Disproving Odin - An Experiment in arguing with a theist with Theist logic

[polymath257]

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.

This is the same form of construction as the KCA.

Difference is that we know that Socrates is a man. We do not know that the universe had a beginning.

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Just to really fuck things up for everyone, newscientist magazine has recently been describing efforts by physicists to explain quantum weirdness using the concept of retrocausality.

Unfortunately link is behind a paywall. I have a copy of the magazine but would need to scan the article.

Quantum time machine: How the future can change what happens now

But if the theorists going back to the future with retrocausality can make it stick, the implications would be almost as mind-boggling. They could not only explain the randomness seemingly inherent to the quantum world, but even remake it in a way that finally brings it into line with Einstein’s ideas of space and time – an achievement that has eluded physicists for decades. “If you allow retrocausality, it is possible to have a theory of reality that’s more compatible with lots of things that we think should be true,”

Whether or not it is correct, point is that every day intuitions about how the world works (e.g. begins to exist, cause) do not apply to the quantum scale (e.g. photons do not experience time), and therefore also do not apply to the first moments after the Big Bang when there was no matter, only energy and quantum fluctuations. (Matter formed quickly afterwards and stayed with us ever since just being rearranged over time in different ways.)

I have to wait to go to campus to see what is behind the paywall, but my experience with things along this line tends to be that they are trying to keep classical notions of particles and such while maintaining QM.

The problem with this is that we don't explain a more precise theory in terms of the less precise theory. And classical physics is the less precise theory in this context. So classical notions of particles that have definite trajectories and properties when not detected are problematic from the get-go.

Now, I don't know what specific situation this article addresses, but I have seen claims of retro-causality before used to describe what are known as quantum erasers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_eraser_experiment

But, once again, the illusion of retro-causality is produced *only* because a classical description is insisted upon. The quantum description, on the other hand, perfectly well satisfies the requirements that causality (for the probabilities) only occur in the past light cone. It is forcing the OLD description on a situation where the NEW description is much better in all ways.

I will update this later once I read the actual article.

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Difference is that we know that Socrates is a man. We do not know that the universe had a beginning.

---

Just to really fuck things up for everyone, newscientist magazine has recently been describing efforts by physicists to explain quantum weirdness using the concept of retrocausality.

Unfortunately link is behind a paywall. I have a copy of the magazine but would need to scan the article.

Quantum time machine: How the future can change what happens now


Whether or not it is correct, point is that every day intuitions about how the world works (e.g. begins to exist, cause) do not apply to the quantum scale (e.g. photons do not experience time), and therefore also do not apply to the first moments after the Big Bang when there was no matter, only energy and quantum fluctuations. (Matter formed quickly afterwards and stayed with us ever since just being rearranged over time in different ways.)

I've seen some "retro" causality, which where making philosophical arguments which where fairly bad.  Kind of reminded me of a thought experiment someone came up with in a classroom, that went too far.  

I've also have seen some recently, that are talking about quantum entanglement, and a faster than a light link, which they then call call retro-causality.  This however has more to do with relativity and the frame of reference (from my understanding),  saying that something faster than light would be going into the past.  Here, I think I would only quibble with some of the descriptions, and possibly leading some to think something that its is not.

Without seeing your article, it sounds like they are looking for funding, and still have a ways to go yet.

Well, because of relativity, if some signal is going faster than light in one frame, it will be going into the past in some other frame. So, in that other frame, there would be retro-causality. The point is that in relativity ALL frames of reference are equally valid: there is no such thing as absolute motion. And, any points that are spacelike separated will not be consistently past or future from one another between reference frames. In other words, if A and B are spacelike separated (i.e, faster than light to get between them), then there *will* be one frame where A is earlier in time than B and another frame where B is earlier in time than A.

The only way to avoid this is to require all causes to be from the past light cone. In other words, that effects travel no faster than light.