the OP in this thread:

Quantum mechanics needs no consciousness (and the other way around)

If one postulates particles, and if one requires that each particle be in a definite state at each instant, then experiment 3 seems to require action-at-a-distance between the two particles. And experiment 4 seems to require retroactive action-at-a-distance. But if one postulates no-particle quantum physics, the experiments simply verify the correlations predicted by quantum physics between the two entangled photon-like wave functions.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: glend
Einsteins theories still stand true as we would never see photons break through time in our observable universe only clues that something just isn't right with our view of the universe. We sill have a lot to learn and it take a great many more einsteins to break through the veil.

There are problems with our models but what you linked to is not one of them, it's a behavior fully predicted by the wave functions in quantum mechanics. If you start thinking wave function and stop being stuck in a paradigm thinking about false particle concepts, the "problem" goes away, as explained around the middle of the OP in this thread:

Quantum mechanics needs no consciousness (and the other way around)

If one postulates particles, and if one requires that each particle be in a definite state at each instant, then experiment 3 seems to require action-at-a-distance between the two particles. And experiment 4 seems to require retroactive action-at-a-distance. But if one postulates no-particle quantum physics, the experiments simply verify the correlations predicted by quantum physics between the two entangled photon-like wave functions.

You still have to explain how wave functions exist and the area of wave function at area X can cause the area of wave function at area Z to be effected faster than light?

originally posted by: glend
a reply to: ChiefD

Your post is giving me a headache.
I wonder if Einstein's theory of relativity would apply here.

Einsteins theories still stand true as we would never see photons break through time in our observable universe only clues that something just isn't right with our view of the universe. We sill have a lot to learn and it take a great many more einsteins to break through the veil.

Then where do they go in a singularity then.

originally posted by: ImaFungi
You still have to explain how wave functions exist and the area of wave function at area X can cause the area of wave function at area Z to be effected faster than light?

Glend said "something just isn't right with our view of the universe." It's not that general idea I disagree with, it's the specific example he linked to as an example. Your example is the same one Einstein tried to use to say there must be something wrong with our model of quantum mechanics, but eventually experiments proved the model right. Nothing travels faster than light, but objects appear to be correlated instantaneously at great distances. Sean Carroll says if you just take the wave function seriously then everything can be explained locally (meaning nothing goes faster than light) by the Everett interpretation, but most people don't like that explanation. It's not my favorite either but I try to keep an open mind.

We know of several other ways the model can be interpreted and trying to determine which one is right is an active area of research, but this is more of a gap in knowledge than a serious flaw with the model.

originally posted by: anonentity
Then where do they go in a singularity then.

That singularity would be a better example of a problem with a model, where relativity predicts a singularity in a black hole and Michio Kaku and other scientists think this singularity and infinite density calculation is a problem with the model or general relativity. If we had a theory of quantum gravity we would hope that would explain what happens instead of the singularity, and it's an area of research to try to find such a theory, but we don't have one that works yet.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The Universe can described in general, as input data. Which is decoded into the model of reality from these signals. It needs a conscious individual to do this. In our consensus of the reality model, a lot of data has to be filtered out. Some of which gets through, is still anomalous to our reality model, until its tailored to fit. We are still conscious when we go to sleep. But temporarily we have left this reality model , for others. Some if not many of these other models, require a leap of the imagination to dismiss.

We have all had flying dreams,so how is the concept of being able to fly, and to be experienced in detail, available to an earthbound terrestrial species, who's in this reality model, maintains its practical impossibility. Or How in the exit mode/sleep from this reality , is it still possible to see, and hear in detail, unless this other reality model has photons that enable it. Perhaps because in the so called dream , it has all, if not then most, of the same input data that we have in this interpretation of reality. Which is still a model of relevant past events. Here we are looking at two simultaneous realities ,both with different interpretations, similar in many respects, because we couldn't understand one that was too different. But would still need a conscious observer to interpret it.

Theirs enough, available scientific and anecdotal data, to suggest that even a so called dead person on the operating table with no vital signs, still experiences input data, that enables him/her to still experience a reality model . To the observer its real , just because it doesn't fit "our" reality model, its still as valid , as any comments made in this thread.

Since we are discussing, how the other reality model is built, it must still be made of the same stuff, as any other, the laws might be different. But the simulation/parallel world, being a decoding of data, could have a lot of traction, and be relevant, when it comes down to quantum.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Pilot Wave Theory (or Broglie–Bohm theory) might soon put the notion of wave–particle duality to bed by giving a far simpler interpretation of what underlies the statistical behaviour of matter which should also allow quantum mechanics to be reconciled with special relativity.

In double slit experiment, pilot waves might be created by the particles themselves traversing time. So double slit experiment might be providing proof of particle time differentials instead of wave–particle duality. It would be interesting to see if the interference pattern is still observable using one of those 1-trillion-frames-per-second camera's or is it an artefact of our NOW with our 200 FPS human resolution.

originally posted by: glend
It would be interesting to see if the interference pattern is still observable using one of those 1-trillion-frames-per-second camera's or is it an artefact of our NOW with our 200 FPS human resolution.

I don't see how the frame rate of the camera matters when a single particle interferes with itself and registers at a single point. No amount of higher frames per second is going to change that. Also that camera uses photons for imaging so it can't take pictures of what's happening to a single photon.

Also, not much quantum experimentation these days is done with just human perception. In Young's original experiment yes, it was human observation, but detectors now are preferred because they are more reliable and facilitate collection of lots of data in digital format that can be quickly analyzed by computers.

The Pilot Wave Theory is one possible explanation but I never heard it interpreted that way before, though there are variants on several of the QM interpretations and I probably haven't heard them all.