Citeren meekerdb <[email protected]>:
On 8/14/2013 7:48 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Citeren Russell Standish <[email protected]>:
On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 05:26:41PM -0700, Pierz wrote:
I need clarification of the significance of quantum theory to determining
the *past*. I remember having read or heard that the past itself
is subject
to quantum uncertainty. Something like the idea that the past is
determined
only to to the extent that it is forced to be so by the state of the
present, if that makes sense. In other words, there may be more than one
history that could lead to the current state of the world. Let's say it
might have been one way or another and then we make a measurement which
resolves this question, we are 'forcing' the past to be one way or
another.
In MWI, that would be saying my 'track' through the multiverse is
ambiguous
in both directions, both into the future and 'behind me' so to speak. I'm
unclear on this and what it precisely means. I seem to recall that it was
critical in calculations Hawking made about the early universe - at a
certain point these uncertainties became critical and it meant that it was
no longer possible to say that the universe had definitely been one way or
another. Can someone clarify this for me?
This idea of the past not being determinate until such a time as a
measurement in the present forces the issue is fundamental to my
interpretation of QM. It is also related to the Quantum Eraser. Saibal
Mitra has written some stuff on this too - maybe he'd like to comment?
On the other hand, I don't think this view is particularly
mainstream. Even many worlds people tend to think that the multiverse
has decohered in the past, and that there is a matter of fact which
branch we are in, even if we're ignorant of that fact.
I can't comment on Hawking's work, unfortunately, as I'm not aware of that.
Cheers
--
Yes, I would agree with the view taken by Russell here. It has
interesting consequences for any future artificial intelligence who
can reset its memory, as I explain here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3825
So, if you reset your memory at random with some probability p and
you also do that in case of an impending disaster, then if you find
yourself in a state where you know that your memory has been reset
and you need to reload your memory, the reason why the memory has
been reset (routine random memory reset or you were facing an
impending disaster), is no longer determined, you are identical in
the different branches until you find out the reason.
So, while you are firmly in the classical regime and therefore you
won't see any changes in the probabilities of the outcomes of these
sorts of experiments relative to what you would expect classically,
the interpretation of how these probabilities arise is different;
while it is worthwhile to do these memory resettings in a "single
classical world" it wouldn't be worthwhile.
The article I wrote (it was just an essay for FQXI competition which
got the attention from New Scientist), is actually rather simple, it
treats the problem in a non-relativistic way, which is a bit
unnatural (the times at which things happen in the different
different branches seems to matter). You can easily generalize this,
also you can consider thought experiments involving false memories
that may be correct memories in different branches etc. etc.
Hmm. It seems that "erasing your memory" would encompass a lot more
than what is commonly referred to as memory. Quantum erasure
requires erasing all the information that is diffused into the
environment. So erasing one's memory would imply quantum erasure of
all the information about your past - not just the infinitesimal bit
that you can consciously recall.
Brent
Yes, but then this is not "quantum erasure". If you were to reverse the
act of a measurement then you could experimentally falsify the
Copenhagen interpretation like e.g. in David Deutsch' thought
experiment. However, if you simply erase part of your memory and if the
reason why you did that is not certain (e.g. you do this randomly and
in case of bad news), then after you find that your memory has been
partially erased you are in the same "macro state" in different
branches where the reason of the memory resetting is different.
I assume that whatever you experience is defined by some suitably
defined macro state that can be isolated from the environment, not the
exact micro state of the system which is always strongly correlated
with the environment; if this is not true, then you'll have hard time
arguing against psychics who claim to be able to feel what happens
somehwere else from basic physics principles alone.
So, of course, the information is present in the environment, but you
are unaware of what is in the environment, and therefore the outcome of
the measurement is uncertain as far as you are concerned. The relevant
physics here is purely classical (except for the many Worlds aspect,
but this enters in the calculations in a trivial way), so the
probabilities are trivial; you find that the probability of
experiencing the bad news at the very end after the memory resetting is
not affected.
However, the interpretation of what is going on is totally different in
the MWI than in a single classical world, clearly from the point of
view of the person who gets bad news it is advantageous to do a memory
resetting.
Saibal
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