[extropy-chat] Somedays the universe delivers

[Damien Broderick]

> > *Quantum Physics Parts Ways with Reality*
>
>http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2529

Commenting on this, a guy pointed me to his paper at:

<http://www.boundary.org/articles/Physics_without_Causality.pdf>Physics 
without Causality-Theory and Evidence, Richard Shoup, 2006 
[<http://www.boundary.org/articles/Physics_without_Causality_slides_web.pdf>slides-PDF, 
<http://www.boundary.org/articles/Physics_without_Causality.pdf>paper-PDF]
Abstract: The principle of cause and effect is deeply rooted in human 
experience, so much so that it is routinely and tacitly assumed 
throughout science, even by scientists working in areas where time 
symmetry is theoretically ingrained, as it is in both classical and 
quantum physics. Experiments are said to cause their results, not the 
other way around. In this informal paper, we argue that this 
assumption should be replaced with a more general notion of mutual 
influence -- bi-directional relations or constraints on joint values 
of two or more variables. From an analysis based on quantum entropy, 
it is proposed that quantum measurement is a unitary 
three-interaction, with no collapse, no fundamental randomness, and 
no barrier to backward influence.

Experimental results suggesting retrocausality are seen frequently in 
well-controlled laboratory experiments in parapsychology and 
elsewhere, especially where a random element is included. Certain 
common characteristics of these experiments give the appearance of 
contradicting well-established physical laws, thus providing an 
opportunity for deeper understanding and important clues that must be 
addressed by any explanatory theory. We discuss how retrocausal 
effects and other anomalous phenomena can be explained without major 
injury to existing physical theory. A modified quantum formalism can 
give new insights into the nature of quantum measurement, randomness, 
entanglement, causality, and time.
Presented at and forthcoming in Frontiers of Time: Retrocausation -- 
Experiment and Theory, D. P. Sheehan editor, AIP Conference 
Proceedings for 87th Meeting of AAAS Pacific Division, University of 
San Diego, 2006