I know the topic is months old, but I'm rarely here anymore.
GrayArea wrote: ↑May 13th, 2022, 6:10 pm
Will the cat encounter the exact same fate no matter how many times we go back in time and re-run the experiment, or will the quantum probability be "reset" every time one turns back time?
As Alta correctly points out, the answer is interpretation dependent. Different quantum interpretations give different answers to the question.
Secondly, there's no reason to restrict one self to the cat experiment, which cannot be implemented since there is no way to put a cat into superposition (states that interfere measurably with each other). So the question can be more simply asked: I shoot a photon through a slit (not double slit even), and it is measured at some random spot at the detector.
If I run that exact scenario multiple times (no time travel needed), will the measurement always take place there? The answer again is interpretation dependent. Bohm for instance would say yes. Most would say no I think.
Alan Masterman wrote: ↑July 7th, 2022, 1:37 pm
If we perform the same experiment numerous times and get the same result every time, we are on the right track. If we get random or unpredictable responses every time, we have taken a wrong turn somewhere.
If this were so, quantum theory would be falsified. One will get 'random' results every time, with predictable probability. If you get the same results every time, the theory is completely wrong.
value wrote: ↑July 7th, 2022, 10:44 pmOne would first need to establish what causes the wave function collapse.
This has nothing to do with it. There are interpretations that don't have wave function collapse. The ones that do and the ones that don't make the same empirical predictions.
Tegularius wrote: ↑July 8th, 2022, 4:16 pmOnly the cat knows for sure and he or she ain't talkin.
Again, only in something like Bohmian mechanics would the cat know. In most interpretations, it would not.
GrayArea wrote: ↑July 18th, 2022, 8:12 amHowever, I'm sorry—I still do not understand why time travel cannot happen here. Doesn't quantum superposition and its collapse still happen because time flows?
If time is something that flows, then the past and future don't exist, only the present, and there is therefore no past to which one can 'travel'. Time travel thus requires at a minimum a model where events have equal ontological footing, and the flowing time model isn't it.