According to QM, in small systems evolving according to the Hamiltonian, time certainly exists but there is no arrow of time within the scope of the experiment. In such small systems we can run the movie backwards and everything looks normal. Of course the movie can't include a measurement suitable for a human, because in order for a human to know something he will inevitably send large numbers of advanced waves backwards in time stuffing up the supposed smallness of the experiment. This I believe is the source of QM uncertainty. Thinking of an event at the "end" of the experiment influencing something at the "beginning" is *not* at odds with our normal conception of cause and effect (which is associated with the arrow of time due to the 2nd law of thermodynamics).
In the case of the two slit experiment, it seems easier to say that the screen (a macroscopic measuring device) is able to send advanced waves backwards in time, backward through the slits interacting with the electron gun attempting to emit an electron, rather than say that the "particle behaves like a wave", or there is a "pilot wave steering the electron". For "spooky action at a distance" experiments, advanced waves easily explains how a human may measure (say) the spin of one electron, and because of an advanced wave traveling backwards in time to when the pair of electrons were close to each other, it is able to "causally" affect its spin, and the spin of its paired electron currently some distance away "instantaneously". It seems clear to me that our normal notion of causality will break down precisely when it is allowed to - ie in small reversible systems. Why invent "holographic" interpretations of the universe when we don't need to? The huge advantage of advanced waves for me is the explanation of inertia because it allows all the matter in the universe to act on an accelerated mass instantaneously. Otherwise one is left asking how "empty space" knows about a privileged inertial frame of reference. See http://chaos.fullerton.edu/~jimw/general/inertia/ - David -----Original Message----- From: scerir [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, 13 November 2003 4:22 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: "spooky action at a distance" David Barrett-Lennard > Isn't "non-locality" simply associated with > the ability for the "future" to affect the "past"? Imo future and past means time, and light cones, etc. If there is no flow of time, there is no past, and no future. But I may be wrong. Because, at this level, as pointed out long ago by Finkelstein it is difficult to distinguish between subject and object. So it is possible a self-interaction (self-reference!) governed by some internal parameter, instead of time. This reminds me of an unknown italian poet (XVIII sec.) who wrote: "Era il tempo che il tempo ancor nun era tempo". Unfortunately this poet is so little known that I also forgot his name! Anyway my poor translation is: "Once upon a time the time wasn't yet time." Finkelstein: "The Physics of Logic" [in "Paradigms and Paradoxes", ed. R. G. Colodny, 1971, pag. 60]: "There is, to be sure, a genuine problem in the phenomenon of quantum measurement, but I will not discuss it here. It concerns *introspective* systems, were subject = object so that the basic conception of a single subject observing an ensemble of objects must be modified."
