"But for about 20 years now, a controversial area of scientific research has sought to determine whether a supernatural power, invoked through prayer and working alongside doctors, can cure illness... The research involves intercessory prayer, or people interceding on someone else's behalf..." - Can Prayer Help Heal?, Wisconsin State Journal, October 11, 2009.
I have a dream... that one day we will accept effects like this without resorting to God as a default cause. We will accept that 'prayers' are simply thoughts that anticipate future outcomes in a variety of ways, and we will understand outcome selection as a collective effort. "It's not about us controlling God"... but it is about us controlling the process of state selection.
I have a dream... that one day no one will dream of thinking that 'prayer' can replace modern medicine. I don't think that God is behind these effects, but I also don't think that you have enough control to trust the outcome of someone else's life to your thoughts.
I have a dream... that one day we will study these effects without thinking that the only purpose of such results is to prove or disprove the existence of God. I have a dream... that one day the skeptics will realize that it is neither necessary nor correct to accept randomness as the fundamental state of the universe. A dislike for religious explanations as the alternative to randomness should not push us into prematurely accepting that perceived randomness is not connected to thought.
I have a dream... that one day you will see what is right in front of you. You will understand how patients who have been told that they are being prayed for will develop different expectations about their outcomes. We will understand how to give patients information in a way that maximizes their ability to push themselves towards the outcome that they desire. And we will understand their right to choose whether or not we intercede in how we weave our thoughts around their problem.
I have a dream... that one day statements like this - "I think God and God alone chooses whether you have a miracle." - will be obsolete, not only because we will understand the effects of 'prayer' as something other than the intervention of a divine being, but also because once such things are understood, they will no longer be considered 'miracles'. One day God will no longer be the default explanation for all 'coincidental' or inconvenient occurrences.
I have a dream... that you will one day have the same epiphany that I had while counting bacteria in a microbiology lab. If my thoughts can determine whether I will find these bacteria alive or dead, then this entire endeavor is pointless and there is a "bigger problem" that I should be working on.
I have a dream... that one day we will find a meaning behind such a system, because I don't like the idea that life/conscious experience can be this capricious without a reason.
I have a dream... that someday one of you will want to talk with me about this idea, and together we will be able to expand this research.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Measuring the Immeasurable
"Essential science and common sense keep coming back to data, fact and observation."
The fact that I can't lay my hands on this paper immediately now offends my hacker sensibilities. Grrr. (That paper would be Radin, D, & Atwater, F.H., Exploratory Evidence for Correlations Between Entrained Mental Coherence and Random Physical Systems, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol 23 (3), 2009, for the google search engines. ;)
And yet because I can't lay my hand on it, I can speculate about what the author actually did. (This is a fun game that all grad students should learn to play. Read only the abstract and flesh out what you think the paper should contain. Then go back and compare your notes to the actual paper. Worship anyone who exceeds your expectations.)
I'm temporarily suppressing my 'goody, goody gumdrops!' reaction to the topic in favor of my more prosaic 'please tell me you're going to discuss competing explanations of the phenomenon' reaction. If I were really, really in a good universe, the data collection and distribution processes would have been designed with various competing ideas about Observer Theories and multiple-observer dynamics in mind. (Yours truly is really looking forward to the day when we can stop 'proving' that there is an effect, and focus on using experimental data to tear apart competing theories.)
So here are the questions and ideas that came to mind when I read this abstract/blogpost.
Who were the subjects?
In an ideal study, they would be trained meditators who had been evaluated and matched on self-assessed descriptions of their meditative experiences, and various psychological parameters such as absorption. This helps ensure that any effects obtained are not the result of a single 'strongest' observer. Ideally such subjects could also be pretested to determine their individual ability to affect an RNG in the desired state of consciousness.
Depending on the nature of the research questions being asked, the groups of subjects would also vary in size, to attempt to correlate magnitude of effect with number of 'coherent' observers. The magnitude of effect achieved by trained meditators might also be compared to that achieved by untrained subjects with similar psychological parameters. (Previous studies suggests a straightforward prediction of 'more coherent observers = greater deviation from pure randomness'.)
What was done to eliminate/minimize an experimenter effect?
Let me try to be as clear as possible while not writing a separate treatise on the topic. At some point it's going to become necessary to establish that any observed deviation from randomness is not due to a time-displaced effect generated by the one observer who views all the critical data in a form most-suited for discriminating between outcome options - the experimenter. This is a minor point if you are trying to prove that there is an effect, but a relatively major one if you are trying to establish the source of the effect. (Click here for a discussion on taking the next step with observer theories. Awesome reference list for those who scroll all the way to the bottom of that page.)
Similar arguments could be made for various other ways of appropriately isolating the results/observations, but this can quickly get out of hand. It'll probably only be useful when the task is no longer to 'prove' the effect, but to model the data according to a specific theory/set of theories.
What does this mean - "An exploratory hypothesis predicted that fluctuations in entrained mental coherence associated with the workshop activities would modulate the random data recorded during the workshops." ? (My emphasis.)
I'm not that familiar with binaural-beat rhythms or the specific effects that they have on consciousness/brain waves/neurochemicals/etc. (Note to self: Read that paper.) I suspect that the author is using 'fluctuations' to refer to the difference between the 'coherent' and the (presumably) noncoherent times during the trial period, rather than to differences within the period of exposure to the binaural-beat rhythms itself. Although now I'm beginning to wonder how precisely the latter could be modelled...
What justifies this time frame? "Coherence was entrained by having groups listen to a prescribed series of binaural-beat rhythms during a 6-day workshop." (My emphasis, again.)
Is it necessary to use 6 days of data because the subjects were unfamiliar with the technique prior to the workshop? Was the same amount of data collected on all six days? If so, are there any differences in the data from 'coherent' periods in days 1 and 2, and the same periods in days 5 and 6?
"Random data were continually collected from these RNGs during 14 workshops." That's 84 days of data for each of 3 RNGs, and another 56 days of data for the control period. (Respectful pause for the enormity of the data set.) Now I wonder how robust any individual set of data would have been...
I'm beginning to suspect that this experiment took advantage of an existing program in order to collect data. Therefore, all the parameters that one might like to control or manipulate were not necessarily available for such control. (I could be wrong. You should, of course, read the actual paper.)
What, exactly, is being correlated, and why? "This was predicted to result in positive correlations between random data streams collected from one workshop to the next."
It sounds like data streams from the 'coherent' periods were correlated to each other, across workshops...
Now, I'm no expert on analyzing enormous sets of random numbers. I couldn't give you the algorithm for determining that one set of numbers is less 'random' than another, although it might be fun to see if I could derive one. But it seems like there is only one thing to compare...
So, is the degree of randomness being compared? And if so, why isn't the degree of randomness in the set of numbers from the 'coherent' period being compared to the degree of randomness in the set of numbers from the control period? I understand comparing data within device, within group, and within workshop. And I understand comparing 'coherent' periods to control periods. What I don't understand is what could be compared across workshop but within 'coherent' data? Especially if subjects were not matched on any critical parameters.
From the next sentence - "Results showed that during the workshops the overall correlation was positive, as predicted (p = .008); during control periods the same RNGs produced chance results (p = .74). " - it sounds like the correlation was between the time period (coherent/noncoherent) and the degree of randomness. Presumably, a lower degree of randomness was seen in the data during the 'coherent' times than was seen during the noncoherent times. (Now I also want to know the raw magnitude of the difference in degree of randomness.)
So what, if anything, was compared across workshop but within 'coherent' periods? Direction of deviation from random center point? Magnitude of deviation from randomness? Temporal location of deviations from randomness relative to 'coherence' activity?
I are confused. Even the espresso-laced truffles aren't enough to break the mental deadlock on this. If this becomes clearer to me at any point, I'll post an update.
[Aside: If you are a certain author of this paper, that was probably more than you ever wanted to hear from any single reader. Consider it payback for taunting me with the paper but not giving me the actual paper. ;) ]
Update 10/29/09 : I finally got my hack on and scored a copy of this article. (It's been a busy few weeks.) I didn't realize the extent to which this study would emphasize the "felt sense when individual thoughts and actions seem to merge into a single group thought or action." I can't speculate as to why the individuals' "subjective shift" towards the "same wavelength" might be an important element in the success of a collective effort to affect 'randomness'. Nor am I entirely sure why this cohesiveness is necessary, or qualitatively different than all participants simply focusing on the same outcome. According to the Global Consciousness Project, the simultaneous focused attention of large groups can produce similar effects. (And the thought of a "group mind" scares me a little bit.)
As anticipated, the subjects were participants in a workshop designed for other purposes.
As for my botched attempt to understand the data analysis... I had an entirely different picture of what the data stream from the RNGs would look like. In actuality, the data stream consisted on 0s and 1s. The authors predicted that these data streams "should have been modulated by mind in approximately the same way." This could mean one of two things - either the actual values produced by each RNG were the same (all 0s), or the change from one data point to the next was equally present (or not) in each data stream. (Ex: With starting values of 0,0,1, the next set of bits are 1,1,0. Each bit changed from its previous value.) At this point my understanding of the data analysis breaks down. Again. I understand the math, but not the rationale for choosing this method. I refer you to the original paper. Again.
There is one other issue that puzzles me - the belief of the authors that the physical proximity of the RNG machines to the subjects was somehow important to the results. "Data generated by the same RNGs run at distant locations... did not" show the same correlations that were evident in the close-proximity RNGs. In fact, from my perspective, there is no reason to expect such a difference, unless the information, feedback, or expectations were different between the close and the distant RNGs.
Though no attempt at discrimination was made between theories about the effects, the author did acknowledge the potential for experimenter effects. Given the authors' access to the data and expectations about the data, especially relative to those of the subjects (who were largely ignorant of the RNGs and the data that was being collected), I would argue that perhaps a good portion, if not all of the effect, was an experimenter effect. The fact that RNGs were placed at a distance for the test site, as well as in close proximity to the subjects, indicates that one or more of the authors may have had expectations of seeing a difference in the data based on physical distance. At this point, the test is to see if the experimenter can replicate the experiment but produce data that indicates positive correlations in the distant RNGs as well as the close RNGs, by will alone.
Tricky business, but I have a sneaking suspicion that a better understand of these effects will only come if we are much more precise in identifying who has the most information about the experiment, and his/her motivations and expectations for the experiment/outcome. (Yeah, I'm still looking for that poster I promised you earlier. ) For all we know at this point, my observation of this paper had a significant effect on the outcome. We would test that idea by providing the data/results to all interested parties simultaneously, and then destroying them to prevent future observations that might influence the outcome. This is the antithesis of academic publishing, but it's critical for testing/eliminating certain elements of 'retroactive-PK'.
If you haven't quit reading this post yet, then extra points for you, but really - what's wrong with you?! ;)
The fact that I can't lay my hands on this paper immediately now offends my hacker sensibilities. Grrr. (That paper would be Radin, D, & Atwater, F.H., Exploratory Evidence for Correlations Between Entrained Mental Coherence and Random Physical Systems, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol 23 (3), 2009, for the google search engines. ;)
And yet because I can't lay my hand on it, I can speculate about what the author actually did. (This is a fun game that all grad students should learn to play. Read only the abstract and flesh out what you think the paper should contain. Then go back and compare your notes to the actual paper. Worship anyone who exceeds your expectations.)
I'm temporarily suppressing my 'goody, goody gumdrops!' reaction to the topic in favor of my more prosaic 'please tell me you're going to discuss competing explanations of the phenomenon' reaction. If I were really, really in a good universe, the data collection and distribution processes would have been designed with various competing ideas about Observer Theories and multiple-observer dynamics in mind. (Yours truly is really looking forward to the day when we can stop 'proving' that there is an effect, and focus on using experimental data to tear apart competing theories.)
So here are the questions and ideas that came to mind when I read this abstract/blogpost.
Who were the subjects?
In an ideal study, they would be trained meditators who had been evaluated and matched on self-assessed descriptions of their meditative experiences, and various psychological parameters such as absorption. This helps ensure that any effects obtained are not the result of a single 'strongest' observer. Ideally such subjects could also be pretested to determine their individual ability to affect an RNG in the desired state of consciousness.
Depending on the nature of the research questions being asked, the groups of subjects would also vary in size, to attempt to correlate magnitude of effect with number of 'coherent' observers. The magnitude of effect achieved by trained meditators might also be compared to that achieved by untrained subjects with similar psychological parameters. (Previous studies suggests a straightforward prediction of 'more coherent observers = greater deviation from pure randomness'.)
What was done to eliminate/minimize an experimenter effect?
Let me try to be as clear as possible while not writing a separate treatise on the topic. At some point it's going to become necessary to establish that any observed deviation from randomness is not due to a time-displaced effect generated by the one observer who views all the critical data in a form most-suited for discriminating between outcome options - the experimenter. This is a minor point if you are trying to prove that there is an effect, but a relatively major one if you are trying to establish the source of the effect. (Click here for a discussion on taking the next step with observer theories. Awesome reference list for those who scroll all the way to the bottom of that page.)
Similar arguments could be made for various other ways of appropriately isolating the results/observations, but this can quickly get out of hand. It'll probably only be useful when the task is no longer to 'prove' the effect, but to model the data according to a specific theory/set of theories.
What does this mean - "An exploratory hypothesis predicted that fluctuations in entrained mental coherence associated with the workshop activities would modulate the random data recorded during the workshops." ? (My emphasis.)
I'm not that familiar with binaural-beat rhythms or the specific effects that they have on consciousness/brain waves/neurochemicals/etc. (Note to self: Read that paper.) I suspect that the author is using 'fluctuations' to refer to the difference between the 'coherent' and the (presumably) noncoherent times during the trial period, rather than to differences within the period of exposure to the binaural-beat rhythms itself. Although now I'm beginning to wonder how precisely the latter could be modelled...
What justifies this time frame? "Coherence was entrained by having groups listen to a prescribed series of binaural-beat rhythms during a 6-day workshop." (My emphasis, again.)
Is it necessary to use 6 days of data because the subjects were unfamiliar with the technique prior to the workshop? Was the same amount of data collected on all six days? If so, are there any differences in the data from 'coherent' periods in days 1 and 2, and the same periods in days 5 and 6?
"Random data were continually collected from these RNGs during 14 workshops." That's 84 days of data for each of 3 RNGs, and another 56 days of data for the control period. (Respectful pause for the enormity of the data set.) Now I wonder how robust any individual set of data would have been...
I'm beginning to suspect that this experiment took advantage of an existing program in order to collect data. Therefore, all the parameters that one might like to control or manipulate were not necessarily available for such control. (I could be wrong. You should, of course, read the actual paper.)
What, exactly, is being correlated, and why? "This was predicted to result in positive correlations between random data streams collected from one workshop to the next."
It sounds like data streams from the 'coherent' periods were correlated to each other, across workshops...
Now, I'm no expert on analyzing enormous sets of random numbers. I couldn't give you the algorithm for determining that one set of numbers is less 'random' than another, although it might be fun to see if I could derive one. But it seems like there is only one thing to compare...
So, is the degree of randomness being compared? And if so, why isn't the degree of randomness in the set of numbers from the 'coherent' period being compared to the degree of randomness in the set of numbers from the control period? I understand comparing data within device, within group, and within workshop. And I understand comparing 'coherent' periods to control periods. What I don't understand is what could be compared across workshop but within 'coherent' data? Especially if subjects were not matched on any critical parameters.
From the next sentence - "Results showed that during the workshops the overall correlation was positive, as predicted (p = .008); during control periods the same RNGs produced chance results (p = .74). " - it sounds like the correlation was between the time period (coherent/noncoherent) and the degree of randomness. Presumably, a lower degree of randomness was seen in the data during the 'coherent' times than was seen during the noncoherent times. (Now I also want to know the raw magnitude of the difference in degree of randomness.)
So what, if anything, was compared across workshop but within 'coherent' periods? Direction of deviation from random center point? Magnitude of deviation from randomness? Temporal location of deviations from randomness relative to 'coherence' activity?
I are confused. Even the espresso-laced truffles aren't enough to break the mental deadlock on this. If this becomes clearer to me at any point, I'll post an update.
[Aside: If you are a certain author of this paper, that was probably more than you ever wanted to hear from any single reader. Consider it payback for taunting me with the paper but not giving me the actual paper. ;) ]
Update 10/29/09 : I finally got my hack on and scored a copy of this article. (It's been a busy few weeks.) I didn't realize the extent to which this study would emphasize the "felt sense when individual thoughts and actions seem to merge into a single group thought or action." I can't speculate as to why the individuals' "subjective shift" towards the "same wavelength" might be an important element in the success of a collective effort to affect 'randomness'. Nor am I entirely sure why this cohesiveness is necessary, or qualitatively different than all participants simply focusing on the same outcome. According to the Global Consciousness Project, the simultaneous focused attention of large groups can produce similar effects. (And the thought of a "group mind" scares me a little bit.)
As anticipated, the subjects were participants in a workshop designed for other purposes.
As for my botched attempt to understand the data analysis... I had an entirely different picture of what the data stream from the RNGs would look like. In actuality, the data stream consisted on 0s and 1s. The authors predicted that these data streams "should have been modulated by mind in approximately the same way." This could mean one of two things - either the actual values produced by each RNG were the same (all 0s), or the change from one data point to the next was equally present (or not) in each data stream. (Ex: With starting values of 0,0,1, the next set of bits are 1,1,0. Each bit changed from its previous value.) At this point my understanding of the data analysis breaks down. Again. I understand the math, but not the rationale for choosing this method. I refer you to the original paper. Again.
There is one other issue that puzzles me - the belief of the authors that the physical proximity of the RNG machines to the subjects was somehow important to the results. "Data generated by the same RNGs run at distant locations... did not" show the same correlations that were evident in the close-proximity RNGs. In fact, from my perspective, there is no reason to expect such a difference, unless the information, feedback, or expectations were different between the close and the distant RNGs.
Though no attempt at discrimination was made between theories about the effects, the author did acknowledge the potential for experimenter effects. Given the authors' access to the data and expectations about the data, especially relative to those of the subjects (who were largely ignorant of the RNGs and the data that was being collected), I would argue that perhaps a good portion, if not all of the effect, was an experimenter effect. The fact that RNGs were placed at a distance for the test site, as well as in close proximity to the subjects, indicates that one or more of the authors may have had expectations of seeing a difference in the data based on physical distance. At this point, the test is to see if the experimenter can replicate the experiment but produce data that indicates positive correlations in the distant RNGs as well as the close RNGs, by will alone.
Tricky business, but I have a sneaking suspicion that a better understand of these effects will only come if we are much more precise in identifying who has the most information about the experiment, and his/her motivations and expectations for the experiment/outcome. (Yeah, I'm still looking for that poster I promised you earlier. ) For all we know at this point, my observation of this paper had a significant effect on the outcome. We would test that idea by providing the data/results to all interested parties simultaneously, and then destroying them to prevent future observations that might influence the outcome. This is the antithesis of academic publishing, but it's critical for testing/eliminating certain elements of 'retroactive-PK'.
If you haven't quit reading this post yet, then extra points for you, but really - what's wrong with you?! ;)
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
In Search of Time
"Is time nothing more than change? Or is time more fundamental - is it the mysterious entity that makes change possible, a kind of foundation on which the universe is built? Or is it just the opposite: as much as we like to speak of the 'river of time', could the river be dry, its flow an illusion? (And how can it flow if it is meaningless to speak about the rate at which it flows?)" - Dan Falk, In Search of Time (2008), p. 273.
Reading this book (which I really enjoyed) brought to mind our friend Simon the physicist and the nature of time in his hypothetical universe. So as to not admit such tendencies in myself on the record, we'll also introduce the fact that Simon the physicist likes to drive fast. He also likes to be the first one to respond to the green light after being stopped at an intersection. It's a weird compulsion that he has and we're not sure where it comes from. But he's very good at being the first one to hit the gas once a traffic light turns green. He's so good at this that he has sometimes wondered why he is so much faster than everyone else at responding to the green light...
I won't force Simon the physicist to take responsibility for the thoughts that follow, as they come from a distinctly-nonphysicist perspective. And I will credit Falk for putting together so many engaging ideas in such close proximity in his book, many of which prompted long chains of interesting thoughts. What follows is one of them, and may be total crap, but I sure had fun piecing it together.
Perhaps the biggest 'stop and think' idea I ran into while reading this book was the idea that "light, too, can affect time. Light carries energy, and Einstein had shown that mass and energy are equivalent - so light should also be able to warp space and time." (p. 181) Being conditioned to view our perception of light (and time and space) as functions of neural activity, my thoughts jumped to the path that a photon triggers once it hits the retina. Around this same time I was also reminded (by I remember not what) of the idea that processing speed may play a role in cognitive differences.
If neural signalling is ultimately the result of a transfer of energy, then the initial energy of the stimulus (photons) is quickly diminished or amplified by the unique dynamics of an individual's neural pathways - beginning as soon as the photon hits the first layer of cells in the retina. It follows then (without too much difficulty) that individual differences in neural/neurochemical dynamics affect how quickly something is perceived and/or reacted to. Neural density, differences in neural pathway configuration, and differing concentrations of neurochemicals may all impact the speed at which the original signal (photon) registers in conscious awareness. (This presumes that much of the early processing of the signal is not available to our conscious awareness: a view which is widely accepted and supported.)
So the question becomes... If our rate of perception is variable (even in the slightest degree), then can we not also reasonably say that time (or the rate at which we perceive change) moves at a different rate for each observer? And if time moves at a relative rate for each observer, then how/where can we say that time is an absolute feature of the universe?
But "clearly time appears to exist" (q) saith the physicist. Yes, but does it move at the same speed for everyone? And if it doesn't, then how do you and I reach an agreement that we both saw the same green light and I just smoked your [deleted]? What is present that underlies that observation? Do I functionally exist ahead of you in time if I can process and react to stimuli faster than you?
At this point the web of thoughts became tangled as I tried to connect special relativity to a model of multiple-observer dynamics. Trust me, you don't want me to go there. But do ponder that last question the next time you get smoked at an intersection. :)
And yes, I realize that I'm using a model/description that assumes an arrow of time in order to talk about how time doesn't exist in an absolute sense. It's interesting to think about how the effects of the reverse arrow of time might manifest themselves in that same model, but that's a topic for another post.
Reading this book (which I really enjoyed) brought to mind our friend Simon the physicist and the nature of time in his hypothetical universe. So as to not admit such tendencies in myself on the record, we'll also introduce the fact that Simon the physicist likes to drive fast. He also likes to be the first one to respond to the green light after being stopped at an intersection. It's a weird compulsion that he has and we're not sure where it comes from. But he's very good at being the first one to hit the gas once a traffic light turns green. He's so good at this that he has sometimes wondered why he is so much faster than everyone else at responding to the green light...
I won't force Simon the physicist to take responsibility for the thoughts that follow, as they come from a distinctly-nonphysicist perspective. And I will credit Falk for putting together so many engaging ideas in such close proximity in his book, many of which prompted long chains of interesting thoughts. What follows is one of them, and may be total crap, but I sure had fun piecing it together.
Perhaps the biggest 'stop and think' idea I ran into while reading this book was the idea that "light, too, can affect time. Light carries energy, and Einstein had shown that mass and energy are equivalent - so light should also be able to warp space and time." (p. 181) Being conditioned to view our perception of light (and time and space) as functions of neural activity, my thoughts jumped to the path that a photon triggers once it hits the retina. Around this same time I was also reminded (by I remember not what) of the idea that processing speed may play a role in cognitive differences.
If neural signalling is ultimately the result of a transfer of energy, then the initial energy of the stimulus (photons) is quickly diminished or amplified by the unique dynamics of an individual's neural pathways - beginning as soon as the photon hits the first layer of cells in the retina. It follows then (without too much difficulty) that individual differences in neural/neurochemical dynamics affect how quickly something is perceived and/or reacted to. Neural density, differences in neural pathway configuration, and differing concentrations of neurochemicals may all impact the speed at which the original signal (photon) registers in conscious awareness. (This presumes that much of the early processing of the signal is not available to our conscious awareness: a view which is widely accepted and supported.)
So the question becomes... If our rate of perception is variable (even in the slightest degree), then can we not also reasonably say that time (or the rate at which we perceive change) moves at a different rate for each observer? And if time moves at a relative rate for each observer, then how/where can we say that time is an absolute feature of the universe?
But "clearly time appears to exist" (q) saith the physicist. Yes, but does it move at the same speed for everyone? And if it doesn't, then how do you and I reach an agreement that we both saw the same green light and I just smoked your [deleted]? What is present that underlies that observation? Do I functionally exist ahead of you in time if I can process and react to stimuli faster than you?
At this point the web of thoughts became tangled as I tried to connect special relativity to a model of multiple-observer dynamics. Trust me, you don't want me to go there. But do ponder that last question the next time you get smoked at an intersection. :)
And yes, I realize that I'm using a model/description that assumes an arrow of time in order to talk about how time doesn't exist in an absolute sense. It's interesting to think about how the effects of the reverse arrow of time might manifest themselves in that same model, but that's a topic for another post.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Illusion of Knowledge
"You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be: it's their mistake, not my failing."
I have no illusions about the state of my knowledge of physics. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of others. Like my friend, who emailed me today with the following question - "Can you explain this to me?"
Umm...
My fault to be sure, for having mentioned quantum physics in conjunction with what I was working on, to the chagrin of actual physicists everywhere. But I love a challenge, and I'm feeling feisty. (Just yesterday I learned how to read a basic space-time diagram of particle interactions. Not to be confused with a Feynman diagram, apparently, though I'm not entirely sure why.) Relatively speaking, I've got a better chance of being able to explain this article than most people, so why not...
Naturally, the preferred method for explaining such things is to refer the questioner to someone who has already explained it better than you could. (Preferably with pictures.) But where's the fun in that?
The first thing to do is to understand Hardy's paradox. In the absence of an article from our usual source - the almighty Wikipedia - we are forced to stray into press releases and blog postings to get our bearings. Hardy's paradox comes from a thought experiment that applies the fundamental tenet of quantum theory - an unobserved particle existing in a superposition of all possible positions - to a particle-antiparticle collision. Hardy reasoned that the attempts to create such a collision (see picture) might result in the particle and antiparticle disturbing each other without actually annihilating each other (as they are required to do by definition) due to their respective half-in half-out quantum states of being. (Curious minds stop to ponder what 'disturb but not annihilate' looks like...)
Hardy's design was previously thought to be untestable, as attempting to measure this 'disturbance' was itself a disturbance. That is, until the advent of interaction-free measurement or weak measurement, which itself violates a basic tenet of quantum physics - that the measurement of quantum systems (systems in a superposition of possible states) fundamentally alters those systems causing them to collapse "back to some kind of normality" (a single state). This kind of 'weak' measurement utilizes a measurement interval which is smaller than the inherent level of uncertainty about the properties of the particle. This means that you don't really know what you've got for any single measurement, but in theory you are able to deduce things from the average of such measurements repeated many times.
Your article reports on a modified test of Hardy's paradox, which used photons instead of particles and antiparticles. (Photons are their own antiparticles.) The claim is that physicists were able measure the system without really measuring it, and can therefore draw conclusions about the real (quantum) state of reality. Actually, this same experiment has been done twice by different groups/labs using the same techniques. And the weirdness is that they found regions which had fewer than zero particles in them. "Fewer than zero particles being present usually means that you have antiparticles instead." But photons are their own antiparticle, so what's going on? The analogy is made to Hardy's improbable hypothetical outcome of particle and antiparticles which disturb but fail to annihilate one another. But other than a shared sense of weirdness - "It looks impossible. But then I realised it was the only way to see it. It's beautiful." (here) - I'm not sure how the analogy applies.
Mind you, I don't have the source articles, so there's a good chance I'm missing something. But as far as I can tell, the point is basically that "there is a way to carry out experiments on the counter-intuitive predictions of quantum theory without destroying all the interesting results" and that "there are extraordinary things within ordinary quantum mechanics."
(That was actually fun! Bring it on!)
Now if you were asking if I can explain what it means, or how it fits with my idea... (sigh)
I have no illusions about the state of my knowledge of physics. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of others. Like my friend, who emailed me today with the following question - "Can you explain this to me?"
Umm...
My fault to be sure, for having mentioned quantum physics in conjunction with what I was working on, to the chagrin of actual physicists everywhere. But I love a challenge, and I'm feeling feisty. (Just yesterday I learned how to read a basic space-time diagram of particle interactions. Not to be confused with a Feynman diagram, apparently, though I'm not entirely sure why.) Relatively speaking, I've got a better chance of being able to explain this article than most people, so why not...
Naturally, the preferred method for explaining such things is to refer the questioner to someone who has already explained it better than you could. (Preferably with pictures.) But where's the fun in that?
The first thing to do is to understand Hardy's paradox. In the absence of an article from our usual source - the almighty Wikipedia - we are forced to stray into press releases and blog postings to get our bearings. Hardy's paradox comes from a thought experiment that applies the fundamental tenet of quantum theory - an unobserved particle existing in a superposition of all possible positions - to a particle-antiparticle collision. Hardy reasoned that the attempts to create such a collision (see picture) might result in the particle and antiparticle disturbing each other without actually annihilating each other (as they are required to do by definition) due to their respective half-in half-out quantum states of being. (Curious minds stop to ponder what 'disturb but not annihilate' looks like...)
Hardy's design was previously thought to be untestable, as attempting to measure this 'disturbance' was itself a disturbance. That is, until the advent of interaction-free measurement or weak measurement, which itself violates a basic tenet of quantum physics - that the measurement of quantum systems (systems in a superposition of possible states) fundamentally alters those systems causing them to collapse "back to some kind of normality" (a single state). This kind of 'weak' measurement utilizes a measurement interval which is smaller than the inherent level of uncertainty about the properties of the particle. This means that you don't really know what you've got for any single measurement, but in theory you are able to deduce things from the average of such measurements repeated many times.
Your article reports on a modified test of Hardy's paradox, which used photons instead of particles and antiparticles. (Photons are their own antiparticles.) The claim is that physicists were able measure the system without really measuring it, and can therefore draw conclusions about the real (quantum) state of reality. Actually, this same experiment has been done twice by different groups/labs using the same techniques. And the weirdness is that they found regions which had fewer than zero particles in them. "Fewer than zero particles being present usually means that you have antiparticles instead." But photons are their own antiparticle, so what's going on? The analogy is made to Hardy's improbable hypothetical outcome of particle and antiparticles which disturb but fail to annihilate one another. But other than a shared sense of weirdness - "It looks impossible. But then I realised it was the only way to see it. It's beautiful." (here) - I'm not sure how the analogy applies.
Mind you, I don't have the source articles, so there's a good chance I'm missing something. But as far as I can tell, the point is basically that "there is a way to carry out experiments on the counter-intuitive predictions of quantum theory without destroying all the interesting results" and that "there are extraordinary things within ordinary quantum mechanics."
(That was actually fun! Bring it on!)
Now if you were asking if I can explain what it means, or how it fits with my idea... (sigh)
Friday, March 6, 2009
The Age of Entanglement
I am but a tool of the Wikiether. (That will be in a science fiction book one day. Watch for it. ;)
It takes a lot for me to fire up the computer on a Friday night, especially when I had other plans.
Don't get excited. This is probably complete and utter crap. But when something clicks (or appears to click), you listen. And then you write it down.
It has occurred to me that eventually observations of entangled behavior would have to be accounted for by the 5-dimensional model. (I'm skipping words as I type. This is not a good sign.) Tonight it occurred to me that the answer might really be simple after all.
What if observed entanglement behavior is nothing more than a reflection of the transfer or replication of the bias for state selection from the representation of one object to the representation of another?
This idea would have to be supported by massive parallels between the neurophysics of knowledge representation and the known observations of entanglement creation and destruction. We established in our last post that the creation of entanglement is a bizarre process, one which is apparently not as cut-and-dry as I previously believed it to be. When I search for information on the destruction of entanglement, I am delighted to find that there is data on this phenomenon. 'Entanglement Sudden Death' or ESD "can arise when two sources of environmental 'noise' act to disrupt an entangled state. Each source would individually induce a more gradual asymptotic decay, but in tandem they can trigger ESD." (here)
Several minutes elapse while I pursue the 2007 Almeida et al source article. (Via.) And therein I meet the concept of decoherence (again). "[Q]uantum decoherence is the mechanism by which quantum systems interact with their environments to exhibit probabilistically additive behavior... [and] gives the appearance of wave function collapse." (W) (Things click. I feel slightly wiser.) So decoherence is how we avoid the need for an actual wave function collapse, yes? More study is required on my part, I know, but for now it is enough to know that decoherence is a 'theoretical concept' and Almeida's attributed explanation for ESD - "The presence of decoherence in communication channels and computing devices, which stems from the unavoidable interaction between these systems and the environment, degrades the entanglement when the particles propagate or the computation evolves. Decoherence leads to local dynamics, associated with single-particle dissipation, diffusion, and decay, as well as to global dynamics, which may provoke the disappearance of entanglement at a finite time."
The question remains - Can the observed dynamics of entanglement and decoherence be mapped on to the dynamics of knowledge representation? Especially those dynamics which deal with the creation of associations and overlapping representations? This would require a detailed examination of the neural substrates of associative memory, though perhaps on a level that is not currently possible.
Now that I'm rolling on this line of thought... The stability of entanglement (or not) would be a reflection of the stability of the expectation/bias that the two entangled particles would behave as such. The cumulative state of the information about such an entanglement would be spread across multiple observers, and the displayed behavior between the particles would change in response to the shifting bias for state selection (of a particular observation) as anchored by the relevant set of observers.
What would falsify this idea? (The question you should always ask, even if you don't have a ready answer...) Hell if I know, as I barely have even the framework of this idea, let alone the data to support it. But I bet I'm going to lose sleep thinking about it... Damn.
(I warned you that this wasn't going to be pretty. ;)
It takes a lot for me to fire up the computer on a Friday night, especially when I had other plans.
Don't get excited. This is probably complete and utter crap. But when something clicks (or appears to click), you listen. And then you write it down.
It has occurred to me that eventually observations of entangled behavior would have to be accounted for by the 5-dimensional model. (I'm skipping words as I type. This is not a good sign.) Tonight it occurred to me that the answer might really be simple after all.
What if observed entanglement behavior is nothing more than a reflection of the transfer or replication of the bias for state selection from the representation of one object to the representation of another?
This idea would have to be supported by massive parallels between the neurophysics of knowledge representation and the known observations of entanglement creation and destruction. We established in our last post that the creation of entanglement is a bizarre process, one which is apparently not as cut-and-dry as I previously believed it to be. When I search for information on the destruction of entanglement, I am delighted to find that there is data on this phenomenon. 'Entanglement Sudden Death' or ESD "can arise when two sources of environmental 'noise' act to disrupt an entangled state. Each source would individually induce a more gradual asymptotic decay, but in tandem they can trigger ESD." (here)
Several minutes elapse while I pursue the 2007 Almeida et al source article. (Via.) And therein I meet the concept of decoherence (again). "[Q]uantum decoherence is the mechanism by which quantum systems interact with their environments to exhibit probabilistically additive behavior... [and] gives the appearance of wave function collapse." (W) (Things click. I feel slightly wiser.) So decoherence is how we avoid the need for an actual wave function collapse, yes? More study is required on my part, I know, but for now it is enough to know that decoherence is a 'theoretical concept' and Almeida's attributed explanation for ESD - "The presence of decoherence in communication channels and computing devices, which stems from the unavoidable interaction between these systems and the environment, degrades the entanglement when the particles propagate or the computation evolves. Decoherence leads to local dynamics, associated with single-particle dissipation, diffusion, and decay, as well as to global dynamics, which may provoke the disappearance of entanglement at a finite time."
The question remains - Can the observed dynamics of entanglement and decoherence be mapped on to the dynamics of knowledge representation? Especially those dynamics which deal with the creation of associations and overlapping representations? This would require a detailed examination of the neural substrates of associative memory, though perhaps on a level that is not currently possible.
Now that I'm rolling on this line of thought... The stability of entanglement (or not) would be a reflection of the stability of the expectation/bias that the two entangled particles would behave as such. The cumulative state of the information about such an entanglement would be spread across multiple observers, and the displayed behavior between the particles would change in response to the shifting bias for state selection (of a particular observation) as anchored by the relevant set of observers.
What would falsify this idea? (The question you should always ask, even if you don't have a ready answer...) Hell if I know, as I barely have even the framework of this idea, let alone the data to support it. But I bet I'm going to lose sleep thinking about it... Damn.
(I warned you that this wasn't going to be pretty. ;)
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Like A Circus
"I write as a mathematician uses a sheet of paper for doing calculations: because I think better that way."
(Alright, the feedback on this is killing me. Relax.)
The habits of 16 years die hard. The mind asks a question. The question does not go away. If the question does go away, another takes its place. (sigh)
Not too long after the Really Big Idea decided that NOW - right as I was about to become Dr. N, with a career trajectory that went nowhere near physics - was a good time to emerge, I read a book on entanglement. (At this point I was still optimistic that the answer to creating a 5-dimensional model was simple, and that all I had to do was find it.) I won't mention which book, because after finishing it I still didn't understand what entanglement was. I was mildly aggravated that someone could write an entire book on entanglement and still not give a satisfactory explanation of what it was.
'Satisfactory' meaning that I now knew what creates entanglement, as well as how entanglement is destroyed, if/how multiple entanglements are sustained, etc. etc. Since reading that book, it seems to me as though the 'E' word is increasing in popularity, and has become a default explanation for many things. I might go so far as to say that 'entanglement' seems to be the new 'quantum'...
I didn't pay much attention to entanglement while I was developing ideas about the nature of a conscious interface with the 'smear', because I couldn't see a direct link between it and the dynamics of 5-dimensional navigation. (State exclusion seemed to be a more relevant principle.) Which is not to say that there isn't one, simply that I haven't seen one yet and have therefore simply added entanglement to the long list of things that will eventually require explanation. Even certain scientists, whose books we will not name, have said "Particles that are quantum entangled do not imply that signals pass between them. Entanglement means that separated systems are correlated. Psi, on the other hand, seems to involve information transfer, like signal passing." So what does entanglement mean for a 5-dimensional model?
Let's not start with something like this - "let's assume that our bodies, minds, and brains are entangled in a holistic universe." Let's not start with this because there is a process by which particles become entangled. Or at least there was the last time I checked... "When pairs of particles are generated by the decay of other particles, naturally or through induced collision, these pairs may be termed 'entangled', in that such pairs often necessarily have linked and opposite qualities, i.e. of spin or charge." (W)
Which begs the following questions... 1) Do these particles remain entangled forever? 2) What would destroy the entanglement between these two particles? 3) Can a single particle sustain multiple entanglements created at different times with several other particles? (Are particles polygamous or monogamous?) and 4) What about particle threesomes, where a third particle joins a pre-existing entanglement? How has this new addition changed the entanglement relationship between the original two particles? (Why do all these questions bring to mind sexual relationships?) And what's up with this - "The doubly mysterious part of entanglement swapping is that the entangling photons never interact; in normal entanglement, particles must interact and then separate before demonstrating correlative behavior."? I'm getting confused. Are we expanding the ways in which particles can become entangled?
And if one particle is continuously becoming newly-entangled, while retaining all of its previous entanglements unaltered, then is a particle simply the sum total of all of its previous partners? (This opens a new set of questions about the qualitative differences between a particle with few versus many entanglements...) If one particle is continuously becoming newly-entangled, and this causes its previous entanglement obligations to be destroyed or modified in some way, then attempting to use entanglement as an explanation for anything becomes exceedingly difficult, as there is no telling when that entanglement might be/has been destroyed. (Someone out there probably knows which option is correct, and it would be ever so helpful if you would just drop a comment with your explanation. I have the feeling that I'm spinning wheels that don't need to be spun...)
My interest in entanglement is renewed when I read papers like this, which uses entanglement to explain memory (for reasons I'm missing), or articles like this, which talks about the history of the idea of entanglement more so than the properties and limits of entanglement. My interest is further stoked by the notion that entropy provides a measure of entanglement, and a 'connection between quantum information theory and thermodynamics' - a concept which I don't completely understand, but which I nevertheless now fantasize might be the missing link in this 5-dimensional model.
My questions are like a program that is always running in the background, consuming whatever spare resources can be found. They're not going away anytime soon. I know, I know - I should go study physics.
Until that happens though, you'll have the pleasure of listening to a cognitive psychologist butcher, twist, and mangle all of your cherished physics concepts. And it's not going to be pretty. If you're not tired of it already, you'll get there. I promise. :)
(Alright, the feedback on this is killing me. Relax.)
The habits of 16 years die hard. The mind asks a question. The question does not go away. If the question does go away, another takes its place. (sigh)
Not too long after the Really Big Idea decided that NOW - right as I was about to become Dr. N, with a career trajectory that went nowhere near physics - was a good time to emerge, I read a book on entanglement. (At this point I was still optimistic that the answer to creating a 5-dimensional model was simple, and that all I had to do was find it.) I won't mention which book, because after finishing it I still didn't understand what entanglement was. I was mildly aggravated that someone could write an entire book on entanglement and still not give a satisfactory explanation of what it was.
'Satisfactory' meaning that I now knew what creates entanglement, as well as how entanglement is destroyed, if/how multiple entanglements are sustained, etc. etc. Since reading that book, it seems to me as though the 'E' word is increasing in popularity, and has become a default explanation for many things. I might go so far as to say that 'entanglement' seems to be the new 'quantum'...
I didn't pay much attention to entanglement while I was developing ideas about the nature of a conscious interface with the 'smear', because I couldn't see a direct link between it and the dynamics of 5-dimensional navigation. (State exclusion seemed to be a more relevant principle.) Which is not to say that there isn't one, simply that I haven't seen one yet and have therefore simply added entanglement to the long list of things that will eventually require explanation. Even certain scientists, whose books we will not name, have said "Particles that are quantum entangled do not imply that signals pass between them. Entanglement means that separated systems are correlated. Psi, on the other hand, seems to involve information transfer, like signal passing." So what does entanglement mean for a 5-dimensional model?
Let's not start with something like this - "let's assume that our bodies, minds, and brains are entangled in a holistic universe." Let's not start with this because there is a process by which particles become entangled. Or at least there was the last time I checked... "When pairs of particles are generated by the decay of other particles, naturally or through induced collision, these pairs may be termed 'entangled', in that such pairs often necessarily have linked and opposite qualities, i.e. of spin or charge." (W)
Which begs the following questions... 1) Do these particles remain entangled forever? 2) What would destroy the entanglement between these two particles? 3) Can a single particle sustain multiple entanglements created at different times with several other particles? (Are particles polygamous or monogamous?) and 4) What about particle threesomes, where a third particle joins a pre-existing entanglement? How has this new addition changed the entanglement relationship between the original two particles? (Why do all these questions bring to mind sexual relationships?) And what's up with this - "The doubly mysterious part of entanglement swapping is that the entangling photons never interact; in normal entanglement, particles must interact and then separate before demonstrating correlative behavior."? I'm getting confused. Are we expanding the ways in which particles can become entangled?
And if one particle is continuously becoming newly-entangled, while retaining all of its previous entanglements unaltered, then is a particle simply the sum total of all of its previous partners? (This opens a new set of questions about the qualitative differences between a particle with few versus many entanglements...) If one particle is continuously becoming newly-entangled, and this causes its previous entanglement obligations to be destroyed or modified in some way, then attempting to use entanglement as an explanation for anything becomes exceedingly difficult, as there is no telling when that entanglement might be/has been destroyed. (Someone out there probably knows which option is correct, and it would be ever so helpful if you would just drop a comment with your explanation. I have the feeling that I'm spinning wheels that don't need to be spun...)
My interest in entanglement is renewed when I read papers like this, which uses entanglement to explain memory (for reasons I'm missing), or articles like this, which talks about the history of the idea of entanglement more so than the properties and limits of entanglement. My interest is further stoked by the notion that entropy provides a measure of entanglement, and a 'connection between quantum information theory and thermodynamics' - a concept which I don't completely understand, but which I nevertheless now fantasize might be the missing link in this 5-dimensional model.
My questions are like a program that is always running in the background, consuming whatever spare resources can be found. They're not going away anytime soon. I know, I know - I should go study physics.
Until that happens though, you'll have the pleasure of listening to a cognitive psychologist butcher, twist, and mangle all of your cherished physics concepts. And it's not going to be pretty. If you're not tired of it already, you'll get there. I promise. :)
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Journal Club #7
"So, if we watch a recording of a soccer match played a long time ago, the outcome is undetermined, not just if we are watching the match for the first time and never read about the outcome, but perhaps also if we've seen the match before and forgot about the outcome." - S. Mitra, from arxiv version of an essay called Changing the Past by Forgetting submitted to FQXi The Nature of Time essay contest.
Alas, not the winning entry, or I would have been kicking myself... But Mitra did win the February arxiv.org quant-ph article-for-discussion contest that goes on in my head. (Congratulations.)
It was tough decision this month. Diosi's paper, titled Does wave function collapse cause gravity?, was a strong second, and lost out only due to the gaping coffee and math deficits in my tiny sector of the multiverse. (Sorry.) Inhabitants of other sectors of the multiverse are highly encouraged to read this paper, as wave function collapse (which establishes the definite state of an object - one might even say it is the state that corresponds to an object bearing a distinct identity) is linked to gravity, which I have previously speculated might have something to do with the neurophysics of economically seaming the represenations of distinct objects together.
But back to Mitra's essay...
You got me with the first line - "As pointed out by David Deutsch, it is possible to experimentally disprove all collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics if one could make measurements in a reversible way." An idea previously discussed by this author as well. But not something about which you can simply declare "Oh, I did that" and expect to be believed. ;)
What gets me about this paper is that the erasure of memory is discussed as a 'unitary operator that disentangles the observer from the spin.' Come again? Are we talking about a complete, or a partial, disentanglement? Heck, why are we jumping straight to entanglement/disentanglement analogies for memory/forgetting in the first place? I've been really careful to avoid leaping to entanglement as an explanation for anything other than observable entanglement behavior between two particles.
The author's use of a 'machine observer' provides an opening to discuss ideal memory erasure, which is presumably not a condition that can be easily found in human observers. My predisposition is to map 'forgetting' from our existing understanding of neurochemical and/or neuroelectrical dynamics in the human observer, and see how that maps onto reports of a changed past. That work could be extended into blocking memory encoding to prevent a permanent 'entanglement' with a particular outcome state. But I digress...
If I'm reading the paper correctly, the author suggests the use of memory resetting to a backup (prior) state as an escape from a forthcoming disaster. "The observer facing disaster can thus be almost sure to escape the disaster by doing a memory resetting." Interesting... I've escaped the 'disaster' of not finding the items I was looking for while shopping by 'forgetting' that I had just witnessed the absence of the desired item. Although I've never really thought of it as 'forgetting', but rather as a 'shifting of attention' until that observation was no longer in short-term memory.
It also follows then that we would want to be careful about what type of observations we make, as they may prove to be 'unforgettable', thereby "trapp[ing] us in the wrong sector of the multiverse." Sometimes a lack of information is a good thing - think of it as 'degrees of freedom' in your ability to select an outcome state. ;)
One final note - all of the essays on The Nature of Time can be viewed here, along with the number of popular votes they received. I'd like to meet the person who actually read all of those essays before voting. I'm just saying - that's a lot of essays...
Alas, not the winning entry, or I would have been kicking myself... But Mitra did win the February arxiv.org quant-ph article-for-discussion contest that goes on in my head. (Congratulations.)
It was tough decision this month. Diosi's paper, titled Does wave function collapse cause gravity?, was a strong second, and lost out only due to the gaping coffee and math deficits in my tiny sector of the multiverse. (Sorry.) Inhabitants of other sectors of the multiverse are highly encouraged to read this paper, as wave function collapse (which establishes the definite state of an object - one might even say it is the state that corresponds to an object bearing a distinct identity) is linked to gravity, which I have previously speculated might have something to do with the neurophysics of economically seaming the represenations of distinct objects together.
But back to Mitra's essay...
You got me with the first line - "As pointed out by David Deutsch, it is possible to experimentally disprove all collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics if one could make measurements in a reversible way." An idea previously discussed by this author as well. But not something about which you can simply declare "Oh, I did that" and expect to be believed. ;)
What gets me about this paper is that the erasure of memory is discussed as a 'unitary operator that disentangles the observer from the spin.' Come again? Are we talking about a complete, or a partial, disentanglement? Heck, why are we jumping straight to entanglement/disentanglement analogies for memory/forgetting in the first place? I've been really careful to avoid leaping to entanglement as an explanation for anything other than observable entanglement behavior between two particles.
The author's use of a 'machine observer' provides an opening to discuss ideal memory erasure, which is presumably not a condition that can be easily found in human observers. My predisposition is to map 'forgetting' from our existing understanding of neurochemical and/or neuroelectrical dynamics in the human observer, and see how that maps onto reports of a changed past. That work could be extended into blocking memory encoding to prevent a permanent 'entanglement' with a particular outcome state. But I digress...
If I'm reading the paper correctly, the author suggests the use of memory resetting to a backup (prior) state as an escape from a forthcoming disaster. "The observer facing disaster can thus be almost sure to escape the disaster by doing a memory resetting." Interesting... I've escaped the 'disaster' of not finding the items I was looking for while shopping by 'forgetting' that I had just witnessed the absence of the desired item. Although I've never really thought of it as 'forgetting', but rather as a 'shifting of attention' until that observation was no longer in short-term memory.
It also follows then that we would want to be careful about what type of observations we make, as they may prove to be 'unforgettable', thereby "trapp[ing] us in the wrong sector of the multiverse." Sometimes a lack of information is a good thing - think of it as 'degrees of freedom' in your ability to select an outcome state. ;)
One final note - all of the essays on The Nature of Time can be viewed here, along with the number of popular votes they received. I'd like to meet the person who actually read all of those essays before voting. I'm just saying - that's a lot of essays...
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