Ever since the implications of quantum entanglement between particles became unavoidable for physicists and cosmologists, the doubt of the accuracy or completeness of Einstein’s general and special theory of relativity became real… Einstein himself called quantum entanglement “spooky action at a distance” because the possibility of faster than speed of light transfer of information between two entangled particles (no matter what distance between them) would violate relativity and the fundamentals of one of the most successful theories in science…
Recently, however, several experiments have confirmed that entanglement is not only real but it seems to violate relativity.
The results of the first experiment have provided the speed of entanglement, which was measured to be at least 10.000 times faster than the speed of light. here
In the second experiment scientists have been able to send data via quantum entanglement at 1200 km distance. Next OP will be on this theme…
Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in quantum physics where 2 particles, like photons or electrons, become entangled, or their quantum state, or properties, became interdependent. Any change to the property of one entangled particle instantaneously (or faster than speed of light) affects the other. Einstein believed that the exchange of information at the speed faster than speed of light would create paradoxes, such as sending information to the past. That was one of the reasons Einstein and many other physicists have rejected quantum mechanics as either incomplete or false. And yet, up until today, no experiment has ever contradicted any of the predictions of QM.
As the experiments clearly show, the speed of entanglement is at least 10.000 faster than the speed of light and if that is the case, then entanglement violates relativity, as quantum information about the quantum state of one entangled particle instantaneously affects the other entangled particle…
So, if that is true, as it clearly appears to be, why didn’t we hear about it on the News?
What I would like to do with this OP is to get everyone involved to state their opinion or provide facts why these news have not been widely spread or accepted…
As most of you probably suspect, I have my own theory about it…Yes, just a theory…for now… 😉
BTW: I love quantum mechanics…
Just like Steven Weinberg once said: <strong><i>”Once you learn quantum mechanics you are really never the same again…”
walto,
I didn’t mean to be singling out walto. What it means to be an XXX is not definable, for any person XXX.
Elevators must be a bitch.
You don’t need absolute space to distinguish one sphere from another all you need is relative space. And clearly the two spheres don’t occupy the same relative space so they can be distinguished.
No that is not correct, you are immortal because he is you (assuming materialism). this is because there is no empirical way to distinguish walto from walto.
Being mortal is not a contingent property of you. It’s not a property of you at all given this scenario.
You are immortal because you will live on in one “world” or another.
peace
He knows “those” if MWI is correct.
How he can know whether MWI is correct is another mater entirely.
peace
Exactly. That is the interesting part of this exercise.
If walto is defined according to the tenants of materialism and MWI is correct then he is immortal.
Just to be clear I don’t define him in that way. I’m assuming materialism for the sake of this discussion.
peace
Agreed. immortality must be possible or the story falls apart. Then instead of immortality Walto has a very very long life.
I don’t think that immortality is impossible in this timeline I’d be interested to hear your argument for that one .
No but it does entail an observer to collapse the wave function.
peace
OK, then distinguish them. What property does one have that the other doesn’t? (Hint: If you understand this example, you’ll find you can’t.)
The rest of your comment just seems obviously wrong to me, so maybe I don’t get what you’re saying.
I take it that you think you have an argument that has as premises (1) that materialism is true, and (2) that MWI is true; and as a conclusion that everybody is immortal. But I simply don’t see this. Maybe you could try to set it forth more clearly and succinctly.
Now you’re putting another argument that also seems wrong to me. This one requires that theism entails quantum theory.
For the past two days I’ve been at workshop on Hegel’s logic in Potsdam. There was no discussion of Kripke or Plantinga but a central theme was the difference between Hegel and David Lewis in their treatments of modality. I see Lewis’s modal realism and Quine’s eliminativism about intensions as stemming from the same fundamental error: that the way to fix ontological commitments is by regimenting sentences in first-order logic. Lewisian modal realism is pretty much a reductio ad absurdum of that entire method (which in turn is based on Quine’s fatally flawed misunderstanding of Carnap).
If Hegel is a bridge too far, how about Stalnaker’s treatment of modal concepts: we are conceiving of different ways that our world might be, not of how different possible worlds really are!
In any case if an observer is required to collapse the wave then if they don’t collapse till we observe them then logically there is no “ultimate observer”, as If there were they’d already be collapsed. So quantum illiteracy disproves god. Or something.
Nice own goal FMM. Well, an attempt at one anyway.
I find Stalnaker (who was at Cornell while I was living in Ithaca) difficult. And I don’t like Lewis’s counterpart theory at all. I also think you’re completely wrong about Carnap and Quine.
It doesn’t actually mean anything to say “MWI is correct”.
Certainly, on FMM’s view that nearly everybody is walto if anybody is, the truth of MWI must be consistent with walto not knowing anything at all. I think if he tries to set out his argument more clearly, we might be able to get some sense of where he’s coming from.
One thing about MWI that’s confusing to me is the way in which the probability spaces or or are not determined by what’s going on in the actual world. So, e.g., when I walk into a room, there was the possibility that I would not, and we say there are worlds in which I didn’t. But now those two sets of worlds branch off in ways that don’t allow us to say, e.g., that it’s equally probable of the waltos in each that they’ll back out of the room or stay in there.
The whole thing is kind of a mare’s nest, at least to me.
As does your argument about what Walto knows.
That would depend on what it means to be Walto and how we make the decisions which would result in a branching reality. Another classic theme in sci-fi is the inevitability of fate. All branches converging.
If an aspect of being XXX consist of the physical, we have no examples of immortality of a physical configuration. Be glad to hear any example you have
Really, an omnipotent theistic being is limited to a quantum structure in its creation?
peace
That’s why you shouldn’t take it as anything more than a useful mathematical model.
That struck me as a really weird thing for a theist to say as well. I wonder why it never dawned on Anselm or Aquinas.
Here you go Fifth concerning the immortality aspect of many world theory
“Everett( Hugh M Everett ) firmly believed that his many-worlds theory guaranteed him immortality: His consciousness, he argued, is bound at each branching to follow whatever path does not lead to death —and so on ad infinitum. (Sadly, Everett’s daughter Liz, in her later suicide note, said she was going to a parallel universe to be with her father. [149a])”
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH of HUGH EVERETT, III
Eugene Shikhovtsev
ul. Dzerjinskogo 11-16, Kostroma, 156005, Russia
© 2003 Eugene B. Shikhovtsev and Kenneth W. Ford. All rights reserved.
eshi@kmtn.ru
It seems that it is a theory of consciousness which predicts immortality , many worlds is merely one possible mechanism.
It did, just in another of the many world branches.
This also seems wrong, if a new walto appears at each possible decision point, you have an empirical way to distinguish walto from walto . One turned left ,One turned right.
Interesting. I take it that the idea is that sentient entities are essentially conscious. But there’s a modal error going happening there too, I think. Say walto is essentially sentient. That means he/she is sentient IN EVERY WORLD IN WHICH HE/SHE EXISTS OR CONTINUES TO EXIST. But the truth of that proposition is consistent with walto ceasing to exist in this or that possible world–or even in all of them.
This mistake is reminiscent of Ehlmann’s confused belief that non-awareness is impossible if there was ever awareness. It’s just confused, although I wish it weren’t.
I guess ,I have enough trouble keeping one world straight to wish for an infinity of them.
No it was just a throwaway line.
J-MAC pointed out that God provides a handy observer in the Copenhagen interpretation and there seemed to be a lot of resistance to that idea here.
That sort of thing might be a reason for a atheist to gravitate to the MWI.
peace
I think you are confounding epistemology with QM.
If you like you can just say Walto is certainly immortal given MWI whether he knows it or not.
1) “When” makes no sense when talking about an A-temporal being.
2) Tipler thought that the ultimate observer arrived with the omega point at the end to time.
2a) later this he identified this point as the first person of the Trinity
Regardless, I not making any claims I was just pointing out that some atheist types are uncomfortable with Copenhagen because they don’t like it’s reliance on Mind.
peace
Very interesting. I think he makes a convincing case if you grant his theory and assume materialism
I think I agree with you here.
The whole MWI mechanism has a lot in common with the Singularity.
In fact I would say that the two ideas are potentially mutually supporting.
Perhaps the singularity is the way that walto finally achieves immortality given the MWI.
peace
Immortality could just as easily be a curse as a blessing.
As the story illustrates there are many more ways for it to turn out to be hell than there are for there to be a pleasant afterlife in store.
If I were to buy into this argument I would be more than a little apprehensive
peace
Ehlmann is right about one thing walto can never experience his own ceasing to exist.
He will experience is his continued conscious existence for eternity.
In worlds where walto does not make it that far his experience will end before his death occurs and he will never know what happened.
peace
There is only one walto in each world and the worlds are independent though empirically indistinguishable.
In the left turn world right turn walto does not exist so you can’t plot his trajectory empirically.
peace
Not limited but certainly capable of such a thing if anyone could be.
That is part of what omnipotence means
peace
Yes that’s right.
That’s precisely what does not follow. It’s a simple fallacy. You don’t need to experience the cessation of consciousness to become unconscious. (I really don’t see why this simple point is so hard for some people to grasp.)
Actually, they’re easily distinguishable. One has a guy who looks like me turning one way, one has a guy who looks like me turning the other way.
You’re not making a ton of sense on this thread, Fifth.
Of course once the turn is made the worlds are distinguishable before that time they are indistinguishable.
In fact they are empirically equivalent.
I feel like you are being deliberately obtuse.
I’m glad that Everett agreed with the conclusion about immortality and the MWI that I’m trying to explore here. It makes this a lot easier
check it out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality
quote
Putting aside the philosophical problems associated with individual identity and its persistence, we may assert that, under the many-worlds interpretation, the experimenter continues to exist through all of their superpositions where the outcome of the experiment is that they live. In other words, we may say that the experimenter survives all iterations of the experiment, whichever its number. Since the superpositions where the experimenter lives occur by quantum necessity (again, under the many-worlds interpretation), it follows that their survival, after any realizable number of iterations, is physically necessary; hence, the notion of quantum immortality.
This stands in stark contrast to the implications of the Copenhagen interpretation, according to which, although the survival outcome is possible in every iteration, its probability tends towards zero as the number of iterations increases. Due to the many-worlds interpretation, the above scenario has the opposite property: the probability of the experimenter living is necessarily one for any number of iterations.
end quote:
peace
Uh-huh. If we don’t care whether it’s actually the same person surviving, we may say that he survives. Excellent. Very comforting.
Yeah, before they diverge they are empirically equivalent. After that, they’re not. So?
Considered in their totality, the worlds are empirically distinguishable, which is exactly what Neil, Newton and I have been saying to you repeatedly for the last couple of days, over and over and over. Who is being obtuse again?
You and I are concerned about the philosophical. Most folks here don’t care. They are only concerned with what you can measure.
They would laugh at me for suggesting that there was such a thing as individual essence.
peace
In their totality the worlds are not empirically accessible. walto only experiences the one world where he lives forever.
peace
peace
Are we interested in whether world 1 and world 2 are ’empirically distinguishable,’ whether world 1 and world 2 are indistinguishable prior to some time t, or whether worlds 1 and 2 are distinguishable (simpliciter or prior to some time) by walto? Those are all different things.
This is why I’ve asked you to just put whatever argument you’re trying to make as simply and coventry as you can. It’s impossible to fairly assess your posts when you’re just lurching around like this.
So again, exactly why do you think MWI plus materialism entails immortality?
I don’t know myself whether people have ‘individual essences,’ but many people can understand and are interested in questions about whether Kirk is the same person after Scottie reconstitutes him on the Enterprise. Questions about immortality are of interest only if they’re about whether people like you and me might really continue to exist after death. If this MWI theorist says, ‘well, I’m not really talking about THAT,’ then who cares?
Not sure what you mean by an essence , does one’s life experiences contribute to it or is it bequeathed from on high?
So I can only know that I was unconscious if someone else tells me?
No, that doesn’t follow either.
I’ve been trying to think about whether “possible worlds” mean the same thing in modal realism and the MWI interpretation of quantum mechanics, and I really don’t see how they can.
In modal realism a possible world is a logical structure. As I understand it (which is not very well), we define possible worlds in terms of sentences and space-time points. Take the set of all possible assertions (sentences with truth-value). Take the set of all space-time points. Every possible distribution of sentences across the totality of space-time points is a world. The only constraint is that the same sentence cannot be both true and false at the same point.
That’s very different from possible worlds in the MWI, because those worlds are physically possible, not just logically possible. This is important because there’s nothing logically necessary about the laws of quantum mechanics.
In fact the whole “collapse of the wave function” doesn’t even follow from the laws of quantum mechanics; it’s a philosophical amendment that Bohr insisted upon but which is theoretically under-motivated.
From what I can tell, the Copenhagen Interpretation is a hopeless disaster because it depends essentially on measurement but leaves it completely arbitrary what counts as a measurement. (This is David Albert’s objection.)
The MWI has got to have the same problem, since all the MWI adds is that every wave function collapse involves the creation of two new universes: if the wave-function is a superposition of states A and B of some particle X, then the collapse of the wave function produces two universes, a universe in which X is in state A and a universe in which X is in state B.
In other words, Albert’s objections to the Copenhagen Interpretation (which seem quite right to me) have also got to apply to the Many Worlds Interpretation. And the MWI has nothing to do with possible worlds in Leibniz’s, Kripke’s, or Lewis’s sense. (In fact, I’m pretty sure that the totality of universes in the MWI would count as a single universe in the Lewisian sense, because they are causally connected.)
And this is why I’m thankful I don’t work in philosophy of physics.
I think you made the claim what W knows.
No thank you, I have yet to be convinced that MW necessarily entails immortality.
Then attributing causation in a temporal sphere to such a being does not either.
At least two.
Then theism does not entail collapsing the wave.
Are there superpositions of more than two states? I’d never heard of that — but then again I really don’t know much physics or philosophy of physics at all, and got a “gentlemen’s C” in calculus.
Kantian Naturalist,
That’s a good point about the MWs having to be physically possible as well as metaphysically possible. I don’t think that matters with respect to what I’ve been saying in response to FMM’s sci-fi story, but I admit that I hadn’t considered that point, and it might.
I agree with you that this is tough to get one’s head around. (I mean, for non-theists, anyhow.)
I don’t even try to get my head around it. I just take it on faith.
fifth,
Forgive me for asking, but why do you still insist on the many worlds theory if you had already acknowledged that there is no shred of evidence for it and the article you has linked on another OP contradicts is because of the no cloning theorem well established in the quantum field theory?
Did I miss something? Or did you?
I’m really disappointed with this comment of yours… Neil’s is even worst because he didn’t even bother to check the details how the experiment was set up to go around the detection system “faster than light”
Why don’t you both read up on Shannon’s dichotomy? It is obvious that his argument is flawed but it has been ignored…
I’m not a fan of the many worlds interpretation except maybe as part of a tri-perspectiveal understanding of QM in conjunction with the Copenhagen and Relativistic perspectives.
The reason I’m exploring it here is that I’m very intrigued by arguments for immortality that don’t involve the Christian God.
This sort of exercise helps me to sharpen my own views and to understand where other folks are coming from.
It’s the kind of interesting discussion I would like to see more of here.
I would love to hear what folks with a classical materialist/naturalist understanding of consciousness and person-hood think of the idea that immortality is certain in their worldview if the MWI is the correct understanding of QM.
peace