[ExI] QT and SR

[John K Clark]

"Lee Corbin" <lcorbin at rawbw.com>

> No action at a distance

How does Many Worlds explain how 2 electrons effect each
others movements without resorting to action at a distance?
And please don't give me yet another lecture about the
impossibility of establishing the absolute temporal priority of 2
events, and don't pontificate about how forces can't travel
faster than light; I've known both of those things for most of my
life. Just answer the damn question!

> May I pin you down? (1) You claim that you did something
> here and what  happened there was *different* as a result
> from what it would have been?  (Y/N). (2) You then say that
> the situation is not symmetrical, i.e., that  it is false that what
> they did there made what you did here turn out differently
> than what it would have been?  (I pray that you agree that
> this lack of symmetry would be completely wrong.)

That is just about the most convoluted sentence structure I've
ever read; my best guess is that it means I said something
about the non symmetrical nature of events (when I said nothing
of the sort) then you say I don't agree with it. Huh?

Let me just say A didn't cause B and B didn't cause A; and I
don't clam A happened first and I don't claim B happened first,
and I don't even claim the concept of who is first is well defined.
I DO claim that both A and B were created 8 billion years ago
and are now 16 billion light years apart (they can't see each
other of course because the Universe is only 14 billion years old,
but we know it's true because it will take a spaceship moving at
99.99% of light speed 16 billion years for one to get to the other).
And yet as fantastically distant as they are there is a 100%
correspondence between what I decide to do at the last possible
second to my photon and what you decide to do with your very
very distant photon. Call me childish if you like but I find that weird.

By the way, somehow you've gotten the impression that I am an
antagonist to the Many Worlds theory, but that is untrue, in fact it
is my favorite quantum interpretation because of the elegant way
it handles the observer problem; but it can't solve everything nor
can it get rid of quantum weirdness, nothing can do that,
things are just weird.

> What really happened was this:  You got Vertical all right,
> but you got  Horizontal too! There was a split here!

Here? Why here? The entangled photons were created 8 billion
light years from here! Yes yes I know what you will say, you will
say the split only happened when you measured your photon or
perhaps when I measured mine, not when they were first created.

Lets assume for the sake of argument that you're wrong and the
split happened when they were born, not when they were measured.
In fact lets assume the 2 photon were NEVER measured, they never
even reacted with matter, they just kept going on and on for eternity
into infinite empty space. The universe would NOT split according to
the Manny Worlds model because there must be a detectable 
change for that to happen. Yet things DO split with our photons, 
as if they knew what you and I would be up to in 8 billion years.
That is weird, it certainly doesn't mean it's untrue but it is weird as
hell.

Now let's assume you're right and the split only happens when the
photons are measured. In that case Many Worlds has abandoned its
crown jewel, its one great claim to fame, solving the observer problem.
It also means nothing is real until it is observed, and that's exactly 
what the Copenhagen theory says; I have a hunch you would agree 
with me that is not one of Copenhagen's more endearing qualities.
If the split happens when they are measured it's just Copenhagen 
with a fig leaf.

  John K Clark