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Retrocausality
Retrocausality, or backwards causation, is a concept of cause and effect in which an effect precedes its cause in time and so a later event affects an earlier one. In quantum physics, the distinction between cause and effect is not made at the most fundamental level and so time-symmetric systems can be viewed as causal or retrocausal. Philosophical considerations of time travel often address the same issues as retrocausality, as do treatments of the subject in fiction, but the two phenomena are distinct. Philosophy Philosophical efforts to understand causality extend back at least to Aristotle's discussions of the four causes. It was long considered that an effect preceding its cause is an inherent self- contradiction because, as 18th century philosopher David Hume discussed, when examining two related events, the cause is by definition the one that precedes the effect. The idea of retrocausality is also found in Indian philosophy. It was defended by at least two Indian Buddhis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newcomb's Paradox
In philosophy and mathematics, Newcomb's paradox, also known as Newcomb's problem, is a thought experiment involving a game between two players, one of whom is able to predict the future with near-certainty. Newcomb's paradox was created by William Newcomb of the University of California's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. However, it was first analyzed in a philosophy paper by Robert Nozick in 1969 and appeared in the March 1973 issue of ''Scientific American'', in Martin Gardner's " Mathematical Games". Reprinted with an addendum and annotated bibliography in his book ''The Colossal Book of Mathematics'' (). Today it is a much debated problem in the philosophical branch of decision theory. The problem There are two agents: a reliable predictor and a player. Two boxes are designated A and B. The player is given a choice between taking only box B or taking both boxes A and B. The player knows the following: * Box A is transparent and always contains a visible $1,000. * Box B is opa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grandfather Paradox
A temporal paradox, time paradox, or time travel paradox, is a paradox, an apparent contradiction, or logical contradiction associated with the idea of time travel or other foreknowledge of the future. While the notion of time travel to the future complies with the current understanding of physics via relativistic time dilation, temporal paradoxes arise from circumstances involving hypothetical time travel to the past – and are often used to demonstrate its impossibility. Types Temporal paradoxes fall into three broad groups: bootstrap paradoxes, consistency paradoxes, and Newcomb's paradox. Bootstrap paradoxes violate causality by allowing future events to influence the past and cause themselves, or " bootstrapping", which derives from the idiom "." Consistency paradoxes, on the other hand, are those where future events influence the past to cause an apparent contradiction, exemplified by the grandfather paradox, where a person travels to the past to prevent the conception ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fazang
Fazang (; 643–712) was a Sogdian- Chinese Buddhist scholar, translator, and religious leader of the Tang dynasty. He was the third patriarch of the Huayan school of East Asian Buddhism, a key figure at the Chinese Imperial Court, and an influential Chinese Buddhist philosopher. Some scholars see him as the main figure in or even '' de facto'' founder of the Huayan school. Fazang's ancestors came from the Central Asian region of Sogdia, a major center for Silk Road trade, but he was born in the Tang capital of Chang'an (now Xi'an), where his family had become culturally Chinese. Fazang was known for his skill as a translator, knowledge of Sanskrit, and for his efforts to produce a new translation of an extended edition of the '' Gaṇḍavyūha sūtra.'' He also composed an original commentary on the ''Avatamsaka Sutra'', called the ''Huayan jing tanxuan ji'' (''Record of Investigating the Mystery of the Huayan jing'').Lin, Weiyu (2021)''Exegesis-philosophy interplay : intr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antony Flew
Antony Garrard Newton Flew (; 11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) was an English philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught philosophy at the universities of Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading in the United Kingdom, and at York University in Toronto, Canada. For much of his career Flew was an advocate of atheism, arguing that one should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence suggesting the existence of a God surfaces. He also criticised the idea of life after death, the free will defence to the problem of evil, and the meaningfulness of the concept of God. In 2003, he was one of the signatories of the Humanist Manifesto III. He also developed the No true Scotsman fallacy, and debated retrocausality with Michael Dummett. However, in 2004 he changed his position, and stated that he now believed in the existence of an intelligent designer of the u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cause And Effect
Causality is an influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cause is at least partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is at least partly dependent on the cause. The cause of something may also be described as the reason for the event or process. In general, a process can have multiple causes,Compare: which are also said to be ''causal factors'' for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future. Some writers have held that causality is metaphysically prior to notions of time and space. Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses. As such it is a basic concept; it is more apt to be an explanation of other concepts of progression than something to be explained by other more fundamental concepts. The concept is like those of age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closed Timelike Curve
In mathematical physics, a closed timelike curve (CTC) is a world line in a Lorentzian manifold, of a material particle in spacetime, that is "closed", returning to its starting point. This possibility was first discovered by Willem Jacob van Stockum in 1937 and later confirmed by Kurt Gödel in 1949,Stephen Hawking, '' My Brief History'', chapter 11 who discovered a solution to the equations of general relativity (GR) allowing CTCs known as the Gödel metric; and since then other GR solutions containing CTCs have been found, such as the Tipler cylinder and traversable wormholes. If CTCs exist, their existence would seem to imply at least the theoretical possibility of time travel backwards in time, raising the spectre of the grandfather paradox, although the Novikov self-consistency principle seems to show that such paradoxes could be avoided. Some physicists speculate that the CTCs which appear in certain GR solutions might be ruled out by a future theory of quantum gravity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a popular science magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishes a monthly Dutch-language edition. First published on 22 November 1956, ''New Scientist'' has been available in online form since 1996. Sold in retail outlets (paper edition) and on subscription (paper and/or online), the magazine covers news, features, reviews and commentary on science, technology and their implications. ''New Scientist'' also publishes speculative articles, ranging from the technical to the philosophical. ''New Scientist'' was acquired by Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) in March 2021. History Ownership The magazine was founded in 1956 by Tom Margerison, Max Raison and Nicholas Harrison as ''The New Scientist'', with Issue 1 on 22 November 1956, priced at one shilling (). An article in the magazi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
No-communication Theorem
In physics, the no-communication theorem (also referred to as the no-signaling principle) is a no-go theorem in quantum information theory. It asserts that during the measurement of an entangled quantum state, it is impossible for one observer to transmit information to another observer, regardless of their spatial separation. This conclusion preserves the principle of causality in quantum mechanics and ensures that information transfer does not violate special relativity by exceeding the speed of light. The theorem is significant because quantum entanglement creates correlations between distant events that might initially appear to enable faster-than-light communication. The no-communication theorem establishes conditions under which such transmission is impossible, thus resolving paradoxes like the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox and addressing the violations of local realism observed in Bell's theorem. Specifically, it demonstrates that the failure of local realism doe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John G
John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Epistle of John, often shortened to 2 John * Third Epistle of John, often shortened to 3 John People * John the Baptist (died ), regarded as a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ * John the Apostle (died ), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ * John the Evangelist, assigned author of the Fourth Gospel, once identified with the Apostle * John of Patmos, also known as John the Divine or John the Revelator, the author of the Book of Revelation, once identified with the Apostle * John the Presbyter, a figure either identified with or distinguished from the Apostle, the Evangelist and John of Patmos Other people with the given name Religious figures * John, father of Andrew the Apostle and Saint Peter * Pope John ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantum Mechanics
Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is the foundation of all quantum physics, which includes quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science. Quantum mechanics can describe many systems that classical physics cannot. Classical physics can describe many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic and Microscopic scale, (optical) microscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at very small submicroscopic (atomic and subatomic) scales. Classical mechanics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation that is valid at ordinary scales. Quantum systems have Bound state, bound states that are Quantization (physics), quantized to Discrete mathematics, discrete values of energy, momentum, angular momentum, and ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Particle Physics
Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and neutrons, while the study of combinations of protons and neutrons is called nuclear physics. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and bosons (force-carrying particles). There are three Generation (particle physics), generations of fermions, although ordinary matter is made only from the first fermion generation. The first generation consists of Up quark, up and down quarks which form protons and neutrons, and electrons and electron neutrinos. The three fundamental interactions known to be mediated by bosons are electromagnetism, the weak interaction, and the strong interaction. Quark, Quarks cannot exist on their own but form hadrons. Hadrons that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tachyon
A tachyon () or tachyonic particle is a hypothetical particle that always travels Faster-than-light, faster than light. Physicists posit that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are inconsistent with the known Scientific law#Laws of physics, laws of physics. If such particles did exist they perhaps could be used to send signals faster than light and into the past. According to the theory of relativity this would violate Causality (physics), causality, leading to logical paradoxes such as the grandfather paradox. Tachyons would exhibit the unusual property of increasing in speed as their energy decreases, and would require infinite energy to slow to the speed of light. No verifiable experimental evidence for the existence of such particles has been found. In the 1967 paper that coined the term, Gerald Feinberg proposed that tachyonic particles could be made from excitations of a Quantum field theory, quantum field with imaginary mass. However, it was soon realiz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
