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A Time experiment

Let's see if I can't. I like the coins and the box analogy so I'll use that.

No, you won't. You will create an entirely different analogy that doesn't actually obey the same rules as entanglement and allows you to do the very things entanglement doesn't allow you to do.

I'll ask you again -- can you convey information using the box as I set it out (only entangled pairs, only one coinflip per coin, coin only has a single charge associated with its most recent "entanglement")?

Start with that, please. If you're not able to come up with a way to do it with an arbitrary number of pairs of singularly-entangled coins, described the way I have, then we can explore whether a more complicated entanglement might do the job when we have agreed that we don't know of any way for basic pair entanglement to do it.
 
I'll start out with a collection of 5 coins. The first thing we will do is pair up 4 of the coins and put each pair in the box so they are entangled as (A, B), (C, D) and E is left alone. Then I will split the pairs and put (A, C) and (B, D) in the box.

So, you're assuming it's possible for objects to be entangled with more than one separate object at a [time]?
 
It is odd that winning the lottery has become an icon of paranormal proof.
Most people who win are fairly miserable and broke in a short time.

Whenever I travel to the past, I focus on not getting mud on my new pants.

Best way to change the past: burn your diary.
 
No, you won't. You will create an entirely different analogy that doesn't actually obey the same rules as entanglement and allows you to do the very things entanglement doesn't allow you to do.

Entanglement isn't some magic box. It's the action/reaction of physical interaction. To have a limited entanglement box as you describe requires a change in entropy. What hapened to the pervious entangled state of the coins that went into your box? This state cannot be destroyed. It can only be entangled with the state of another coin.


I'll ask you again -- can you convey information using the box as I set it out (only entangled pairs, only one coinflip per coin, coin only has a single charge associated with its most recent "entanglement")?

It's like the puzzle with two guards, one that always tells the truth, the other always tells a lie. You cannot get a reliable answer from either because the answer is entangled with the guards state. But if you arrange that the answer is entangled with the state of both guards, you will have a reliable answer.

Start with that, please. If you're not able to come up with a way to do it with an arbitrary number of pairs of singularly-entangled coins, described the way I have, then we can explore whether a more complicated entanglement might do the job when we have agreed that we don't know of any way for basic pair entanglement to do it.

If there is a simpler form that works, I am not aware of it. If you are insisting that the entanglement box destroys the entangled state of the coins that are placed in the box then I say you are making up rules that do not match experimentally verified reality.
 
Be careful in endorsing JJM's ideas of the past, as he advocates an "absolute time" and eschews relativistic time dilation.

When it is understood that time is linked to, and a property of, space, we start to recognize viable methods by which the manipulation of space may also cause some manipulation of time.

Time travel isn't likely, but it's certainly possible.

I'm not saying I consider impossible any link with the "past" or any process that doesn't happen with a clock ticking in the usual way. I'm sure "time tourism" is impossible for conscious macro-entities like us. Even the possibility of a probe that provides us with a "sneak postview" of the past.

Time travel seems to be sort of a sociological concern with a scientific disguise. To instrument time travel you need to x-y-zy time (to take advantage of their "go and come back" properties), make entropy a two-way variable, ignore quantum states, etc. That is just spurring on every feature of the Universe that may be a nuisance and an obstacle in the chase of the grail you're looking for.

To me, it looks like a childish inability to accept a "No". Time travel is the magical turning of every "no" into a "yes", all within a scientific set-up which provides the necessary smoke screen to make it look as an adult concern.
 
Entanglement isn't some magic box. It's the action/reaction of physical interaction. To have a limited entanglement box as you describe requires a change in entropy. What hapened to the pervious entangled state of the coins that went into your box? This state cannot be destroyed. It can only be entangled with the state of another coin.

The classical version of entanglement looks something like this: I am standing floating somewhere in deep space. I throw a shoe off in some direction, and thus impart some momentum to myself in the opposite direction.

You, knowing that I was going to do this, later come upon the shoe. No matter how far away I've drifted at this point, you now know which direction I am drifting toward.

Thus, from the shoe you can instantaneously infer some information about my state, regardless of distance. Yet this doesn't require any transfer of information. Moreover, any changes you make to the momentum of the shoe now have no effect whatsoever on my momentum.

Of course, QM entanglement is different, but it should be pointed out that it really is this same mechanism that allows us to form pairs of entangled particles. The difference, of course, is in the nature of quantum variables.
 
Quantum entanglement is something different. The experiment which I patterned the coin example after starts with a pair of entangled photons. Each of the photons passes through a beam splitter and the two half beams travel different paths to widly separated screens where they will form interference patterns on the screens. But the key is that any disruption to one of the photons along one path not only breaks the interference pattern seen on its screen, it also breaks the interference pattern on the other distant screen.
 
a probe that provides us with a "sneak postview" of the past.
A postview of the past exists, actually. Precise information about what happened on Earth 10,000 years ago exists, in light rays showing the events, and which now are 10,000 light years away from us. A visual image of our history exists out there, but recording it is a technological challenge.
 
Quantum entanglement is something different. The experiment which I patterned the coin example after starts with a pair of entangled photons. Each of the photons passes through a beam splitter and the two half beams travel different paths to widly separated screens where they will form interference patterns on the screens. But the key is that any disruption to one of the photons along one path not only breaks the interference pattern seen on its screen, it also breaks the interference pattern on the other distant screen.

Do you have a link or citation for this experiment? Because that would allow FTL information, if it is as you have described.
 
Other times exist in exactly the same way as other places exist.
Other times exist in the same way as heaven and hell exist. They are equally unprovable.

Only one moment exists which we can observe, measure and interact with/in.

Of particular note is that, because of the relativity of simultaneity, there is no absolute way to differentiate between "past", "present", and "future".
The fact that only one set of matter exists in the universe, and interacts subject to the laws of nature, is what binds everything into one single and (more or less, but locally absolute) simultaneous moment of existence, which is the only moment of time that exists.
 
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Do you have a link or citation for this experiment? Because that would allow FTL information, if it is as you have described.


As I said before, this was in a November issue of Scientific American in the 80’s. I don't have access to their archives so this will probably entail a trip to the library to look up.
 
A postview of the past exists, actually. Precise information about what happened on Earth 10,000 years ago exists, in light rays showing the events, and which now are 10,000 light years away from us. A visual image of our history exists out there, but recording it is a technological challenge.
I regret not, absolutely not. Entropy, Plank constant and other 'ingredients' of the real universe prevent it. Even highly energetic, redundant and coherent TV and radio transmissions of ours will fade away in a few millennia. A museum will work better as it looks a better investment in a universe that seems to have a limited amount of information it can deal with at the same time, so it tends to forget.

I regard as deeply human any tendency of imagining the past as it is something accumulative and hard-recorded in the present in spite of what we know about physics. Such human feeling aligns with ideas ranging from a paradise where the souls of the dead enjoy eternal happiness, to regarding death as annihilation of the self but still having individual lives lasting consequences -having lived in vain, the ultimate nightmare of the self-.

As I said, hedonistic candy in a disguise of science just to avoid feelings like that masterly expressed by Mrs. Moore -character of "A Passage to India"- during her last voyage. This "old soul" suffers a sudden vertigo while looking at the night sky from the ship's deck, and explains "Like many old people ... I sometimes think we are merely passing figures ... in a godless universe".
 
The fact that only one set of matter exists in the universe, and interacts subject to the laws of nature, is what binds everything into one single and (more or less, but locally absolute) simultaneous moment of existence, which is the only moment of time that exists.

Umm. You do realize, I hope, that one of the laws of nature which you refer to limits the transfer of information to the speed of light?

So, how exactly are we bound to the Andromeda Galaxy in a single and simultaneous moment of existence? And, given your previous statement

A postview of the past exists, actually. Precise information about what happened on Earth 10,000 years ago exists, in light rays showing the events, and which now are 10,000 light years away from us.

what is the difference between a postview of the past of 10,000 years ago, and a simultaneous now view of the Andromeda Galaxy which was emitted 2.5 million years ago?
 
Well, then you would not even have to travel back in person. You would only have to transmit the numbers back in time to the PC. The rest could be done by the PC on its own.
If this worked, however, there would be the contradiction that, if you change your own past this way, you are no longer the same person. Particularly, you are not - and have never been - the person who found it necessary to send back a message to win the lottery. Because you would have been a lottery winner all along. So you would not send the message back in time. Therefore, it cannot be you but at best an alternate version of yourself in a parallel universe who get the cash.

A time traveler would know of this risk, and do action to warn his own past. So I don't think this even a problem.
 
How about:

3. The past does not exist any more, so you can neither go there nor change it.


We all move towards the future, constantly moment by moment.

Disclaimer: I understand nothing of what I say below:

The idea that time travel (at least further into the future) should be possible comes from the Relativity Theory, and also from practical experiments (intended to check whether relativity theory is correct or not) where synchronized atom clocks lose the sync and show a different time compared to each other, when one of them travels a distance and comes back, while the other one stays immobile. Relativity theory claims, and the atom clock experiment seems to confirm, that time moves slower for the one who accelerates (= travels) compared to the one who stays immobile.

If we accept relativity theory and/or the results of the atom clock experiment, it means that it is possible to travel further into the future than your lifespan normally would reach, by entering a fast moving vehicle where time moves slower than elsewhere. This would mean that when you come out of the vehicle, you are in a moment of time which might be your 200th birthday according to normal calendar. Had you not been inside the vehicle where time moves slower for you, you would be long dead by then.

My udnerstanding of time dilation is not that it is a travel to the future. That might it a slight difference to what is meant as time travel.
 
My udnerstanding of time dilation is not that it is a travel to the future. That might it a slight difference to what is meant as time travel.

In meaningful way, this is time travel, in that it's finding a "short cut" to get from the present to the future on Earth by traveling through significantly less time than someone on Earth would.
 
Other times exist in the same way as heaven and hell exist. They are equally unprovable.

Only one moment exists which we can observe, measure and interact with/in.
Actually, other times are much more "provable" than heaven and hell. Here's an experiment: look up at the sky at night. You'll see light from stars at other places and other times. Thus those other times exist.
The theoretical framework that treats those other times and places as real can explain what I see.

The fact that only one set of matter exists in the universe, and interacts subject to the laws of nature, is what binds everything into one single and (more or less, but locally absolute) simultaneous moment of existence, which is the only moment of time that exists.

So, once again, you are denying the relativity of simultaneity?
 

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