Physics and Metaphysics: Together at Last
Richard Alleyne reports on the intriguing theory that Hibbs Bosons from the future are preventing the Large Hadron Collidor from working:
The pair’s hypothesis centres around the Higgs Boson, a mysterious tiny particle and building block of life that it is hoped the LHC will discover.
They have come up with a theory that it will “ripple backward through time” and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.
“It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck,” Dr. Nielsen said.
Aha, I hear you saying, isn’t the idea of events in the future causing events in the past incoherent? Fortunately, I’m here to tell you that the answer is no. Way back in the July 1964 issue of Philosophical Review, Michael Dummett published “Bringing About the Past” which persuasively argued that backwards causation is just as conceptually sound as the idea of forwards causation. That said, it remains an open question of empirical science whether any actual examples of backwards causation exist.
Holger Nielsen and Masao Ninomiya think that we may have such a situation on our hands, and they argue in “Test of Effect from Future in Large Hadron Collider: a Proposal” and “Search for Effect of Influence from Future in Large Hadron Collider” that the circumstances now exist to perform empirical tests to locate backward causation in action.
49 Responses to “Physics and Metaphysics: Together at Last”
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October 13th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
the empirical evidence for backwards causation still isn’t strong though… how many time travellers from the future have you met? i’m not denying the possibility, but that is an issue to think about…
October 13th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Odd though, that the Higgs would have decided to break the LHC before it even reached the energy of the Tevatron at Fermilab, which has been humming along just fine for years now – and may, in fact, have produced a few Higgs bosons itself.
October 13th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
I have never been more sure of anything in my life: right now, Dan Brown is racing to his publisher’s office with a book proposal.
More seriously, I think we need a better phrase for backward causation. I’m thinking “Vu Jade.” George Carlin would be proud!
October 13th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
So backwards causation would be like me stopping this sentence in from the future before I
October 13th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Why would the Higgs Boson have an interest in the non-creation of Higgs Bosons? I am in no position to judge the fundamental physics of backwards causality (now that’s an understatement!), but I am in a position to judge the possibility of subatomic particles forming an intention.
October 13th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
More seriously, I think we need a better phrase for backward causation. I’m thinking “Vu Jade.”
Shouldn’t that be “Uv Ajed”?
October 13th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
You spelled “Higgs” and “collider” wrong.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Or maybe there just aren’t any Hibbs Bosons.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I meet the occasional time traveller from the future. Just the other day, future me showed up for a couple of beers.
Then future me got into his DeLorean and headed home. I’ve always found it odd that the DeLorean ended being the key to time travel.
Now, time travellers from the past – those are rare indeed.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I think the proper verlan would actually be javu dé.
The GeoCities link was downright nostalgic, but either the file isn’t there anymore or MY spelled the link wrong… shocking I know, but the pdf probably wasn’t called briningaboutthepast.
This link on scribd seems to be the same doc, though…
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6450333/Dummett-Bringing-About-the-Past
October 13th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
it remains an open question of empirical science whether any actual examples of backwards causation exist
Well, but there is a widespread consensus that Bill Clinton and Janet Reno were responsible for Ruby Ridge.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
They have come up with a theory that it will “ripple backward through time” and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.
Or like the Obama presidency causing the September 2008 market crash.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Well, but there is a widespread consensus that Bill Clinton and Janet Reno were responsible for Ruby Ridge.
And that President Clinton ordered the 1992 defense budget cuts.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I’m confused. What does this have to do with the large hardon collider?
October 13th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Science reporting strikes again, with the phrase “building block of life.” I suppose you could say that, in the same sense that you could say gluons are a building block of life, but I can’t imagine anyone he talked to using such a phrase. Of course, I’m having similar trouble with “abhorrent to nature” as a description of the collider’s operation.
Rich in PA @5, it would not be based in the particles having intentions, but in the solutions of the equations. There are analogies in other areas, for example where you compute the effects of a photon by summing the contributions over all possible paths, and find that most of them cancel out. Again, though, this is assuming that the claims are actually based in physics, versus (say) a funding battle.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Physics and metaphysics have been together since at least the pre-Socratics, Mr. Philosophy Major.
Or, if you don’t want to call that “physics,” at least since Descartes and Leibniz / Newton.
Hell, they’ve never really been apart. Even Mach and the Vienna cats were taking a stand on questions of metaphysics.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
See here:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=2373
October 13th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I have proof that future Higgs bosons are influencing the present. The Large Hadron Collider has mass, and yet it isn’t functional! Explain that, CERN boffins.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
As WoofWoof (#10) was hinting, GeoCities vaporizes on Oct 26th, and even now the links are usually broken. If scribd doesn’t do it for you, there’s still the Google html cache.
Having taken five minutes to review the document, I’m afraid I don’t see Dummett making the logical point Matt claims, but logic wasn’t one of my better undergrad classes.
From an isolated universe pov, I don’t see reverse causation playing out. The only difference between now and then is the instant state of energy/matter quantums. Things bounce around, and our neurology perceives a progression. For something to change the past, all of existence except that thing would need to put themselves back to their previous state… and what’s gonna re-rack the billiards?
But, the isolated universe is so last century. In the modern conceptual realm of a many-worlds quantum mechanics, the boson can “reach back” because it’s jumping over from another “timeline”, like Manning passing loooooong from Giants Stadium into a game in Philly.
October 13th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Finally a rational explanation for Florida 2000!
October 13th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
The article doesn’t have enough information judge, but it sounds like a science writer having his leg pulled or selectively quoting someone to be sensational.
October 13th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I honestly feel that one of the main reasons it’s important to pursue manned space flight and exploration is so that scientists can have more material challenges to deal with and less time to spend on theoretical BS. They need to stop trying to pull stuff like dark matter and dark energy out of their ass and give me my damn atomic torch drive!
Mike
October 13th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
This is all part of a republican conspiracy to blame Clinton for the Bush 41 recession, give Bush 43 credit for the Clinton expansion and blame Obama for the Bush 43 collapse.
Its used already by people blaming Obama for the $1.3 trillion deficit. The one he inherited.
October 13th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
“You see, in this particular case, forget everything you know about causality,” said the project lead. “The Higgs Boson should have appeared, but because it didn’t, it must have, um, traveled backward and destroyed itself, and, um, FUCK!!! JUST GIVE US SOME MORE MONEY ALREADY!!! BRING A TRUCK FULL OF UNMARKED 10′S and 20′S OR WE’LL…UM…DESTROY THE UNIVERSE!!!”
October 13th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
“Now, time travellers from the past – those are rare indeed.”
Not so. In fact, you’ve likely met dozens of them today alone. You, in fact, are a time traveler from the past. We all are.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Well, if the universe is an isolated system, then (according to the second law of thermodynamics) entropy can only increase.
Or, in other words, disorder must constantly increase and therefore you can’t go home again.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
So doesn’t backwards causation = determinism from our present-tense existence?
October 13th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
This is a good example of the educated fool phenomenon. You have to study hard, be smart, and do a lot of politicking to get a Ph.D. and then a university job in Physics, but once you are inside the inner circle you are allowed to hang out with your nerdy friends all day and use the math and the jargon to make up elaborate, intricate nonsense structures to amuse yourselves. The rest of us could do it to, but without the math and the jargon, people would just ignore us. The same is true of economics.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
A late comment, but I learned examples of “backwards causation” thirty years ago in a quantum chemistry lecture, having to do with the ability of electrons to behave as waves or particles. If you measure for wave activity, the electron behaves as a wave, whereas if you measure for particle activity, it behaves as a particle. If two electrons bounce off of each other, and you measure the activity of the first as a wave (or particle), then the second “becomes” a wave (or particle). That’s my memory of the lecture, at least, and while I have no idea if Dr. Nielsen is pulling our legs, the concept of backwards causation can’t be dismissed out of hand. It’s the kind of thing that made 8 a.m. p chem lectures worthwhile.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
We all move with the reins of the vectors driving us trailing along behind like a boat’s wake. If we speed up enough, so do the little reins of the vectors which drive us. They’re like a shadow. If we pop into some rabbit hole of Time, so does our shadow. And the shadow of the shadow etc. All the way down. Only little teensy things that have no mass, like my bank balance, can travel through time. And my bank balance has no intention. It can only grieve.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Dey tuk er jehbs!
October 13th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
You got to love this quote from the article:
“First scientists claimed it would create a black hole that would devour the world and then in September 2008 circuits in one of the magnets overheated causing damage and leading to a helium leak.”
Seems like the first problem is a lot worse than the second, eh?
October 13th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Don’t worry Large Hadron Collider, good Hibbs Bosonss
(is it hibbs or Higgs? Higgs, I think)from the future will come back, like Arnold in the second termiator move,
and protect you from the evil higgs bosons from the futre..
Will there be a Higgs Boson III? you betcha!
October 13th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Thanks for some of the jokes…
but just a reminder, theoretically, it *is* possible to make a time machine–especially if you buy some of Godel’s conjectures…
Another way that this isn’t manure would be that this is some kind of super-twisted quantum entanglement issue. Not really buying it of course.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
There is nothing metaphysical about this at all.
SciMon, you’ve forgotten the details of particle/wave duality that implies “backward causation”. Basically, there’s a variety of thought experiments that show that detection of a photon as a particle means that it acted like a particle prior to its detection as a particle. For example, I detect a single photon emitted from a distant star that has transited a region of space between here and there with a strong gravitational gradiant—another star, maybe. If the photon acted as a wave, it would propagate as a wave past that star. But as a particle, it would have to take a definite path past it. So detecting that particle today on Earth means that 10,000 years ago the photon acted like a particle. I may have some details wrong, but that’s the general idea. There’s some implications of QM that are weird with regard to time, like this.
In general, the important point is that in both quantum mechanics and in relativity, there’s no directionality of time. There’s nothing in either of these theories that says time has to go one direction and not the other. Because of this, there’s nothing in either of these theories that prohibit backwards causality.
I didn’t read Matt’s link, but I read the NYT article on this. It was very badly written in the worst sort of pop-science journalistic sense. Talk about intentions and the universe not wanting the Higgs boson to exist and such is very misleading. It seems better to me to just think about this in terms of it simply not being able to exist (at any time after the early moments of the universe). If we were talking about this happening at a micro level—for example, if they were saying that just as the energy is reached to create a Higgs boson, some other particle appears and interferes with the Higgs boson creation—people wouldn’t be talking about “metaphysics”, even though it would be the same sort of thing. It’s only that the weirdness is happening at the macro level—the level of humans doing things—that it seems weird. But the weirdness of quantum mechanics isn’t limited to the micro realm…that’s the whole point of the Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment. (Though it should be said that it was initially used as an argument against QM.)
Not that I think this theory has anything more than a minimal chance of being true—it’s just a barely plausible theory. But it’s not anti-scientific, or “educated stupid”. The universe behaves in all sorts of very counter-intuitive ways and the commonsense that says this is a dumb theory is itself pretty dumb and very often wrong. Commonsense says that nature abhors a vacuum and that you could drink from a 40 foot long straw. Commonsense says that time doesn’t change when you accelerate. Commonsense says all sorts of things about probability that are wrong. Commonsense about the physical universe is generally unreliable.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:11 am
What’s likely to happen if the machine ever gets aligned, properly cooled, and finally powered up?
All those scientists – or at least the top echelon of them – are gonna get chained to a big rock, and some pissed-off bird is gonna come flying by and rip everyone’s liver out, real slowly, every day. Then it grows back overnight – or at least a new one taken out of, say, an extreme sports idiot, gets FedExed in by some dude named Mercury. The organ gets re-installed. Then it all happens all over again the next day. Forever…. Read More
At least this is the way it went down the last time… Believe me, I have it on good authority.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:15 am
Backwards causation is giving people trouble? OK, here’s a concrete real-world example: Obama’s successful, peaceful, comprehensive withdrawal of U.S. armed forces from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010, and his striking a worldwide nuclear disarmament and climate change mitigation agreement in 2011, caused him to win the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
October 14th, 2009 at 5:40 am
Perhaps the reason why the Higgs boson is undetectable is because the heretofore undiscovered Hibbs boson (also known as the Yglesion) cancels the Higgs boson. (For the uninitiated, “bb” is 180 degrees out of phase from “gg”. Therefore, a superposition of “bb” [Hibbs] and “gg” [Higgs] has a null result.)
October 14th, 2009 at 5:43 am
@dds: Are you implying that the Norwegians are emissaries from the future?
October 14th, 2009 at 9:17 am
This strikes me as something like the notion of testing the Many Worlds formulation of QM by seeing which world lines get pruned. The idea is that you can’t observe any worlds in which you are no longer ‘present’, i.e., in which you’re dead; if you’re in a room with a bomb connected to a geiger counter which will trigger an explosion if a given atom decays, you’ll never see the bomb detonate. Other people will, of course, but you only reside in those lines in which the atom failed to decay. Somebody took this idea and made it into a story actually, only their bomb was the LHC, which destroyed the universe by making it decay from the false vacuum when it created the Higgs particle. The people of Earth didn’t notice this of course. All they saw was the collider suffering a series of inexplicable and increasingly improbable accidents.
October 14th, 2009 at 9:26 am
What does it imply for “backward causation” if the secret gets out — if actors in the present become aware of the intervention of time-travellers and start interacting consciously with them? Wouldn’t it tend to mess everything up?
Still seems to me that if people, or bosons, from the future really want to intervene successfully in the present or the past, they would necessarily want to keep their tracks hidden. Maybe this has happened (or will happen) a lot!
It seems like a problem for Nielsen and Ninomaya, because the “test” they want to conduct would have the effect of “flushing out” the influence of time-travelling bosons and displaying their effect for all the world to see. You’d think that if the bosons have really been (or really will be) effectively messing with the attempted start-ups of various supercolliders, then by the same token, Nielsen and Ninomaya should have had more trouble getting their articles published.
October 14th, 2009 at 9:33 am
ScentOfViolets @40, I recall two other stories along those lines (and there are surely others). SPOILERS FOLLOW.
Larry Niven (I think) had one where many-worlds had been validated, and the alternate realitis were even observable. This led to an uptick in the rates of murder, suicide, and general crime, as more and more people took the attitude “I might as well do it, some version of me will.”
Another (author forgotten, perhaps Greg Egan) had one closer to the one you mention. If many worlds is valid, then in some time line, you won’t ever die, although it might take some fairly bizarre chain of events – like aliens invading and raising the dead, if I recall the story correctly.
October 14th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Since I’m on science-fiction, I should also plug Niven’s “Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation.” He cribbed the title from an actual physics paper which demonstrated closed time-like loops (i.e., time travel) exist around a large dense rotating cylinder. “Large dense rotating” here means about a million-mile length of neutronium spinning at an appreciable fraction of light speed. Still, it’s only an engineering problem…
October 14th, 2009 at 10:21 am
It’s only an engineering problem if the universe lets you finish the thing, of course.
October 14th, 2009 at 10:46 am
So someone from the future is forgetting to spell check?
October 14th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Einstein was right about the shortcomings of Quantum Mechanics and so therefore String Theory is also the incorrect approach. As an alternative to Quantum Theory there is a new theory that describes and explains the mysteries of physical reality. While not disrespecting the value of Quantum Mechanics as a tool to explain the role of quanta in our universe. This theory states that there is also a classical explanation for the paradoxes such as EPR and the Wave-Particle Duality. The Theory is called the Theory of Super Relativity.
This theory is a philosophical attempt to reconnect the physical universe to realism and deterministic concepts. It explains the mysterious.
October 14th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
It looks like a carnival ride.
October 14th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Mark Fiorentino (”truth”) is a crackpot.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
[...] for example, I linked to what I take to be a pirate copy of Michael Dummett’s article “Bringing About the [...]