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To: FredZarguna
Unless a great deal has been lost in the translation to lay-speak, this doesn't really seem to explain much of anything; nor is it a falsifiable theory, so it is not really science, simply an alternative metaphysical perspective.

I just can't agree. I believe that this paper points to a new way of understanding much. I have seen variants of this general postulation from the state space side which contains all possible outcomes from the beginning of time. The reality that we can observe and live in is the result of the collapse of this greater set of possibilities into actualities that we see as the flow of time.

This paper takes this general concept that has been around and more carefully defines it and relates it to the most vexing questions of "working" quantum mechanics and thus clears away the paradoxes and muddles that point to completely illogical conclusions from the view of standard reasoning, but are completely possible from a quantum mechanical stand point.

This theory explains why what is ... is.. and what is not is not, by proposing a set of possibilities that are, if you would, meant to be.

Now he may or may not be correct about this.. for ultimately this might lead to some sense of pre-destination, but as they state in the article, the system he proposes allows for intention, human interaction, other interaction to determine the state, like picking one chute rather than the other in a water park which points reality in that direction never to return to the same choice point again.

56 posted on 08/18/2009 12:41:18 PM PDT by dalight
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To: dalight
I have seen variants of this general postulation from the state space side which contains all possible outcomes from the beginning of time. The reality that we can observe and live in is the result of the collapse of this greater set of possibilities into actualities that we see as the flow of time.

Stated very imprecisely, what you are describing is nothing more than the Feynman Path Integral Formulation. Not new.

58 posted on 08/18/2009 1:17:21 PM PDT by FredZarguna (It looks just like a Telefunken U-47. In leather.)
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To: dalight
Now he may or may not be correct about this.. for ultimately this might lead to some sense of pre-destination...

Possibly, but I think not. The article states, "... the invariant set is in part characterized by the experiments that humans perform on it, which is to say that experimenters do indeed play a key role in defining states of physical reality."

This is a fancy way of putting the rather common-sense position that actions have consequences. Further, however, it lends a temporal aspect to reality -- "the invariant set" is not static per se, but rather unfolds as "observers" (however defined) interact with the existing invariant set.

The concept of predictability fits nicely into this structure: the fact of my deciding to do a thing, at a particular point in time, closes off other possible actions; the reduced set of actions will fall in the vicinity of a future "path," which gets wider with distance from the decision point.

Of course, none of this is particularly new -- it's been the plot of many a sci-fi novel -- but if Mr. Palmer has managed to formalize it in a useful way, that would indeed be new.

59 posted on 08/18/2009 1:29:25 PM PDT by r9etb
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