Questions re Cramer's Transactional Interpretation?

Dmitry67

Vanadium 50, during your discussions did you have a chance to touch the following subjects (see my posts above):
1. special role of photons, or do other interactions (weak, color) create transactions.
2. what is an absorber

Frame Dragger

It is one thing to be dismissive or disrespectful; such is wrong and shouldn't be tolerated. There is no requirement that debate be FRIENDLY however. If you can only discuss your views in "friendly" company, I question the rigor of your thinking and the questions you're being asked. I also would just like to express a measure of disgust that one of the few women in this field to show up RUNS AWAY. I was raised by a single mother who is unappreciative of such 'glass ceiling' lowering behaviour.

Do yourself a favour, swallow the pride and embarassment that we all know is behind this dramatic flourish, and discuss this like a grown women.

Fredrik

FrameDragger, if you're trying to convince her to come back, you're doing it really badly.

Rkastner, I don't think there was any unfriendly stuff in this thread until after you started saying that there was. When you started this thread, you said that the article you're working on will "address questions, confusions, or concerns about TI". We certainly don't need to study the original article to have questions or concerns (or confusions, ) about the TI, so I don't see how the type of responses you got could surprise you or offend you.

conway

I know there is a problem with describing absorption, but is there really a problem explaining the emission process via the Schroedinger equation?

Demystifier

If we talk about the emission of electron (described by Schrodinger equation), then yes. In Schrodinger theory, electron lives forever, it is neither created nor destroyed.

If your will say now that creation and destruction are described by QFT, I have a ready objection too.

Demystifier

Obviously, rkastner writes an article for people who already read other relevant literature on TI. There is nothing wrong with it, after all ANY article assumes that readers already know something, and there are allways interested readers who do not satisfy that assumption. You cannot write an article for everybody.

Of course, we all here would like to see a pedagogic modernly written paper for those who know nothing about TI, but that's not what rkastner is attempting to write.

Dmitry67

Well, TI is not commonly accepted. For such questionable things one can't assume that people know it, or support it. You always need to 'sell' that thing by answering ANY questions, even the "not friendly" ones, which she failed to do.

Dmitry67

I am intrigued :)

Frame Dragger

I was attempting something closer to the opposite. I have no patience for drama queens in scientific fields. If that's who you are, fine, go act or sing or join a theatre troupe, but please stay out of intellectual endevours.

Anyway, I'm far more interested to hear Demyst's ready objection at this point. This is an area where I'm truly uninformed, and a debate between Dmitry67 and Demystifier is bound to be more informative and entertaining than someone who starts a thread and then runs away in a huff.

Oh... and I AM the son of a single mother, and I really DON'T appreciate women pulling this kind of thing; some men expect women to cut and run (especially in science) when challenged, and it makes me ill to see someone do just that.

@Demystifier: That is a very kind way of telling someone that if they want to simply espouse a theory, then try a non-educational site. I believe there is a booming industry in TFRBs.

conway

I don't see the problem with emission. Are you talking about the photo-electric effect? There are populated states in the metal, and there are unpopulated free states outside the metal. The incident radiation introduces a coupling term between the bound states and the free states. The electron wave which was occupying one of the bound states mixes into the free state until there is nothing left of it in the metal. Isn't that all exactly described by the Schroedinger equation?

DrChinese

I hope you reconsider. This board consists of a variety of readers. Some are physics professionals, and many of those do original research. There are also novices, students and amateurs - all with varying degrees of polish and expertise.

While you may have come here with a specific purpose and expectation, I suggest you would gain from a fluid interaction with other readers. Cramer's work has been discussed here a number of times previously, and there are a lot of points which have been soundly debated. I think if you will forgive the rough edges to some of the conversions, you will discover that the meat of the argument is taken quite seriously by many.

For example: The TI - as I understand it - involves certain elements of time symmetry in that there are advanced and retarded interactions. There are other time symmetric interpretations as well, such as relational blockworld (RBW). So, how does TI compare to RBW? Are they somewhat similar or radically different?

cesiumfrog

That's an evasive yes, right, qualitatively?

If TI features superpositions of buckyballs and cats, why does Cramer say it avoids the problem of determining when the collapse occurs? Say Wigner's friend performs an experiment on the cat: if this friend's lab is arbitrarily well isolated we can describe his period of solitude (from Wigner outside) as a transaction, so the lab will actually have contained (in parallel) the infinite number of friends who all contribute non-zero amplitude to the two definitive states of Wigner's friend before and after his period of solitude (but who differ subtly, such as in the exact moments they closed or opened the cat's box). But according to each one of those parallel-friends, at the moments when the cat's box was open (and not the moments in between) the cat was similarly in a definitive state. But Wigner himself knows this isn't entirely true (and that his friend is mistaken about whether the transaction was complete) since there exists a moment when only some of the parallel components of his friend had opened their respective cat's box. Even though Wigner and his friend are both applying TI, it gives them mutually incompatible answers about the reality of the cat.

We could go further, explicitly treating each atom in the lab (nay, universe) individually according to TI, and then we'd need the very framework that is being developed for MWI, just to understand how each of the parallel "Wigner's friend"s ever perceived himself to be experiencing a consistent history.. It seems to me that TI is trumped by dBB if it does not allow superpositions of buckyballs, by CI if it does but not of cats, and by MWI otherwise.

Demystifier

That's all correct, but that's not what I'm talking about. What you are talking above has nothing to do with emission in the sense of TI, which is related to genuine creation of the electron wave function which did not exist before.

Demystifier

Without a collapse, a state in QFT is typically a superposition of states with DIFFERENT numbers of particles. On the other hand, in experiments you observe a definite number of particles. In standard QFT, you describe it by the collapse. In a transactional interpretation of QFT (I don't know if it really exists), you need a generalization of absorption/emition that replaces THAT sort of collapse.

Dmitry67

Ah, yes, I see.
In any case, I think TI is incompatible with QFT for the reasons I explained above:
a) QFT uses emission/absorbtion almost everywhere and it does not cause any collapse;
b) QFT does not make principal difference between exchange of photons, W,Z, g or any other partcles

Frame Dragger

Given that the OP tucked-tail and ran, I'm guessing that we'll have to wait until another TI "expert" shows up.

"b" for me is the damning one btw... "a" is a problem with other problems attatched in other interpretations.

Count Iblis

How will Rkastner respond to this friendly offer wave?