Questions for any body? Changing timelines

[Mayhem]

What is the thought-experiment that your referring to?

 

[start at edge]

Thanks for you super-quick reply.
I will write about it tomorrow. I am tired now and I feel the need to sleep (it is late here, 02:20 in the morning).
It will be a “gradual” conversation, that is – I can not write about the whole thing at once, in one single message.
Thanks again for your reply.
I’ll “see” you tomorrow.

 

[Apri1]

a different timeline (or more) makes no sense if no observer emerges at some point in any of the branches.

Again you are taking "observer" to mean the english keyword rather than what it actually means. An "observer" is anything other than the quantum superposition that attempts to interact with it. It doesn't need to be a human observer. Quantum superpositions happen without humans, and the wave functions collapse without humans. We can extrapolate this to show possibilities in different decisions/choices, which is usually how the theory is portrayed in fiction/media. Since most timelines are going to be almost identical except a particular atom in a slightly different position. So it's only worth talking about timelines that are noticeably different.

So, it must be at least on branch that subsequently has an observer, in other words, if no observation is to be ever made, regardless of the vastness of branches (timelines), all those branches collapse to zero.

In such a world nothing would happen, or move, or exist. So sure, in such a world there wouldn't be any action nor any future. That has nothing to do with humans in particular. "observer" doesn't mean "human". It means "interaction with the quantum superposition".

The observer I mentioned, I see as a consciousness being, so to say “intelligent life”.

And you'd be incorrect. At least if you are meaning "observer" in reference to the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Though there is an argument to be had for personal observation moving through before/after the wave function collapse and ending up on one side despite physically identical brains in each; at which point we get into theology and the nature of the soul and spirit, along with temporal migration of them.

The wave function collapses when there is an observer involved.

Yes. When something interacts with the quantum state the wave function collapses and we arrive at a single result. IE a particular timeline out of the many. There are other models for why wavefunction collapse happens, but the MWI posits that it doesn't collapse, and instead both outcomes legitimately occur. Rather than one being "arbitrarily" chosen. Of course, we know the MWI is correct, even if scientists haven't gotten that far yet.

In this aspect, it seems a little weird to me that people speak about collapsing the wave function, when in reality, especially regarding the “double slit” experiment, it is the particle that is collapsed (eliminated) – not the wave.

It's because you're thinking about it wrong. Using an abstraction to decisions helps clarify this a bit. Imagine you had to decide whether you were going to have vanilla icecream or chocolate. As it stands, it is prior to the event of you getting icecream. Both are technically possible outcomes. They both exist as possible futures. When you eventually end up going and getting icecream, you make a decision, perhaps vanilla, and the wave function collapses. There is now no chance that you will get chocolate, because you have gotten vanilla. Similarly, the photon can go through either slit, and we don't know which one it will be until it goes through one and we observe it. Both are possible futures for the photon. What's interesting is that if we close the slit after the photon goes through but before we measure, the photon acts differently. Retrocausality. Interesting stuff, I'm not a physicist so I might have botched that explanation. Basically, the probability wave function collapse upon the event (clear measurement) taking place.

 

[start at edge]

Retrocausality. Interesting stuff, I'm not a physicist so I might have botched that explanation. Basically, the probability wave function collapse upon the event (clear measurement) taking place.

Hi!
Thanks for your kindness, for writing back. It is very interesting for me to have a conversation with you. I am also not a physicist, I am a technician, but one does not have to be a scientist to think as logical as possible. In this aspect, I try to do my best.
I had a relaxing sleep, so now I can start explaining about the thought-experiment.
First let me show an image representing a simple electrical schematics.
Here we have a power source (battery), a simple switch (key), an LED (light bulb) and an ammeter (control). Of course, we also have the proper wiring (insulated copper wire, for example).
You let me know if you understand this schematics:

Are you familiar with these electrical symbols?

 

[Apri1]

Circuits aren't my strong suit but it's fine yeah.

 

[start at edge]

Circuits aren't my strong suit but it's fine yeah.

All right then, it is really not about circuits diagrams and schematics, as this one is very simple. It is about the very strange phenomenon that occurs here, about the logic of the whole thing.
Anyway, for starters I will invoke some laws of physics (electricity) that I am sure you already know about:

• in a closed electrical circuit, the electrons travel from the conventional plus (+) of the source (battery), through the circuit, to the conventional minus (-) of the source, at the speed of light.
• an ammeter can show a certain value only if the circuit it is serially attached to is a closed circuit (if the switch in our image is closed), indicating that there was an electricity consumption there.
• an electrical circuit (such as the one from our image) will do absolutely nothing if attached only to one pole of the source (battery).

I will also explain a little about the ammeter: it is there as a witness, in case the view of the LED is blocked for some reason (it is round the corner of a building) or in case the LED is very far away and impossible to be observed with the naked eye (only through a powerful telescope), we need to make sure it lights up when electricity runs through it, so the ammeter shows us that the LED is lit up even if we can not see it directly.
Now I will continue to explain my thought-experiment.
Let us assume the following situation (scenario): we connect the LED through some sort of extension cord, a very long extension cord, so that we can place it 3 million kilometers away (10 light seconds away, as the light travels at round 300.000 kilometers per second), just as shown in the image below.

Once we have this all done, we start the actual experiment. We turn the switch ON and try to figure out what happens and especially when it happens.
In the next image, I prepared a time scale (from 0 to 20 seconds) and some small tags in the shape of arrows, which we assign to some certain events. The description of each of these events is in the image.
Our input parameter to the system is only one – the triggering event (turning the switch ON) and I placed it at the moment of “t0”. All the other resulting parameters are up to what the reader predicts or has certainty about.

What would your guesses (or certainties) be?
Where would you place the yellow, the blue and the red tags?
In other words – when do you think the LED lights up, when do you think the ammeter shows some value and when do you think you see the LED lighting up (through a powerful telescope, obviously)?
There is no rush, you just take your time and try to figure anything out as logical as possible about all this.
In addition, I will say that those 3 laws of electricity I mentioned, are already postulates, not needed to be proven. Still, there is a fourth law of physics that most people consider as being also a postulate, that is the statement that the speed of light is the maximum speed possible in our universe (according to Einstein’s multitude of theories). For many people it would sound as a sacrilege what I am about to say now, but I am not the only one having this opinion (in my case it is a certainty) – Einstein was wrong. About the quantum entanglement there is nothing “spooky at a distance”, as he used to say. There are some other famous things said by Einstein, and 2 of them in particular got my attention.

1. There must be some hidden variables, it is not possible to entangle 2 pair particles to simultaneously interact at huge distances.
2. People should be aware that passing time (unidirectional) is just an illusion, as the past, the present and the future practically happen simultaneously.

To me, these two statements somehow contradict each other and they were stated by the same person.
.. so, what do you think?

 

[Apri1]

I'm no good at physics but it looks to me like it'd take 10s to arrive at the led and turn it on, then 10s for the light from the led along with the return signal to head back to the viewer. So 20s cycles. This is ignoring brain processing time, which might mess up the order of observations. So the meter and the light would appear to turn on at the same time.

 

[start at edge]

I'm no good at physics but it looks to me like it'd take 10s to arrive at the led and turn it on, then 10s for the light from the led along with the return signal to head back to the viewer. So 20s cycles. This is ignoring brain processing time, which might mess up the order of observations. So the meter and the light would appear to turn on at the same time.

Don’t say that !! .. You’re brilliant at physics.
You’ll hear most people say “I’m not good at physics”, but in fact all of them are good at physics.
In fact, if digging deeper and deeper into physics, it eventually turns into pure math. Everything finally turns into math.
The logic you used to provide your answer is very solid. According to what you compiled to provide your answer, the result chart would look like this:

It is the most logical answer to come up with. Most people would come up with the same answer, but here is where the strangeness kicks in .. Have a look at how the correct result chart looks like:

The triggering event (turning the switch ON), the result event (LED getting lit up) and the witness event (the ammeter indicating) happen simultaneously. The only event that takes time, is the actual viewing of the LED light beam. I know, it sounds ridiculously strange, but within this thought-experiment there are also some thought alternate scenarios, which seem to be the right ones to approach in order to get the right answer. It is the typical situation when, at first sight, if a plausible answer is found, nobody bothers anymore to further investigate other scenarios or possibilities. In other words, the scenario you chose, even though it is most logical, is also collapsible by other scenarios, which prove it wrong.
It would be great if you further had a little patience to follow, because I will break down one of these alternate scenarios:
If the one thought to be true (yours), then let us assume that 18 seconds after the triggering event (t0) you decide to disconnect (unplug) the ammeter. This results into the ammeter not showing any electricity consumption at any time, which is impossible, because you can not have an LED emitting light without power consumption and it would mean that the LED emitted light for 8 seconds (from 10 to 18) without actually being connected to the power source. The only way to make sense of this, to have things happening as they naturally should, is to accept that those three events happen simultaneously, which means that the speed of light is some sort of zero, compared to the huge speed (probably infinite) at which these events happen.
Bottom line – it may be true that the speed of light is an upper limit, but a limit in the type of universe we got used to over many years of ignoring (even worse for some people – denying) other alternate possibilities. What this experiment actually tells us, is that something happens to time, so we should seriously reconsider this notion.
There is another alternate scenario that proves the first one wrong:
Imagine that you interchange the switch and the ammeter, as shown in image below:

In this scenario everything happens the same, even though the electrons go first through the ammeter, then through the LED and the last one through the switch, which could be easily be misinterpreted as EFFECT preceding CAUSE, obviously this is not the case. In this scenario, those three events happen also simultaneously.

 

[Apri1]

Unfortunately as I said, I'm not too good at physics. I do see the scenario you're talking about. Being able to flick the switch prior to completing a full cycle would need to "stop" it due to a broken circuit, but to do so it'd have to stop and send such information faster than the speed of light or somehow predict that you'd flick the switch.

I can't actually say what would happen in practice because this is far from what my expertise is in. My intuition says that breaking the circuit would cut the flow immediately. However my limited physics knowledge tells me that the electrical current would travel at the speed of light and no faster. And there's a clear contradiction there. Might be a good question for a physicist on what exactly would happen and how/why.

Too bad we can't actually make a 3 million kilometer long circuit to actually test this.

 

[start at edge]

Unfortunately as I said, I'm not too good at physics. I do see the scenario you're talking about. Being able to flick the switch prior to completing a full cycle would need to "stop" it due to a broken circuit, but to do so it'd have to stop and send such information faster than the speed of light or somehow predict that you'd flick the switch.

I can't actually say what would happen in practice because this is far from what my expertise is in. My intuition says that breaking the circuit would cut the flow immediately. However my limited physics knowledge tells me that the electrical current would travel at the speed of light and no faster. And there's a clear contradiction there. Might be a good question for a physicist on what exactly would happen and how/why.

Too bad we can't actually make a 3 million kilometer long circuit to actually test this.

My strong belief is that in the immediate vicinity of the whole circuit wiring, something happens to time.
As I mentioned before, the electrical signal (flow) might travel indeed at the speed of light, but speed means distance / (divided by) time. If time in the wiring becomes nonexistent indeed (or at least has some completely different meaning than we gave it until now), then everything makes sense.
About making a 3 million kilometer wire circuit (actually 6 million), it is easier than anyone can imagine, but I will not plunge into this one because someone could get a specific idea, a mind spark and this could generate extremely dangerous experiments to be performed.