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Quantum Form

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Posted 04/15/03 - 01:05 PM:	#1
I've been wanting to post this thread for a while now, but haven't figured out exactly how to ask the question. Or rather, haven't figured out if there is much of a question to it. Maybe it belongs in the Science Forum, but I think it fits better here. Anyway... Physicists have teleported light waves, as of just recently. The process of teleporation is such that I will never understand, except by analogy. It involves quite a bit of quantum physics. When one object is teleported, it instantaneously goes from the base station to the receiving station. When the object is transported, something about the process of reading/transporting destroys the original object at the base station. But at the receiving station an exact copy is created. An exact copy. Yet it is not energy or matter that is transported. It is simply information, transported not really across distance, but instantaneously, in the framework of quantum reality. So my question is, where/what/when is this information? Its existence seems to be quantum. But I can't tell what it is, really. Is it reminiscent of form, in the philosophical sense? Or even Plato's Forms? Is there any way to answer this, or are we left with saying "Yup, that's the way science works"?

Paul
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Posted 04/16/03 - 02:09 AM:	#2
See my old thread Human Teleportation for details on the subject of quantum teleportation. Information is anything that preserves a set of internal relations. Information is anything which you choose to regard as having meaning not just for itself but for what you can translated back out of it. With the entire universe being interconnected, any object tells a tale about other objects... the times when this tale has been made especially easy for us to interpret, we call it information. Take photography for example. The information is the specs of silver which are arranged by the alteration of charges caused by the impact of light. No, Plato is not hiding in the photographic plate, it's simple cause and effect. Information is the localized case of where your mind is capable of realizing the interconnected nature of things, and where the nature of cause-effect and co-determination are more human visible.

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Posted 04/17/03 - 11:24 AM:	#3
Since all things in the universe are interconnected (which is basically what allows us to teleport anything) does that mean that the information of one object is somehow contained within all other objects? And when we teleport something, we're somehow tapping that information? And this is getting off topic, but since objects tell us about other objects, is it perhaps within the realm of possibility that in some future time (perhaps when we're emerging as a Type 2 or 3 civilization) that we'll be able to look at say, an apple, and know the status of a star on the other side of the galaxy?

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Posted 04/17/03 - 03:45 PM:	#4
I'm not suggesting the Douglas Adams idea of extrapolating the whole of the universe from a piece of cake. I mean that the each object is only part of the universe. I'm saying that no object is complete on its own. Nothing is independent of other things. Nothing can stand on its own, so to speak. You can look at a rock and see a rock, but that's an arbitrary decision to draw borders around it and pretend that it's independent. To find something which truly explains itself without need for refernece to context, you have to take in the whole universe at once. The process of individuation is therefore something within people rather than something in the world (though it's not entirely subjective, it's relational). The objective world is not individuated, it doesn't have objects... it's just a giant mesh.

metacristi
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Posted 04/28/03 - 02:50 AM:	#5
While I don't deny the possibility to obtain human teleportation (of course only if materialism,as we understand it now,is correct which is by no means clear-indeed for example property dualism or even protopsychism are still viable alternatives not soundly disproved yet;we are far to the understanding consciousness in its entirety) the reality is that we do not really make an instantaneous transfer of information.This means that,in the light of current knowledge at least,it is impossible to teleport someone without sending information using a conventional way of communication. Indeed,more generally,we cannot send useful information using quantum entanglement without resorting to a conventional way of communication! Here is an experiment proposed by someone on another site,ideally suited to demonstrate the above statement [quote]: I have a set of entangled particles, say twenty-six pairs, designated A-1, B-2, C-3, etc. I put all the particles into individual containers where they are unobserved and send all the numbered particles, 1, 2, 3 etc, on my spaceship a light year away. The corresponding lettered particles, A, B, C, etc. stay home with me. I have prearranged a code with my astronaut partner to send him FTL communications via the particles thusly: Data will be sent in five bit words at specific times and intervals. We have clocks that will stay well synchronized with each other, compensating for special relativity effects, so that our communications will start at noon on May 1, according to our protocol. At noon on the "common time" clock I will place particle A in a + environment, driving his to -. He will NOT observe particle 1 until 12:05 pm to ensure that I've taken care of my end and will confirm that he sees a -. Our protocol is for me to "set" four more particles at ten minute intervals, in order of B, C, D and E. When I want to send a "1" I will do so by changing the next-up particle from whatever state the previous one was. Conversely, if I want to send a "0" I will do so by repeating the same state as the previous entangled particle. So, my first message of 1, 1, 1, 0 would be sent as -, +, -, -, completing my five-bit (including the initial "synchronizing" bit) message. We agree to repeat this protocol every hour. Note that the astronaut would only test his corresponding particles 2, 3, 4 and 5 at ten minute intervals, but five minutes AFTER I set my end's half of the entangled pairs. This should ensure his states are already established. He should see the following sequence: +, -, +, +. Combined with his sync bit of -, he should read the data sent as 1, 1, 1 ,0 -- exactly what it was meant to be. The impossibility to obtain the instantaneous transmission of data as above has two causes: 1.For the synchronization of clocks it is needed a signal,usually an electromagnetic wave.This means that we already need a 'conventional' procedure but let's assume that the synchronization problem was solved before.Also even if particles are etangled they do not move with speeds greater than light's,they must arrive first at destination;let's ignore that too. 2.As I answered on that site the problem is that we cannot control the polarity of photons [it can be vertical,horizontal and any other angle] but only the difference in polarization between the pairs of photons. If we polarize them at let's say 90 degrees from each other we still do not know the state of the photon before measuring it.When we measure it we know it's polarization and consequently know the polarization of the entangled photon but the receiver cannot draw any meaningful conclusion from the measurements she makes...they would seem perfectly random.FTL transmission using nonlocality is not possible,at least in the light of what we know now. However there is still possible to make such a data transmission for example if the sender measures the polarity of all his photons at the beginning,forcing the other photons in the complementary state,and sends part of this info to the receiver using a classical [subluminal] way of transmission.This info must contain the 'direction' of the polarity in the form 'up 0 degrees'-'down 90 degrees' and moreover the photon pairs which are useful to encode the message and must be checked at the destination. At the reception of this information this type of transmission [not identical to the initial proposal however] is possible,of course if the clock synchronization problem is solved.Unfortunately no one can claim that we send information with supraluminal speeds... It's clear from above that we need a much greater number of entangled particles even if only two complementary states were possible [as in the case of spin]. Anyway the fact that counts is that without the info passed at speeds equal or smaller than light's the data transmitted cannot be 'decoded' at the receiver. As a conlusion in the case of human teleportation,assuming that our current conception of consciousness [the 'computable' emergentist approach or more generally,the materialistic-as it is understood today-approach] is correct and that all other technical problems are solved,we can obtain teleportation only if the place where we want to teleport is inside the reach of the 'conventional' way of sending information...

leucrotta
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Posted 05/01/03 - 02:27 PM:	#6
if we transported a human, and all of their "information", the way they look, act, are dressed, what and who they remember, their personalities, tastes, what they know, what they are like, will be the same although if the initial "person" was destroyed at the base transport, how would we know? we would esentially be confronted with the same person, yet at the same time not. although seeming as the new person thinks and knows as the original did, and as there would be (i assume) no way to know, would it matter? someone has to mention this- did the crew of the Voyager take this into account?
if no body speaks of remarkable things...

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Posted 05/01/03 - 06:33 PM:	#7
Well, Star Trek teleportation, or "transportation," I think is supposed to be actual transportation of matter and energy. The original, in their system of fiction, is not destroyed. At least that's how I've always understood it. Regarding human teleportation and the destruction of the original, the fact is that we simply don't know what would happen. It could be that the copy is physically identical, but when created at the receiving station simply dies, or is never animated at all, because of some spirit, soul, or other lifeforce imbued within us. Maybe no one thinks that's likely, but I don't want to be the first one to try it out. They'll test it with smaller living things first of course. After molecules they'll move up to bacteria and viruses and plants and mice. If they come out alright, maybe humans will use it. As to how you'd tell the difference, I for one don't know. Maybe there would be some sort of quantum signature that could be read. I don't know. Talk about Star Trek...

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