- #36
DrChinese
Science Advisor
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vanesch said:This is indeed a possibility, but as I outlined somewhere, it simply means that experimental science has no meaning. Indeed, if what I'm going to measure in the future influences what is happening in the past, I cannot conclude much.
Imagine the following "experiment": I have 2 wires, and on a panel, there's a light bulb. I want to find out whether the light bulb is connected to the two wires, so I take a battery, and connect them to the light bulb: it lights up. I disconnect the battery: it goes out. I reconnect it: it goes on again.
Conclusion of my experiment: yes, these wires somehow are connected (or pilot) the lightbulb.
But maybe not at all ! Something else is making this lightbulb light up and go out, and this influences me, connecting exactly a few nanoseconds earlier, each time, the wires to the battery and not.
So I cannot even determine from my experiment that the wires have anything to do with the lightbulb ! You have to leave aside this possibility if you are going to consider the experimental scientific method at all, no ?
cheers,
Patrick.
Sure, what you are saying makes sense, and yet that is exactly what needs re-thinking.
1. Our world is experimentally demonstrated as being full of both identifed causes and unidentified random effects. So your light bulb example applies only to that large subset that is what we refer to as deterministic. It is the other group that needs more explanation. You cannot deny that the future MIGHT have SOME role in explaining the random effects. Of course, I offer no convincing proof either. merely speculation.
2. There is nothing that says the future can't have a small role to play in what happens in the present. Two simple hypothetical examples: a) We are barely influenced by events occurring in Andromeda, but that does not mean there is no influence. Similarly, the influence from the future could be very mild. b) Look at how hard it is to create a singlet state! Such state allows us to see some strange quantum behavior (Nightlight calls it a parlor trick). And perhaps that is because the influence from our future is so subtle that it is difficult to otherwise see.
The way I see it, we are being asked to give up strict locality or strict causality if we reject hidden variables. Perhaps the least intrusive modifications we should make to theory will have us accept locality and acknowledge that the future could influence the past in a way which appears totally random from our perspective. Given symmetry considerations alone, I would think it is worth at least considering. And yet, in most respects, causality - and the scientific method! - would still apply.