The double slit experiment

Author: secularmerlin

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So the universe is weird huh?

I mean look at this. Measuring the effects of an event after it has happened will change the effect of the event?

What are we to make of this? Perhaps it means that both things have happened and there are many universes. Perhaps it means reverse causation (that effects can precede causes) is not just possible but ordinary. Maybe it just means we don't really understand what is going on at all. That in so much as we have observed cause and effect it is emergent of other factors rather than a logical necessity. 

I cannot begin to demonstrate any particular viewpoint but I must confess that I think reverse causation makes the fewest assumptions. It is in fact even compatible with the other possible positions.

What are your thoughts on this? 
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@secularmerlin
  Lately, I have been mulling superdeterminism as an explanation for the double slit. If the result of the observation was already causally determined, then there is no reason to posit information traveling faster than the speed of light.
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@secularmerlin

To date, no quantum mechanical or other explanation has gained widespread acceptance in the scientific community. We are dealing with a time travel paradox that illustrates reverse causality (i.e., effect precedes cause), where the effect of measuring a photon affects its past behavior. This simple high-school-level experiment continues to baffle modern science. Although quantum physicists explain it as wavefunction collapse, the explanation tends not to satisfy many in the scientific community. Irrefutably, the delayed-choice experiments suggest the arrow of time is reversible and the future can influence the past.


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@secularmerlin
The double slit experiment produces a result, that shows that the double slit experiment produces a result....Which is what one would expect.









































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@Sum1hugme
If the result of the observation was already causally determined
Would you care to elaborate?
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@secularmerlin
  Deterministic theories claim that all events are the result of an event before, going back to the dawn of time. Therefore, it was at the dawn of time that all causal connections were established. Superdeterminism is a way of interpreting the double slit because it necessarily entails that the results of the experiments were already determined to happen as the inevitable result of the chain of physical events going back to the dawn of time. If the results were already predetermined, then information doesn't have to travel faster than light, because the information was already there before the apparent entanglement.
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@secularmerlin
The biggest hurdle for the theory is that I'm pretty sure it's unfalsifiable. 
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@Sum1hugme
I think I understand. Not reverse causation but all simultaneous causation of all events at some unspecified time in the past. Is that correct? I honestly hadn't even considered that.
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@secularmerlin
  It's the idea that the physical chain of determined events began at the first moment of time, and therefore all physical events, including experimental results have already been determined. So no information has to travel faster than light.
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@Sum1hugme
Isn't that just regular hard determinism though?
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@secularmerlin
Idk, superdeterminism is specifically a deterministic philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics. 
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@Sum1hugme
It seems interesting but in addition to being unfalsifiable it seems to be unactionable. That is it doesn't really explain why the causal chain seems reversed from our perspective if it is true. Like sure it means that information doesn't have to go faster than light but it doesn't explain the apparent contradiction of the falling dominoes of the universe suddenly knocking down the dominoes behind them rather than in front of them. Unless I'm missing something which does sometimes happen. Like when you set up dominoes you are determining the fall of the last domino at the moment you knock over the first but it still doesn't ever fall backwards in order. 
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@secularmerlin
Well simply because the causal chain appears reversed from our perspective doesn't mean it is. Unless I'm misunderstanding you.
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@Sum1hugme
Not that it is reversed but that it is behaving differently than normal. It doesn't answer why the looking determines the outcome instead of the outcome determining what we see.
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@secularmerlin
Well if it is determined, then the outcome was determined before we conducted the experiment. 
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@secularmerlin
Because "looking" at it is the cause? Thats what I would guess.
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@Sum1hugme
Well yes but dominoes don't as a rule skip a domino when falling in a chain. I understand that all events have a single cause in this hypothetical but it would still be a chain reaction that we are observing unfold and one would expect it to unfold in the same order regardless. Like saying a tree doesn't make a sound if no one can hear it. Whether you can call it a sound without a listener or not the fall does create vibrations in the air or at least classic logic would seem to hold. Perhaps I'm overthinking it.
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@secularmerlin
The dominoes can fall either way.....Though your expectation might be that they can only fall one way....In front and behind, are your predetermined assumption.
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@Theweakeredge
It seems that way, but the Copenhagen interpretation is not really accepted because it falsley assumes that particles have no mass until they are observed.
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@secularmerlin
Well man, classical physics break down at the quantum level. None of it is intuitive.
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@Sum1hugme
The dominoes can fall either way.....Though your expectation might be that they can only fall one way....In front and behind, are your predetermined assumption.
Well man, classical physics break down at the quantum level. None of it is intuitive.

Well since that is why I started this thread I can hardly be put out that you both pointed this out.

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@secularmerlin
Maybe it just means we don't really understand what is going on at all
This

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@janesix
Good point.
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@secularmerlin
Now I will attempt a real answer.

From what I gather from research(And by that I mean reading pop science books and high school physics books) and experience(And I've had a lot of weird time and synchronistic types of experiences) I suggest that "time" is very malleable, doesn't really exist as we think it does. Things seem more related by meaning and category than by a sequence of causal events. There seem to be "nodes" that we connect to, by what we think about. Kind of like strange attractors. When you start thinking about a thing too much, the Universe will present that thing to you, in all it's varieties and permutations. Then you help create your reality, by going from node to node, which is sometimes a tangled mess.

18 days later

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@FLRW
Irrefutably, the delayed-choice experiments suggest the arrow of time is reversible and the future can influence the past.
100% THIS.
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@secularmerlin
the universe suddenly knocking down the dominoes behind them rather than in front of them.
They'd be knocking the dominoes behind them "up".
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@3RU7AL
They'd be knocking the dominoes behind them "up".
Good point.