Quantum Recorder and Magic.

From: George Levy <GLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 20:52:41 -0700

Mitch Haegel is an observer of the Everything list. He sent me this post. I
thought that sharing my response with the group may be appropriate.

Spudboy100.domain.name.hidden wrote:

> I was sad to read, yesterday, about the untimely passing of James Higgo -a
> real bummer. Very discouraging, even if MWI is trivially, true, as the
> scientists say.
>
> I do have a question for you. My question is: Is there anything you have come
> across in your readings that would indicate that the universe has the
> capability to store and retain "quantum states", also known as information?
> This of course would be the information of the past, that somehow gets
> instantly, recorded such as Unix does with its FORK command, or RAID-5 does
> with Microsoft networking, or the mirror-imaging done on IBM systems. This
> indeed is a computationalist approach, but it has always seemed worth
> exploring to me.
>
> When I think upon it, there must be a singular band of universes, that set
> the model, of which all other universes are spun off of. This band or
> aggregate would have all the nominal characteristics that would propagate all
> variations of other 'world-lines' I would imagine. Hence, this seems a
> possibly fruitful area to look at.
>

You are asking interesting questions. I am far from being an expert. I would be
nice if there was such a recorder. I haven't heard of anything like that. All I
can do is conjecture.From the quantum theory point of view nothing is impossible
provided it falls within the quantum indeterminacy window. Thus virtual particles
continuously pop in and out of the vacuum, violating the laws of conservation in
doing so, albeit for very short times. Thus the probability that such a recorder
exists is not zero. The question is what is its probability given our specific
point of view of the uinverse. Our specific point of view (anthropic constraint)
rules out any one performing this recording, that can be detected by means of a
small given number of photons. That rules out the neighbor next door, in fact any
one within the orbit of the moon or even further. It does not mean that this
recording cannot be done by someone made of dark matter for example.

WHOLE NEW PHYSICS WOULD HAVE TO BE INVENTED, CONSISTENT WITH OUR CURRENT PHYSICS
to explain this recording. Maybe this is what magic is. CONJURING THINGS UP BY
INVENTING THEM IN A CONSISTENT WAY. (This is also what engineers do!!!) How much
leeway do we have in this invention process? My guess is that the laws of physics
themselves will be found to be indeterminate at some basic level. Basic physical
constants such as e will have associated with them fundamental indeterminacy.
This may allow virtual physics to exist and all kinds of worlds, with all their
associated creatures and demons to be invoked. Clearly, a condition for their
existence is that the coupling from their world to our world would have to be
extremely weak since we haven't discovered them yet, but the coupling from our
world to their world would have to be strong for the recording to occur.

Therefore the process for working with these worlds is:

1) Defining the requirements for a world X
    - recording from our world by world X
    - consistency of world X with current observation
    - assume that a "back door" exist (method of control consistent with current
physics but not ruled out by observations yet)

2) Working out the consequences
    - Weak coupling from world X to ours (They cannot control us - We cannot
observe them)
    - Strong coupling from our world to world X (We can control them - They can
observe us)

3) Working out the physics of World X
    (Left as an exercise to the reader)

4) Use the back door to control world X

Now world X will have a recording of our world in any arbitrary resolution
desired.


A similar technique could be used to create magic implements. We have to invent
worlds which we can control and observe, and which can control and observe us
but in which controllability and observability are KEYED or ENCRYPTED. Then only
the owner of the correct key will be able to use those worlds. The method for
invoking/creating these worlds is similar to the one explained above.

1) Defining the requirements of world Y
    - Encrypted observability and controllability
    - consistency of world Y with current observation

2) Working out the consistent consequences

3) Working out the Physics for world Y
(Left as an exercise to the reader)

4) Use the keys to invoke and control objects/creatures in world Y which
ultimately control objects/people in our world.


> Have you taken a look at the Egroups List on Yahoo, called The Fabric
> of Reality List?
> This is based on David Deutsch's book The Fabric of Reality, and he is
> himself a frequent contributor. There is also at least two people from Wei
> Dai's Everything-List that participate there.

> Sincerely, Mitch Haegel

ABRACADABRA! this is just an encrypted word! Scary isn't it? :-)

George
Received on Thu Aug 16 2001 - 20:56:20 PDT