Is Quantum Mechanics Selectively Erasing Our Memory?

Usually, when something interesting like this is mentioned in PopSci, they usually mention that it was published in Nature or Science. However, they don't mention any journal name here, so I am guessing it was published in a no-name journal?

Would be nice to read the whole article if PopSci would give us a journal link.

@Mai2ine

The information (link) that you want is in the second paragraph of the the Guardian article that PopSci links to at the end of its article.

Interesting implications for deja-vu. If this is true then it is possible human beings are capable of intentionally moving forwards, or backwards through time. We might be reaching a point of singularity that dramatically changes how we view ourselves in this cosmos.

This is assuming we have "memory" at all. It could be something as made up as the monetary system.

It's kind of like Merlin, aging backwards, remembering the future, can't see the past. We think of time as moving, but I don't even know what that means. If time was a direction then we could go two ways, but it's more like a one way street for us.

What scares me is, knowing how you can't change the past, and if the past is a direction of time, then I'm assuming you can't change the future and free will is an illusion. ???

I'm not a physicist.

That being said I still do not ascribe to the Entropy school of thought. Physics is capable of producing an infinite number of examples of exactly the opposite of entropy - what Entropy proponents argue as randomness is nothing other than (currently) un-quantifiable dispersion of items/elements. "Nature abhors a vacuum" - it's a quotable quote for a reason - we simply do not yet have mathematical models strong enough to accurately simulate down to the smallest, most finite levels exactly HOW the food coloring will spread in a given glass of water due to minute variations unique to each glass and each solution of coloring....

I still have not addressed the thrust of this article - so i will do so now. Because nature abhors a vacuum, many would argue (me included) that time is singular in direction, though variable in speed/velocity (Einstein). Nature cannot fundamentally abhor a vacuum AND strive to create a vacuum by concentration of elements.....in the glass and dye example - would nature concentrate the dye? the Hydrogen of the water? the Oxygen? something else? all of them?

To accept that quantum effects are selectively erasing our memories means that we must accept the many-universe theory of cosmology as, like an infinite number of trains in two opposing tracks, we must be continually 'passing ourselves' in time. One set moving "forward in time" and the other set of infinite universes moving in the opposite direction...

But what do I know....I'm not a physicist LOL

Battleshield -

I'm not a physicist either... But reading Hawking, Feynmann, Schroedinger, Borh and Heisenberg does educate one a little...

'Nature abhors a vaccum' - This is accurate, in that in a vacuum matter will be 'sucked' into it by the lack of matter in the vacuum... this greatly outweighs the relatively weak force of gravity. However, according to quantum theory there are still virtual particles in the vacuum... meaning particles/anti-particles being spontaneously created and then annihalated which adds to the entropy of the universe again... through release of vaccum energy that actually has a repulsive effect on matter.

As for us not being able to predict on the quantum level how food coloring will disperse through water, we cannot predict this based on Heisenber's uncertainty principle... which states that the more accurately you measure the velocity of particle the less accurately you can meaure the location... and vice versa. These quantum fluctuations of uncertainty keeps absolute determinism an impossibility.

As for nature naturally decreasing entropy, what are your examples? Nature naturally gets more disordered, not less... I can't think of one example otherwise.

Addition -

On top of the virtual particles creations/annihilations there are what are called 'zero point fluctuations'... basically nothing is every trully a vaccum, nothing is trully ever motionless... pretty much the smaller in size you go down (down to and including the plack length) nothing is ever 0. Movement, gravity, mass, particles, energy levels... nothing is ever static when the scale of measure is small enough.

Unless I'm totally misunderstanding what the term 'quantum entanglement' means or my basic understanding of quantum physics is totally off, this article doesn't seem to make much sense at all.

Quantum entanglement (as far as I know) means the linking of two particles quantum states (spin etc.). How can a 'memory' a complex firing pattern of neurons be quantum entangled with anything? It's like saying that two hyrdogen atoms can make a molecular bond with my sense of self esteem.

Am I missing something here?

I believe a vacuum state is the norm and our (non-vacuum) environment on a planet with an atmosphere and pressure is the exception. With regard to space, when everything is within a larger vacuum, other forces rise to prominence such as Gravity and electromagnetism to gather and bind material to form planets.

Our own atmosphere (non-vacuum) is a result of these two more readily obvious fundamental forces. Therefore i do not see how vacuums can have a 'repulsive effect'. Removal of vacuum state within a non-vacuum environment is simply redistribution of whatever elements are around to do so to restore the lost equilibrium imposed by gravity and electromagnetism.

In my (Grossly ) ignorant point of view, what Science calls Entropy is simply a re-dispersal of matter, energy, etc. albeit in a way that science cannot measure or predict. Regardless of whether that inability to predict is due to deeper issues such as Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal or due to currently out-of-reach technological abilities, to label energy/mass redistribution as "chaos" and a fundamental factor or principle appears to be slapping a label on the unknown for convenience sake.

Energy/mass re-distribution has many effects and results in numerous other actions/re-actions to be sure (your matter/anti-matter statement)...but again, just because we don't know how or cannot predict the exact outcome does not mean it is chaos - it may well be a more ordered environment, but one we are currently incapable of modeling or predicting.

The life-cycle of stars (birth, life, and death) is an example of nothing more than organized re-distribution of elemental masses. Stars are formed in predictable ways, they 'consume' and 'shed' in predictable ways, and ultimately, they 'die' in predictable ways....but because we cannot model every last atom that plays a part in that process, we slap a label called 'entropy' on it to explain it away.

Wind on earth is nothing more than the flow of gases as affected by temperature, pressure, hydration, etc. They are not 'chaotic' they are simply not model-able sufficiently to accurately predict how the new wind-turbine in my backyard in Pennsylvania will affect the weather patterns over the South China Sea.

Inability does not imply magic - only ignorance, which i am probably displaying a whole lot of by conducting such a public argument on a topic i know so little about !!!

buckrodgers
What if time is not real but an illusion of our minds. We cannot physically go forward or backwards in time but only move relative to one another in time based on the relative amount of energy(momentum) we all possess. The only thing that can move through time is our thoughts which are made of a pure energy with no momentum. We can contemplate past events or vision future states of existence but can only physically live in the present. Each person can only live in their own present and relate to the present in which another person lives. No one can live in anyone elses present reality but only relate to it. In quantum existence we do not move through time because time is an effect and doesn't really exist. Time only has an effect on matter not on thought or spirit as some call it.

orangeblooddecal,

that's basically what this article is referring to, we live in between the third and fourth dimension, officially time is supposed to dhow our entire path from life to death as one big tube spanning from our birth time and space to our death time and space. but we only see it in moments.

what i gleaned from this article is that we actually go back in time but we just don't remember it because our memories are directly tied to the world/universe. kinda gives a new meaning to the phrase deja vu.

Sorry, but this engineer says "bullshit".

Entropy rules, simply because a system with high entropy is more likely than one with less. A dissolved sugar-cube does not (usually) reorganise itself because there are so many alternative states of high entropy. Simple as that. This is also the reason behind why it's very unlikely that you will get a sequence of lottery numbers like 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. There are so many other, non-ordered possibilities that on highly ordered one is very unlikely. Although possible in theory.

Any jibe about some mystical quantum spirit "erasing our memories" is crap. I think Maccone should clarify what he means, because currently he's just disgracing himself and not making much sense of himself. The increase in entropy in any system is a given, and the universe itself will succumb to it one day.

I am personally first and foremost an engineer, secondly I'm a mathematician and thirdly I'm a physicist. But what I am not, is a mysticist. I am perfectly comfortable with quantum uncertainity as it is. It's a weird science, but one that actually works.

The probability that a dissolved sugarcube spontaneously reassmebles is not zero, but it's not very much higher than that either. Which perfectly naturally explains why these kinds of events haven't been testified either. There is no memory erasing jinn, there is only Occams razor.

A note to the PopSci staff: I think it would be good idea to think twice befor publishing these kinds of kook-stories. The general public does not understand issues like quantum mechanics, and stories like these can only add to the confusion that is already there. Quantum mechanics is difficult, and that's why Bohr once also said "If you think you understand it, you don't understand it.".

But please, no mystical spirits anymore. OK?

@Quintus

exactly...that some guy floating in his mathmatical fantasy and coming up with blurps of nonsense....ok here it is:

SHOW ME PROOF

quantum mechanics to my knowledge is just jumble of nonsense, so you can pick out theoretical proof of ANY theory however insane it is. Only way to explain the universe, nonsense :)

just for fun, if anyone read the final books following
"The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy"....the last book had "Gods" final message to his creation.....wich ended up to be:

Im sorry for the inconvinience

I have to agree with Battleshield here. in the case of the dye in water example not only is the dispersion pattern predictable and calculatable but it MUST be predictable and calculatable. Every physical phenomina in the Universe is guided by laws of physics. If there was a force that was truely "chaotic" then that would mean that this force is not bound by laws. If that is the case then this force would be greater then the laws of physics thereby undermining ALL the laws of physics. In other words If there was true chaos then there would not be ANY laws of physics. The two are self defeating. The universe can not be both disorganized and organized at the same time. In the case of the ink in water there are countless millions of variables, of which if all were properly accounted for a computer could generate a pattern of dispersion that would exactly match the real dispersion under those same conditions. If this can not be done then there are no laws of physics.

Entropy isn't actually randomness in the sense you think it is at all. It's the quite predictable(ice cubes melt in water, ink disperses in liquid, (prediction) the universe will eventually be completely uniform(heat death of the universe)) "blending" of the universe that approaches total thermal equilibrium(inability to do work(move things)). It's often explained as randomness which can be misconstrued as random events but in reality it's disorder(think of mixing things up as opposed to carefully ordering them). It's not randomness in an unpredictable way but randomness in an orderless way.

NO...quantum mechanics is NOT selectively erasing our memory.

Maccone's hypothesis is BS because his premise is BS. He says time can move forward or backward. Well, maybe it can, but it doesn't. It only goes forward, so live with it (or die with it from old age.)

Also, he postulates that reverse entropy happens, it's just that we don't remember seeing it. Well, memory has nothing to do with it. There's a very simple way to test his theory. Put an ice cube in a hot cup of coffee and have a video recorder watching it 24/7 for a long time. Assuming that you could remember to watch the video at a later date, the video would surely show that the ice cube never reformed. On the other hand, if I ever witnessed an occurrence of reverse entropy, I would immediately jot down a note, or send someone,or maybe myself, an email to that effect. I never rely on my own (human) memory.

Check out the guy's resume. It looks like it was written by a 5th grader. His skill set includes 8086 Assembly language, Latex typesetting language, and DOS!!!
http://www.qubit.it/people/maccone/resume.pdf

If there is a method that can selectively erasing our memory.There will be no more murder for witnesses.I think we can "forget" but not "erase".

Regard,
Dave
http://droplt2.blogspot.com/

@almo6914
I really have to agree...

How about an idea. I would say, entropy has something to do with shape of elementary particles, otherwise they would eventually stack up according to their geometric properties. Also, such a small and light things should be very susceptible to various fields. Field interferences could also be the reason for quantum fluctuations, combined with measurement itself.
Another thought, why we feel the flow of time and we remember things, perhaps time itself has some sort of a structure, like we do. Events would be stuck up on each other and we can remember things, because we can retrieve information from within this structure. Only one thing is fast enough for thoughts and faster than light - absolutely empty and static space. Everything is in motion except space itself. So if some event is taking place somewhere in
empty space, new energy field is created, with its beginning attached in that point in space itself and part traveling somewhere, changing shape and energy properties along the way. If we need to remember something, we just send a signal through structure of empty space and receive
a description of an event as feedback, in form of data of field properties and boundaries, as they remain permanent in structure of empty space, so creating shape of time itself. Some event is started and spread into new space, leaving its permanent space and field structure behind. Perhaps that could be gravity.
Anyhow, our now is much like a view into the bright starry night, a look into the past. Now has already happened, somewhere in strongest or most probable electromagnetic force field interferences, which has determined ahead, where forces flow and mass has occupy space. In that way, we are always just remembering things, as we gather structured data and form a self aware thought.

Well this explains deja-vu...

This kind of stuff is why Quantum Mechanics is a big waste of time. Millions of dollars are spent, and genius minds waste time on, something that's _not science_. This article has one line: "The laws of physics work just as well if time is running forwards or backwards."

Full stop. Right there. We do not know that. We have no way of proving or disproving that yet. To build a theorem on top of a wild speculation is NOT SCIENCE. Why do we continue to run down this path?

This is not a rare thing amongst the assorted "Quantum" disciplines. Everything expects you to take seriously theories that are based on other theories which require yet another layer of.. not "theory" but wild speculation. How is this science? you might as well just say "Well, Wizards cause this to happen, now let's study why the Wizards feel it is necessary to make this happen?"

laws of quantum physics, he says?
erasing our memories?
time flows both ways?
well...if you use brown liquor, instead of blue dye, and drink enough of it, you can travel forwards in time, and though you didnt do anything wrong, the "quantum you" will have done horrible things that other people saw, and as soon as he goes to jail, he will go back to quantum world, and put you in the future he created for you.....with a real judge...and if the judge is a truly intelligent believer in quantum physics, all you have to say is "but your honor, i was drunk!!!"

he will immediately dispatch quantum officers to apprehend the culprit....and you will go back to life as usual....

but.....odds are, the judge doesnt believe in such fairy tales....you may, however, bring several books of babbling nonsense to court with you to try to educate his honor...if this doesnt work, just flow back in time, and fix everything, or forward to the day you get out of jail....see how easy that is?

yeah....quantum physics is real....heres another experiment you can try....drop a sledge hammer over your foot....if it flies into space, then gravity is ALSO an illusion, just like time.....

@Winwalker:

Excuse Me, just what in the world are You talking about?