Quantum Physics: More causality weirdness (General)

by dhw, Sunday, August 21, 2016, 11:46 (3014 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Who or what came first can be confusing in this experiment:-https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101749-quantum-trick-sees-two-things-happen-befor...-QUOTE: Normally, it's easy for us to say that event A happens before event B, or vice versa. But Giulia Rubino and her colleagues have created a superposition in which these seemingly contradictory scenarios are in superposition. “If you put together quantum mechanics and causal relations, a situation arises in which there is no pre-defined causal order,” she says. “It's counter-intuitive.” 
Of course, that's not quite what's happening, just as the particle in the double slit experiment doesn't truly go through both slits at once - it's just we don't have the language to describe the truly weird nature of the quantum realm that bubbles beneath our layer of reality. (David's bold)-“'Time itself might be undefined in these situations,” says team member Mateus Araújo. “The whole confusion with quantum mechanics is unfamiliarity, something that just doesn't match our macroscopic, classical experience.”-"We're really pushing the mysteries and confusion of quantum physics to the absolute limit,” says Matty Hoban at the University of Oxford. “We don't have a good picture of what reality is.” (David's bold)-David's comment: the two bolds are exactly my point. It seems as if the reality we experience is grounded in quick sand.-Here is another astonishing experiment conducted by Quantum Physics Professor Mia Pratt, from the University of London. She read about a research project at Princeton, which concluded that “there may be no objective reality at all”, and their findings implied “that by our conscious intent we bring into manifestation what we want to perceive - that we can and do shape our reality” (my bold). Another research project threw into question the causal order of events, which led a prominent retired physician to comment “it seems as if the reality we experience is grounded in quick sand.” At 4.30 pm on Friday 19 August 2016, at the height of the rush hour, Professor Pratt positioned herself on the pavement between bus stops in Oxford Street, to wait for a 159 bus (we do not know why it had to be a 159, but quantum science is a weird business). At 5 pm (London buses are often a long time a'comin') the bus came into view. At 5.01 pm, she stepped from the pavement into the road. Eyewitnesses all agree that her face was contorted with intense concentration, as if she were somehow making a conscious effort to shape her reality. Her obituary, written by her esteemed colleague Professor Ivor Theery, will appear in The Times tomorrow. I have had a sneak preview. He concludes: “It seems as if the reality we experience may not be grounded in quicksand after all.”