Classical Values :: Limitations

December 08, 2009

Limitations

Unfortunately, I have no friends beyond the visible universe with which to test the quantum "many-worlds" interpretation of relativity's claims of possible time travel... but I'm still pretty sure decoherence is irreversible.

So even if you could use a distant (~200B LY) intermediary to, say, pass yourself tomorrow's lottery numbers via quantum entanglement and the relativistic effect of walking across your living room (as described in Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos), when you played the numbers the next day they would turn out to be wrong because the universe isn't deterministic, it's probabilistic.

I mean, otherwise the universe is just silly.

posted by Dave on 12.08.09 at 06:06 PM

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Comments

Of Course

It all makes sense now.

Can't kill your own grandpa cause he isn't yours hyperprobability takes it both ways.

Jim C · December 8, 2009 08:21 PM

Probability cancels it all out. Weak anthropic priciple at least.

Jim C · December 8, 2009 08:22 PM

Jim C · December 8, 2009 08:23 PM

It's all about preserving causality. We know there is causality, therefore any scenario which violates causality is unphysical.

TallDave · December 8, 2009 09:12 PM

Read "Snulbug" by, if memory serves, Cyril Kornbluth or "All the Myriad Ways" by Larry Niven.

Bleepless · December 8, 2009 09:30 PM

Ah yes, a good collection. Niven's stuff holds up pretty well.

TallDave · December 8, 2009 11:05 PM

I had to read that a couple of times before I understood it. Makes sense now.

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Todd · December 9, 2009 07:11 AM

James Hogan has a book about this.
They invent a time machine and keep sending messages back in time for various reasons.

Each time he meets the same girl, sometimes he gets laid, sometimes he gets slapped.

Hogan is hit or miss, this is one of his near misses. Not bad but I haven't reread it.
Code of the Lifemaker is his best.

Me? I'd like to believe the many universes theory.
It's like the people who are afraid of the Hadron collider, if it were possible to destroy the universe with it, someone would already have done it.

If time travel is possible, people in the far future are probably already doing it. Earlier this morning we lived in a world where Hitler won. Around 8 or so, we lived where Hoover never dropped the bomb and at 9 we lived where Bill and Ted never lived!
It's all been fixed though.
Remember, be excellent to each other.

Veeshir · December 9, 2009 09:14 AM

I don't really want to travel in time. I just want a fast forward for my TV set, so I can watch tomorrow's stock quotes today.

Eric Scheie · December 9, 2009 12:22 PM

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