Saturday, October 22, 2005

Quantum Erasers, Psychokinesis and Time Travel

This post is inspired by a study of the “delayed choice quantum eraser” experiment described e.g. at

http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/kim-scully/kim-scully-web.htm

http://www.dhushara.com/book/quantcos/qnonloc/eraser.htm

Even though the quantum eraser experiments don’t allow true “backwards causation,” this doesn’t prove that such a thing is impossible. It just proves that there is no way to do it within the commonly accepted constraints of physical law. There is at least once concrete possibility for how currently known physical law may be breakable, in a way that would allow backward causation (and, as an effective consequence, time travel – since being able to cause events in the past would mean being able to create an exact replica of oneself in the past, including a brain-state possessing the feeling of having just been quantum-magically transported into the past).

This possibility is “quantum psychokinesis” – a notion which sounds bizarre, but is apparently supported by a variety of experiments done by respected scientists at various institutions including Princeton University; see

http://www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/strange.html

The simplest of these experiments involve people trying to influence, by the power of concentration, random events such as the direction of an electron’s spin. A long list of experiments show that, after some training, people have a weak but real ability to do this. Over tens of thousands of trials people can make electrons spin in the direction they want to 51% of the time or so, whereas chance would dictate merely 50%. This is a small difference but over so many trials is highly statistically significant.

Hooking this kind of PK experiment up to a quantum eraser apparatus, one would obtain a practical example of reverse causation. If this kind of PK actually works, then in the context of the above “paradox” situation, for example, it really would be possible for someone on Alpha Centauri to send messages faster than light to someone back home, via biasing the direction of spin of the coupled twin particle observed on Alpha Centauri. The rate of information transmission would be extremely low, since all that PK has ever been observed to do is give a slight statistical bias to events otherwise thought random. But with an appropriate code even a very slow rate of information transmission can be made to do a lot. And hypothetically, if this sort of PK phenomenon is actually real, one has to imagine that AI’s in the future will find ways to amplify it far beyond what the human brain can do.

6 Comments:

Blogger A Future Metaphysician said...

Why can't you have backwards causation? I thought the delayed choice experiments proved, to some degree, that the future could cause the past...

3:34 PM  
Blogger Doctor Logic said...

Ben: Next, you'll be telling me that you have an excellent probability of actually catching a ghost. :)

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (to overcome noise). This quantum psychokinesis is a long way from having extraordinary experimental support.

future metaphysician: The delayed choice experiments don't constitute backward causation. Since no semi-permanent record is created during the tagging and untagging process, the wavefunction never collapses (decoheres).

Causality is a good thing. Space-like (faster than light) flows of information would render the universe completely unpredictable. Every event would be influenced by a virtually infinite number of other otherwise disconnected events across the universe. There might be universes that allow this, but such universes would be unintelligible.

10:15 AM  
Blogger Steve Guzman said...

Ben... Your picture is bad man. I mean... you look like a pig in that shot. How do you expect to pick up any hot swingin' chicks?

Do yourself a favor and get a nice haircut... maybe put on a nice button up shirt and smile or look suave.

Nice topic by the way. I've always wondered if premonition was just someone’s ability to interpret extra-dimensional data. Just like how some animals have a built in compass... maybe some people have a... um... Graviton receptor organ of some sort. I just want an explaination for the experiments where the body reacts to disturbing imagery before the eyes actually see the image.

10:33 PM  
Blogger Nicolas said...

This 51% would be even more if they didn't just use anyone for these experiments. Some people must have better predispositions to psychokinesis, and/or, there must be a better manner of ataining it. Meditation i think would be a way of ataining PK, as one of the goals of it is to get in touch with a global consciousness. I believe facts of something close to PK would be someone getting into a transe, where several things may happen. But with the power of the mind, it affects hormones and the processes of pain in the body for example.

12:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sir, believing something as PK without doing some research makes you lose your credibility pretty quickly. Priceton's PEAR lab is not a trusted or a scientific organization. Also, it's being closed soon: See http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/press_release_closing.html

For more info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Engineering_Anomalies_Research_Lab

Currently there're no scientific results that supports PK (or any other variants, clairvoyance, etc.) - quantum or otherwise.

4:09 AM  
Blogger Dr. Rodney Kawecki Phd. said...

I think for myself that time only exist as a measurement of mathematics to join two points with a line. But the universe involves a flow of existence which is always directed forwards and never backwards. The arrow of time points like this because the universe due to its birth retains an end - sometime in the future. This is shown by its expansion and spreading a part suggesting the forwards action of time.
An electron can pop out of this chain and enter into the past but reveals no purpose. It becomes caught again traveling forwards. Trying change the past isn't possible based on the dilemna the universe reframes an end. The time between the end and beginning can not change by any terms.
The two-split exp. is the action of a massless particle traveling uniform two places at once. Mass particles do not have this charactoristic. The electron mass therefore strives faster because its massless the same way empty space in the e-mc2 comparison is massless like the photon due to its velocity accuring a mass particle. What - this massless anomaly shows is t6yhe time it takes for the delay is the same time as the place of the second split particle. Therefore its impossible to detect both at the same instant.
Delay choice ep. doesnt constitute backwards causation in the same manner I have just explained but backwards time travel is a different analogy all together then the quantum eraser by Qunata Physics Termology.

3:41 AM  

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