Photons and determinism, part 2

[Surgenator]

Okay, so photons "experience" no passing of time. In other words, in the relative framework of a photon, whatever it's leaving and whatever it arrives at are brought together to a zero distance-- i.e. they share the same point.

The framework of a photon is an invalid framework. Naively interpreting the physics equation will give a no passing of time. However, the equations don't work in the photon framework, thats why they're invalid.

The question is this-- could ANYTHING happen in QM, any kind of butterfly effect, which could change the final destination of that photon? Could any QM effect cause a buttefly effect which subtly affects the path of the photon?

No, conservation of momentum forbids it. It would have to interact with something else. Possibly the virtual particles it might come across.

The answer must be no. No time has passed for that photon in its long journey, so it was always going to arrive at my eye, and no matter what happens in its journey, this is written in stone.

Wrong reason but semi correct answer. It matters if it interacts with anything else along its journey.

I think from this that we can conclude that IF relativity is correct, then the universe MUST be entirely 2-way deterministic (i.e. QM events must also be deterministic, because no butterfly effect can possibly exist which can interfere with an event that is timeless in any frame of reference).

False. The wavefunction is deterministic (that is why we can make predictions with QM), but the observations are not deterministic but probabilistic. In your photon example, there is probability the photon will not interact with your eye. Butterfly effect is back in business.

So this means that even though the photon left its distant star 1000 years ago in our time, and passed through that planetary atmosphere say 500 years ago, the state of that atmosphere was already (pre-)determined: it was truly inevitable.

Does this argument seem unsound to anyone?

500 years in the atmosphere!? How thick was that atmosphere? Plus, a photon is destroyed when it interacts and a brand new photon is emitted (assuming scattering).

Also, pre-determined is a hasty conclusion. It is just one photon that made into your eye. How many other photons started at the same trajectory that made it to your eye?