Quantum physics makes synchronicities possible. The psychologists who say it's all confirmation bias are living in the 1800s.
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How Quantum Mechanics Contradicts Our Commonsense Beliefs
DEBUNKING THE FIVE ASSUMPTIONS OF CLASSIC PHYSICS
Reality: An absolute reality independent of us fades like the Cheshire Cat because we now know that fundamental properties of the world are not determined before they are observed. An unobserved reality is radically different than the one we see.
Locality: The fact that quantum objects can become entangled (See Quantum entanglement) means that the common sense assumption that ordinary objects are entirely and absolutely separate is incorrect. In unobserved states, quantum objects are connected instantaneously through space and time.
Causality: The assumption of causality collapses as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity revealed that the fixed arrow of time is an illusion. We now know that the arrow of time depends on the perspective of the observers.
Continuity: At small scales, space and time are neither smooth nor contiguous
Determinism: This one is dissolved by itself as it relies on the assumptions of causality, reality, and certainty.
WHAT THE QUANTUM MECHANICS IS STRONGLY SUGGESTING
- True probability exists (See probability theory): In unobserved states, the photon is in a superposition state. In other words, when you flip a coin, it's both head and tail until you (or something) look at it. The probability of head or tail is not us being ignorant of the result, but it's actually being 50% head and 50% tail when it's unobserved; both and neither.
- The future is uncertain
- Freewill exists
- Consciousness affects matter
- The arrow of time depends on the perspective of the observers (the present could affect the past; see delayed choice quantum eraser)
- Our common sense of the objective reality is WRONG
Back From the Future
A series of quantum experiments shows that measurements performed in the future can influence the present. Does that mean the universe has a destiny—and the laws of physics pull us inexorably toward our prewritten fate?
In 1964 Aharonov and his colleagues Peter Bergmann and Joel Lebowitz, all then at Yeshiva University in New York, proposed a new framework called time-symmetric quantum mechanics. It could produce all the same treats as the standard form of quantum mechanics that everyone knew and loved, with the added benefit of explaining how information from the future could fill in the indeterministic gaps in the present. [...]
Through the 1980s and 1990s, Tollaksen teamed up with Aharonov to design such upside-down experiments, in which outcome was determined by events occurring after the experiment was done. Generally the protocol included three steps: a “preselection” measurement carried out on a group of particles; an intermediate measurement; and a final, “postselection” step in which researchers picked out a subset of those particles on which to perform a third, related measurement. To find evidence of backward causality—information flowing from the future to the past—the experiment would have to demonstrate that the effects measured at the intermediate step were linked to actions carried out on the subset of particles at a later time. [...]
Just last year, physicist John Howell and his team from the University of Rochester reported success. [...]
Searching for backward causality required looking at the impact of the final measurement and adding the time twist. In the Rochester experiment, after the laser beams left the mirrors, they passed through one of two gates, where they could be measured again—or not. If the experimenters chose not to carry out that final measurement, then the deflected angles measured in the intermediate phase were boringly tiny. But if they performed the final, postselection step, the results were dramatically different. When the physicists chose to record the laser light emerging from one of the gates, then the light traversing that route, alone, ended up with deflection angles amplified by a factor of more than 100 in the intermediate measurement step. Somehow the later decision appeared to affect the outcome of the weak, intermediate measurements, even though they were made at an earlier time. [...]
Here, finally, is the answer to Aharonov’s opening question: What does God gain by playing dice with the universe? Why must the quantum world always retain a degree of fuzziness when we try to look at it through the time slice of the present? That loophole is needed so that the future can exert an overall pull on the present, without ever being caught in the act of doing it in any particular instance.
“The future can only affect the present if there is room to write its influence off as a mistake,” Aharonov says.
[BINGO! Exactly the same uncertainty that allows weird phenomena to happen, yet be written off by skeptics as mistakes of perception -- montalk]
Wigner's Friend And The Enigmatic Cat
Schrödinger's Cat Revisited - Wigner's Friend
If you're familiar with the thought experiment about Schrödinger's cat, then you know for sure that it's a real head-scratcher. The idea of the thought experiment was to help people visualize the implications of the strange quantum world. In the thought experiment, Schrödinger described a scenario in which a live cat was put into a box that contained a vial of poison and a quantum trigger device. If and when the quantum trigger device went off, it would break the vial of poison and kill the cat.
Since the trigger device was to be controlled by a quantum event, it's state when unobserved within the box was determined by its quantum wave function, which implied a simultaneous superposition of all possible states. So the trigger device, unobserved, would simultaneously exist in both a triggered and un-triggered state. This leads to the conclusion that the vial of poison, unobserved, would exist simultaneously in a broken and unbroken state. Which leads to the non-intuitive conclusion that the cat would exist simultaneously in both the alive state and the dead state.
Only when an observer opened the box would the wave function of the combined system collapse to one state or the other, leading to either an un-triggered device with an unbroken vial and a live cat, or a triggered device with a broken vial and a dead cat. This is not the same as saying that the observer wouldn't know the state of the cat until he opened the box. It's saying that the cat would exist in both a live and dead state until the observer opened the box.
This thought experiment has lead to many additional thought experiments and subsequent ringing of hands. One of the most notable is the Wigner's Friend conundrum. This thought experiment came about when considering the implications of the apparent need of an intelligent observer in order for the quantum world to take on any specific state of existence. The question being posed explored the extent of the quantum entanglement.
In this thought experiment, a fellow (known as Wigner's friend) is positioned in the room to watch the box and determine the ultimate state of the cat. Wigner would wait outside the room. So the question is whether the room would now contain a determined state for Wigner to discover with he entered the room because there was a conscious observer present, or if the friend would simply be entangled in a larger superposition, being both simultaneously the observer of a live cat and the observer of a dead cat. If the latter is true, the state of the experiment would only collapse to a final state of existence for the cat and the observer once Wigner opened the door and made his observation.
Wigner's Cat can be extended. What if Wigner's wife asked him what happened at the lab today? And then her neighbor hears it from her? And after it goes through another dozen people, you finally hear about it a decade later -- at which point YOU are the one who ultimately determines what happened in the lab. That chain of indeterminacy ends when it hits your consciousness. Thus you play a role in what past you experience.
So when a free trial magazine gets delivered to your mailbox on the very day you decided to turn your life around, and there's a big bold 1111 on the cover that you can't miss, was it there all along? Or did your need to see it choose the past where it became so?