Talk:Transactional interpretation

message: Pavel V. Kurakin (Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, Russian Academy of Sciences, me).
John Cramer is very accurate and delicate in his formulations (as far as I can judge). He specially points, that TIQM is a kind of methodological or pedagogical trick to make understanding of quantum mechanics easier, and not an model of quantum phenomena.
(Last experiment by S. Afshar changes this situation, according to John Cramer. As John Cramer argues, Afshar's experiment verifies TIQM to be more consistent with quantum mechanical formalism and predictions as compared to Copenhagen interpretation.)
I am sorry, but I suppose that I am the only person on Earth to use publicly the term model as applied to quantum mechanics. I work in mathematical modelling team and this term is so natural to me. John Cramer delicately prefers to say "underling picture".
Contrary, well-mannered physicists imply that quantum mechanics is the "underlying picture" by itself. The idea to explain quantum amplitudes is sometimes assumed as a characteristic feature of crackpots (crackpot index by John Baez).
So, what prevents TIQM to become a model of quantum-mechanical behaviour of particles? In my view, there are 2 crucial points here:
1. back-in-time is unconceivable. One can indeed crack his pot trying to understand it.
2. why one transaction? Many possible detectors send their retarded conformation waves to one single source. So how a single transaction (i.e., a full pair of waves -- offer wave and confirmation wave) happens?
The problem of "back-in-time-propagation" can be solved, I believe. Hidden time concept puts both offer wave and confirmation wave in hidden (not physical!) time, while physical time is when transaction finally ends.
I assume my model as a direct development of John Cramer's TIQM and I ask for any criticism.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.70.27.189 (talk • contribs) 
Minerva100 (talk) 01:32, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Old talk

message: Consider a universe where waves of distortion in multiple dimensions propagate forwards and backwards in time, interacting to create a complex interference pattern. From this complex pattern emerge the observable phenomena we see, such as particles (the standing waves of the TI) and forces (momentum exchange).
In this hypothesis, knowing the underlying wave motion does not help us derive the physical laws obeyed by the emergent phenomena. It's like trying to derive analytically a formula describing the motion of objects in the n-body problem. It can't be done, even though Newtons laws are pretty simple. You have to simulate the system in a computer and see what happens. 
It would be interesting to compute the propagation of advance and retarded waves in a 6 dimensional universe, and see if the familiar effects of gravity and electromagnetism emerge. Maybe other, previously unknown phenomena would emerge, giving the experimenters something new to look for.
Why 6 dimensions? An obscure mathematical theory developed by Burkhard Heim links gravity and electromagnetism by adding additional dimensions to spacetime. This is also described in Michio Kaku's "Hyperspace". With 6 dimensions you get gravity and electromagnetism. With 8 dimensions you (apparently) get the remaining forces, plus some new ones. The new forces seem to produce effects like the accelerating expansion of the universe currently attributed to dark energy.
Quantoid 06:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Standing waves in Heim's multidimensional space 

message: Cramer's original formulation was well conceived and rigorous. He expressly emphasised that his interpretation (TI) was experimentally indistinguishable from that underlying the well worn Copenhagen Interpretation (CI). At the level of fact (the data) no distinction was possible. The distinction was at the level of theory - about how we think or otherwise "philosophise" the data and the maths.
All this meant was that TI and CI were experimentally compatible. The experimental success of one would always be the experimental success of the other. TI would work wherever CI worked because the underlying maths was the same.
But then an an otherwise interesting experiment by Afshar implied (for Cramer) that an experimental distinction could be demonstrated between TI and CI. In other words Cramer reinterpreted his own interpretation as not just distinguishable in terms of thought but experimentally distinguishable in terms of fact.
The origin of this "error" (for want of a more diplomatic term) is philosophical. On one side of the philosophical divide, we find theories (models, interpretations) are treated as if they were candidate descriptions for what is "really" happening out there in the world, so to speak. It's as if all that's required for a theory to succeed/fail is to be experimentally tested and found either correct, incorrect or the "jury out" on such. But some theories, such as Cramer's original one, fall under a fourth category - untestable. Until recently Cramer's theory was just such a theory. 
On the other side of the philosophical divide are theories (such as quantum theory and CI) that are purely utilitarian. They make no implicit or explicit claim about being right or wrong. Their success is measured in terms of the correlation found between the data predicted by the theory and that which is experimentally derived. But as Dirac once said, it could still be just a coincidence. There is a radical disclaimer underlying quantum theory. The model is purely fictitious. Any resemblance to Nature either living or dead is purely coincidental. This robs the classical opponent of any ammunition in the critique of quantum theory.  
It also puts the classical opposition in the unfortunate position of reinforcing their assumption that theories should not be just utilitarian but about what is "really" there. That is why Cramer was excited when Afshar's experiment implied possible testability.
Up until then Cramer's model was in the same camp as the Copenhagen Interpretation - purely utilitarian. But it's use value was a little different. It's utility was not measured in terms of experimental data - that stayed the same as CI (due to the common mathematical basis). Rather, it's utility was in the the philosophical bridge it provided between the data and predispositions for classical (rational) models. In this respect Cramer's original philosophical formulation is great. 
But the ground has shifted. 
Cramer has retrospectively (retrocausally?) recouched TI in classical terms - as correct, incorrect or the "jury out".
This is very brave. It is also very unfortunate. Cramer has rewritten the past. TI is now - was always - not a utilitarian theory. It is now (was always) about what was/is "really there". And we're going to test it. And if we're right then it's not only possible to build a time machine but we're going to build one.
If we're right.
The lure of classical philosophy is tantalising. The hold it has on us is the result of thousands of years as Heisenberg puts it. But Bohr and Heisenberg were are able to replace this grip with a virtual handshake - a loosely defined "wave function collapse". If Cramer elaborated this into a standing wave model it was no more or no less virtual. 
But now it has become more than a virtual handshake. It has become a firm grip. And Cramer has been yanked over the line into the classical or neoclassical camp.
Lets do the same.
Let's suppose that a time machine or retrocausal messaging system is not just a utilitarian construct but experimentally possible - that we can - in factum - send messages into the past. Or to put it another way - receive messages from the future. I for one would love to see such happening - not out of any philosophical predisposition for such but because I'm a fan of classical science fiction.
OK. Could we use retrocausally constructed messages from the future to selectively interrupt the channel (slit) through which the standing wave function has not been realised? In other words, if the standing wave is retrospectively computed post factum (in the future) to describe a photon "path" through slit A (in the present) could we then use such computation (from the future) to "interrupt" slit B? 
Is slit B supposed to be (in the present) retrocausally empty?  
That's the question. If our future informed intervention of slit B, despite being informed by the future (that the standing wave is in slit A), fails to have nil effect on that future then what does it mean to compute this standing wave in the first place (in the future) - even if we don't send it back in time?
What sort of past are we computing? 
Carl Looper  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.70.185 (talk • contribs)  (Oct. 2006)
:: Is it not possible that such thoughts suffer from an assumption about time?  Time is relative to the observer, but time may also be relative to the transaction, or rather I should say that each transaction could conceivably occur within its own isolated time 'frame' that has no direct link to what we experience.  What I am trying to say rather badly is that if the whole thing happens as a single transaction, we can't actually break the transaction apart to exploit the mechanism.  Information is transmitted using the mechanism, and to observe the workings of the mechanism is thus impossible.  If we were able to break the mechanism, we could potentially create errors in the state of the universe.  We could play with the universe like god.  It makes me think of the idea of the universe being like a big computer simulation.  If it were there would be rules governing the simulation that would be unobservable to beings simulated within it.  There would be some kind of database with transactional processes operating upon it.  Corruption of the database would be a bad thing.  But we could only observe the effects of such corruptions and potentially may would never be able to understand their consequences or deliberately exploit them.  Anyone building a time machine would be able to violate the transactional rules and would throw the universe into an invalid state (hence the well covered paradoxes of science fiction).  So, alas, time machines are not likely to be possible to build.  However, Afshar's experiment does show clearly that some kind of mechanism is operating in some extra dimensional manner.  Actually we have known this for a long time, and for a long time have just swept this inconvenience under the carpet. Irontightarguments (talk) 11:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back to the past 

message: The section on response to criticisms reads to like a defense by a fan of this interpretation. Please rewrite this in a neutral way.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zvis (talk • contribs) 12:05, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It does, but maybe this isn't so bad. I'm going to put up my criticism, and see whether anybody responds. I expect that it'll be deleted, but so it goes.Peterwshor (talk) 18:53, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Put a citation to a reliable source with it and it can stay.  For now, an unsourced criticism is just WP:OR, so I will remove it.  Dicklyon (talk) 19:16, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

text: I reverted only the latest addition, but the whole section needs to be rewritten in terms of criticisms and responses that are to be found in reliable sources; looks like maybe only the last item comes from sources, so building the section around that item might be the way to go (unless someone finds sources on the others).  Dicklyon (talk) 19:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me point out that the answer to the second objection is not only completely unsourced, but also does not actually address the objection. Somebody should remove it. Peterwshor (talk) 03:19, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I took it out.  You can take out unsourced stuff yourself; if someone objects they'll put it back (hopefully with a source, or at least a tag calling for a source).  Dicklyon (talk) 04:05, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

text: The problem isn't whether the criticisms are sourced (or rather, that's a separate problem.)  The problem is the Q&A format which is clearly not WP:NPOV. Daniel Dvorkin (talk) 04:53, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

text: According to your contribs, you never edited the article.  Perhaps you forgot to hit save.  Dicklyon (talk) 19:01, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Response to criticism section not neutral 

message: In the second paragraph of the article "Transactional Interpretation" it is stated---incorrectly---that 
the ordinary (presumably, nonrelativistic) Schroedinger equation does not admit advanced solutions.
In fact, the retarded (advanced) Green's functions for the nonrelativistic free-particle Schroedinger equation
can be obtained by adding a small positive (respectively, negative) imaginary part to the energy
in the denominator of the Fourier integral representation of the Green's function.
Gehahne (talk) 02:11, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in the article on the Transactional Interpretation 

message: Is this interpretation being used or advocated by anyone other than John G. Cramer and Ruth E. Kastner? If not, then its notability is questionable. --188.252.130.227 (talk) 14:16, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That might be the problem. See my comments below. But I'm happy to be inclusive if it's a good article. 129.132.210.184 (talk) 09:18, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usage and notability 

message: 1. “TI is not mathematically precise.”
Offer waves (OW) obey the Schrödinger equation and confirmation waves (CW) obey the complex conjugate Schrödinger equation. A transaction is a genuinely stochastic event, and therefore does not obey a deterministic equation. Outcomes based on actualized transactions obey the Born rule and, as noted in Cramer (1986), TI provides a derivation of the Born rule rather than assuming it as in standard quantum mechanics (QM).
This is in no way a "criticism" and a "response". Instead, it's a cross between Yahoo Answers and a politician changing the subject. 
1) "It is not mathematically precise." Neither the article nor this one-line "criticism" contains enough detail to yield a risk of anything ending up being viewed mathematically precise! Nor verifiably the opposite. It is a sound bite.
2) The answer does not answer the criticism. Instead it simply states a floating fragment of information.
I have edited this criticism-response pair in a way that I hope leads to its rapid deletion. The rest of the "criticism-response" section is pretty bad too. It's simply the wrong format for Wikipedia.
The response in itself is interesting. With enough explanatory context, maybe it could be used in the article. Therefore I have preserved it below.
Offer waves (OW) obey the Schrödinger equation and confirmation waves (CW) obey the complex conjugate Schrödinger equation. A transaction is a genuinely stochastic event, and therefore does not obey a deterministic equation. Outcomes based on actualized transactions obey the Born rule and, as noted in Cramer (1986), TI provides a derivation of the Born rule rather than assuming it as in standard quantum mechanics (QM).
129.132.210.184 (talk) 09:16, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Worst writing ever