Is the Past Determined?

TL;DR

This paper challenges the idea of backward-in-time effects in quantum experiments, proposing that measurement and observer perspective imply the past is sometimes only determined upon future measurements, within a framework called Convivial Solipsism.

Contribution

It introduces Convivial Solipsism, a novel interpretation explaining measurement effects without non-locality or backward causation, emphasizing observer-dependent reality.

Findings

No physical backward-in-time influence in delayed choice experiments.

Measurement is relative and does not cause instantaneous collapse.

Observer's past becomes definite only after certain measurements.

Abstract

In a recent paper, I argued against backward in time effects used by several authors to explain delayed choice experiments. I gave an explanation showing that there is no physical influence propagating from the present to the past and modifying the state of the system at a time previous to the measurement. However, though the solution is straightforward in the case of delayed choice experiments involving only one particle, it is subtler in the case of experiments involving two entangled particles because they give rise to EPR-like situations. Considering that a measurement is not an actual change of the physical state of a system and is relative to the observer allows to understand that there is neither backward in time effects nor instantaneous collapse of the second system when the first one is measured, as is often postulated.This allows also to get rid of any non-locality. In this paper, I want to go further into the consequences of this way of considering the measurement, that I have called Convivial Solipsism, and show that even if, in the usual sense, there is no physical effect of the present or of the future on the past, we must nevertheless consider that the observer's past is sometimes not entirely determined and that it becomes determined only when certain measurements are done latter. This apparent contradiction disappears if one understand that each observer builds, through her own measurements, her own world (that I call the phenomenal world in Convivial Solipsism) which is different from what we are used to consider as the common world shared by everybody.