Quantum retrocausality - breaking causality in time - evidence against determinism?

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value
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Quantum retrocausality - breaking causality in time - evidence against determinism?

Post by value »

In a discussion about the potential fundamental impossibility of true randomness which - if true - would imply that determinism cannot be true, the concept quantum retrocausality was briefly discussed which - if true - would also imply that determinism cannot be true.

(2021) Quantum retrocausality may give us free will
This means a person could actually make a choice that causes their past - or so to speak 'change causality of the past'.

There is no reason to believe that the past is actually fixed and the future is not. It may be just as likely that they are both unfixed as fixed and that the past that we remember in our brains, books, computers, and so on is more of a set of information that is continually being updated in time. This means that causality is not true in time.

https://medium.com/the-infinite-univers ... ed9530509c

Why would retrocausality be possible?

My own theory indicates that value in the world requires 'a priori meaning'. Value would be assigned meaning. That meaning must be explained (have an origin) and that what fundamentally precedes value (as origin) is necessarily a priori. The logic would be simple.

A priori meaning as origin of value would not allow for the concept 'true randomness' because value (e.g. a pattern) would break the purity of the randomness.

A priori meaning would also imply that determinism is not possible.

Philosopher William James - the "father of American psychology" - had the following perspective on free will.

William James developed his two-stage model of free will. In his model, he tries to explain how it is people come to the making of a decision and what factors are involved in it. He firstly defines our basic ability to choose as free will. Then he specifies our two factors as chance and choice. "James's two-stage model effectively separates chance (the in-deterministic free element) from choice (an arguably determinate decision that follows causally from one's character, values, and especially feelings and desires at the moment of decision)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James#Free_will

His perspective would imply that a 'choice' can be considered pseudo-predetermined from a explanative psychology perspective, however, the potential for thought would involve a factor of which it cannot be said that it is deterministic which would add the quality free will to a choice. That 'factor' would be a priori meaning.

A priori meaning as ground for value in the world implies that it cannot be said that the world is predetermined 'in time'. The indicated time would not be empirical time that can be observed by looking out into the cosmos but actual in-the-moment time experience that allows for change.

A priori meaning would perform as origin of signification for the cosmos and consciousness would be a direct manifestation of that 'pure meaning' that seeks itself (its own origin) which is 'meaning' in the form of truth, beauty, value, good etc.

Consciousness would be a performance on behalf of signification which means that consciousness signifies the world into reality in the form of a experience. That world itself performs in the same way on a fundamental level and each part of the cosmos signifies itself into Nature - from the inside-out - through signification.

French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas - an icon of Western philosophy that is researched by dedicated scholars today - says the following:

"in renouncing intentionality as a guiding thread toward the eidos [formal structure] of the psyche … our analysis will follow sensibility in its pre-natural signification to the maternal, where, in proximity [to what is not itself], signification signifies before it gets bent into perseverance in being in the midst of a Nature. (OBBE: 68, emph. added) "
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness." (Levinas in film Absent God 1:06:22)

It would be nonsensical for parts in the cosmos to stand independent and separate to then interact with 'the world' deterministically. It would require some sort of magical 'outside-in' intelligence or Being to construct the parts of the world together using fixed 'laws'.

Determinism and religion

Determinism is closer to compatibility with religions then the idea of 'pure meaning' as true ∞ Infinite origin of the cosmos. That this is true might be evident from the 2022 book Reality+ by philosopher David Chalmers.

The book is essentially a display that determinism necessarily results in deism - a belief in God or something similar such as 'simulation theory'.

From Dualism to Deism
In this latest offering, Chalmers seems to have come full circle, articulating what he describes as an entirely naturalistic account of God—i.e., a god not exempt from natural laws. That is why the book could mark a turning point in educated opinion. It may be that Chalmers will do for deism what he was able to do for consciousness: make the idea respectable again.
Science, 4 February, 2022 issue

With a priori meaning, relevance of each empirical part in the cosmos must originate from within and that 'within' is ultimately an area of 'pure meaning' that precedes (or lays 'beyond') space and time. In physics that area is currently referred to as 'non-locality' with 'non' being a descriptor of what the human can 'see' in it.

Albert Einstein shared the following prophecy about non-locality:

Perhaps... we must also give up, by principle, the space-time continuum,” he wrote. “It is not unimaginable that human ingenuity will some day find methods which will make it possible to proceed along such a path. At the present time, however, such a program looks like an attempt to breathe in empty space."

It involves a meaning 'beyond' space and time (i.e. that 'precedes' it from a fundamental philosophical perspective). It is a reference to 'a priori' meaning from the perspective of value (anything empirical).

Within Western philosophy, the realm beyond space has traditionally been considered a realm beyond physics — the plane of God’s existence in Christian theology. In the early eighteenth century, Gottfried Leibniz’s “monads” — which he imagined to be the primitive elements of the universe — existed, like God, outside space and time. His theory was a step toward emergent space-time, but it was still metaphysical, with only a vague connection to the world of concrete things. "

What precedes a subjective perspective fundamentally is the only possible ground for significance within that subjective perspective. Therefore the origin of a subjective perspective lays beyond it from within that perspective.

Signification is primary - a priori. A 'ground for significance' would refer to a philosophical plausible ground. Nothing else than the origin of a subjective perspective - of existence and of Being - can lay beyond a subjective perspective. This explains why 'beyond' and 'precede' refer to the same.

A priori meaning would perform as origin of signification for the cosmos and consciousness would be a direct manifestation of that 'pure meaning' that seeks itself (its own origin) which is 'meaning' in the form of truth, beauty, value, good etc.

--

Questions:
  1. what do you think of the idea 'a priori meaning' as origin of the cosmos and consciousness? Do you believe that the idea is wrong? If so, why?
  2. do you think that the concept quantum retrocausality is valid? If so, does it prove that determinism is invalid?
value
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Posts: 748
Joined: December 11th, 2019, 9:18 am

Re: Quantum retrocausality - breaking causality in time - evidence against determinism?

Post by value »

value wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 8:08 amFrench philosopher Emmanuel Levinas - an icon of Western philosophy that is researched by dedicated scholars today - says the following:

"in renouncing intentionality as a guiding thread toward the eidos [formal structure] of the psyche … our analysis will follow sensibility in its pre-natural signification to the maternal, where, in proximity [to what is not itself], signification signifies before it gets bent into perseverance in being in the midst of a Nature. (OBBE: 68, emph. added) "
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness." (Levinas in film Absent God 1:06:22)
Does anyone have a comment or perspective on this? Emmanuel Levinas is a respected philosopher.
  • Why would 'signification' (the act of valuing) lay at the root of the cosmos?
  • What could explain that signification? Is it self-evident somehow? If so, how?
  • Why would signification be 'bent into perseverance (i.e. 'value') in the midst of a Nature'? What is 'midst'?
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The Beast
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Re: Quantum retrocausality - breaking causality in time - evidence against determinism?

Post by The Beast »

In most Universal theories the initial state was one of supersymmetry. It is obvious that there is also the spontaneous breaking of symmetry if we are to account for the Universe. The word spontaneous is synonymous with no reason or a random occurrence. In this first occurrence a different set of rules and formation occurred. Many more happened afterwards making it a deterministic occurrence for it was determine that it could happen the random part was where it could happen (like the lottery). Symmetries that originated from the second instantiation were broken into a third a fourth and more up to the state of current Universal reality. It is possible that all levels still exist and there may be a level above our state of consciousness. Determinism and randomness coexist. As far as retrocausality and the theory of how it is instantiated it seems extreme and yet a possible after consciousness occurrence. However, it is not prevalent in the Universe. If retrocausality is possible the deterministic variable is a possible boundary like the one in the formation of matter.
value
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Posts: 748
Joined: December 11th, 2019, 9:18 am

Re: Quantum retrocausality - breaking causality in time - evidence against determinism?

Post by value »

The Beast wrote: August 4th, 2022, 10:15 am In most Universal theories the initial state was one of supersymmetry. It is obvious that there is also the spontaneous breaking of symmetry if we are to account for the Universe. The word spontaneous is synonymous with no reason or a random occurrence. In this first occurrence a different set of rules and formation occurred. Many more happened afterwards making it a deterministic occurrence for it was determine that it could happen the random part was where it could happen (like the lottery). Symmetries that originated from the second instantiation were broken into a third a fourth and more up to the state of current Universal reality. It is possible that all levels still exist and there may be a level above our state of consciousness. Determinism and randomness coexist. As far as retrocausality and the theory of how it is instantiated it seems extreme and yet a possible after consciousness occurrence. However, it is not prevalent in the Universe. If retrocausality is possible the deterministic variable is a possible boundary like the one in the formation of matter.
How would the idea of a 'begin' be justifiable if not within a subjective perspective i.e. within space-time? Do you not believe that something more fundamental must provide the basis for space-time and if so, that the idea of an 'initial state' of the cosmos would be absurd?

The idea of breaking true randomness with 'a possibility' of something happening would be absurd as well as a pattern (i.e. 'a') would break the purity of randomness which means that true randomness cannot 'have existed' in the first place.

If retrocausality would be deterministic, what would be the justification for such an idea in the face of an unknown (apparently infinite) future?
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The Beast
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Re: Quantum retrocausality - breaking causality in time - evidence against determinism?

Post by The Beast »

The absurd. It is the genre in this our subject. Astrophysicists opened the door with the abundant modified Newtonian dynamics and the unknown gravity. I can hypothesize with a few facts. I follow two metaphysical axions: 1.-This which exist always existed and 2.- As above so is below.
There is a well-defined boundary separating alive and inert. Measurements at the boundaries of galaxies produced results in the densities of matter that suggest a boundary. This boundary of a galaxy with the void existing between galaxies has the unknown quality and obviously we have this quality defined as alive.
I could expand in the idea of supersymmetry and introduce the unknown force instantiating the first breaking of symmetry. From known black holes evolution of knowledge that it is now a paradigm: the Hawkins radiation happening at the horizon. Although the particles involved are mostly photons, it is accepted that they could be other particles (electrons…). The event horizon interest me in reference to the last scattering surface mentioned by the BB and whether they contain electrons and if they coexist with baryons. My hypothesis takes many turns, but the bottom line is the antimatter and I’m waiting to see whether there a mechanism by which antimatter has the effects of gravity (if gravity can be produced at the quantum level) to explain or not a Universal closed loop.
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Re: Quantum retrocausality - breaking causality in time - evidence against determinism?

Post by 3017Metaphysician »

value wrote: August 3rd, 2022, 8:08 am In a discussion about the potential fundamental impossibility of true randomness which - if true - would imply that determinism cannot be true, the concept quantum retrocausality was briefly discussed which - if true - would also imply that determinism cannot be true.

(2021) Quantum retrocausality may give us free will
This means a person could actually make a choice that causes their past - or so to speak 'change causality of the past'.

There is no reason to believe that the past is actually fixed and the future is not. It may be just as likely that they are both unfixed as fixed and that the past that we remember in our brains, books, computers, and so on is more of a set of information that is continually being updated in time. This means that causality is not true in time.

https://medium.com/the-infinite-univers ... ed9530509c

Why would retrocausality be possible?

My own theory indicates that value in the world requires 'a priori meaning'. Value would be assigned meaning. That meaning must be explained (have an origin) and that what fundamentally precedes value (as origin) is necessarily a priori. The logic would be simple.

A priori meaning as origin of value would not allow for the concept 'true randomness' because value (e.g. a pattern) would break the purity of the randomness.

A priori meaning would also imply that determinism is not possible.

Philosopher William James - the "father of American psychology" - had the following perspective on free will.

William James developed his two-stage model of free will. In his model, he tries to explain how it is people come to the making of a decision and what factors are involved in it. He firstly defines our basic ability to choose as free will. Then he specifies our two factors as chance and choice. "James's two-stage model effectively separates chance (the in-deterministic free element) from choice (an arguably determinate decision that follows causally from one's character, values, and especially feelings and desires at the moment of decision)."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James#Free_will

His perspective would imply that a 'choice' can be considered pseudo-predetermined from a explanative psychology perspective, however, the potential for thought would involve a factor of which it cannot be said that it is deterministic which would add the quality free will to a choice. That 'factor' would be a priori meaning.

A priori meaning as ground for value in the world implies that it cannot be said that the world is predetermined 'in time'. The indicated time would not be empirical time that can be observed by looking out into the cosmos but actual in-the-moment time experience that allows for change.

A priori meaning would perform as origin of signification for the cosmos and consciousness would be a direct manifestation of that 'pure meaning' that seeks itself (its own origin) which is 'meaning' in the form of truth, beauty, value, good etc.

Consciousness would be a performance on behalf of signification which means that consciousness signifies the world into reality in the form of a experience. That world itself performs in the same way on a fundamental level and each part of the cosmos signifies itself into Nature - from the inside-out - through signification.

French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas - an icon of Western philosophy that is researched by dedicated scholars today - says the following:

"in renouncing intentionality as a guiding thread toward the eidos [formal structure] of the psyche … our analysis will follow sensibility in its pre-natural signification to the maternal, where, in proximity [to what is not itself], signification signifies before it gets bent into perseverance in being in the midst of a Nature. (OBBE: 68, emph. added) "
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness." (Levinas in film Absent God 1:06:22)

It would be nonsensical for parts in the cosmos to stand independent and separate to then interact with 'the world' deterministically. It would require some sort of magical 'outside-in' intelligence or Being to construct the parts of the world together using fixed 'laws'.

Determinism and religion

Determinism is closer to compatibility with religions then the idea of 'pure meaning' as true ∞ Infinite origin of the cosmos. That this is true might be evident from the 2022 book Reality+ by philosopher David Chalmers.

The book is essentially a display that determinism necessarily results in deism - a belief in God or something similar such as 'simulation theory'.

From Dualism to Deism
In this latest offering, Chalmers seems to have come full circle, articulating what he describes as an entirely naturalistic account of God—i.e., a god not exempt from natural laws. That is why the book could mark a turning point in educated opinion. It may be that Chalmers will do for deism what he was able to do for consciousness: make the idea respectable again.
Science, 4 February, 2022 issue

With a priori meaning, relevance of each empirical part in the cosmos must originate from within and that 'within' is ultimately an area of 'pure meaning' that precedes (or lays 'beyond') space and time. In physics that area is currently referred to as 'non-locality' with 'non' being a descriptor of what the human can 'see' in it.

Albert Einstein shared the following prophecy about non-locality:

Perhaps... we must also give up, by principle, the space-time continuum,” he wrote. “It is not unimaginable that human ingenuity will some day find methods which will make it possible to proceed along such a path. At the present time, however, such a program looks like an attempt to breathe in empty space."

It involves a meaning 'beyond' space and time (i.e. that 'precedes' it from a fundamental philosophical perspective). It is a reference to 'a priori' meaning from the perspective of value (anything empirical).

Within Western philosophy, the realm beyond space has traditionally been considered a realm beyond physics — the plane of God’s existence in Christian theology. In the early eighteenth century, Gottfried Leibniz’s “monads” — which he imagined to be the primitive elements of the universe — existed, like God, outside space and time. His theory was a step toward emergent space-time, but it was still metaphysical, with only a vague connection to the world of concrete things. "

What precedes a subjective perspective fundamentally is the only possible ground for significance within that subjective perspective. Therefore the origin of a subjective perspective lays beyond it from within that perspective.

Signification is primary - a priori. A 'ground for significance' would refer to a philosophical plausible ground. Nothing else than the origin of a subjective perspective - of existence and of Being - can lay beyond a subjective perspective. This explains why 'beyond' and 'precede' refer to the same.

A priori meaning would perform as origin of signification for the cosmos and consciousness would be a direct manifestation of that 'pure meaning' that seeks itself (its own origin) which is 'meaning' in the form of truth, beauty, value, good etc.

--

Questions:
  1. what do you think of the idea 'a priori meaning' as origin of the cosmos and consciousness? Do you believe that the idea is wrong? If so, why?
  2. do you think that the concept quantum retrocausality is valid? If so, does it prove that determinism is invalid?
value!

I love the quotes. Here's my succinct answers to your questions in respective fashion.

1. A priori meaning, as to the origin of the cosmos and consciousness existence would involve logically necessary truth's. Logically necessary truth's (a priori) can be easily constructed via the infamous ontological arguments and cosmological arguments, relative to a 'super-turtle' that stops infinite regress. Personally, I've always embraced the cosmological arguments over the ontological one's since they don't involve the explicit existence or explanation of consciousness (a Being that logically we are supposed to understand). The concept of God itself is supposed to be logically impossible, otherwise there is no need to posit God because we would know everything. As such, the ontological arguments assumes we understand what consciousness really is... .

2. At the most fundamental level of physical existence, yes, quantum indeterminism and/or uncertainty exists. Not pure chaos by any stretch, but rather only probabilities that exist. Despite arguments to suggest otherwise, there is no getting around the free will analogy to that. Life is both chance and choice, determinism and indeterminism, contingency and necessity, static and dynamic, and so on. Many phenomena bear this out. Whether its Gödel, Heisenberg Turing, or Wheeler's PAP and cloud experiments, to James'' stream of consciousness', there exists an amalgamation of chance and choice, (randomness and choice) and things (consciousness/quantum phenomena) that seem to hold an independent existence.

In a theological context (metaphorically), some say you have to walk the path before God can cross it. That path involves both your discovery and uncovery of your own Being [Maslownian paraphrase]. And along that path, as James would argue, in one's stream of consciousness we often pick and choice from random stream's or events that are in front of us. And that includes the conscious ideas that happen to us, not by us. We encounter a landscape that we learn how to navigate through making choices as we experience our experiences. That is just one aspect of the freedom of choice. Not to mention the metaphysical aspects of the (free) Will itself.

Actually, choice in itself, is quite an Existential phenomenon. Or, perhaps it's not really a phenomenon at all; it's more of a logically necessary thing-in-itself(?)
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein
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The Beast
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Re: Quantum retrocausality - breaking causality in time - evidence against determinism?

Post by The Beast »

Quantum retrocausality pre-BB might had happened within the all probable creation of exotic matter. It could be out there as a phenomenon of the pre and post BB. However, it is not a landscape. It is a landslide. A contributor to the BB. Not sure as to an assigned metaphysical significance.
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