Spinoff Technology of Causality Comms

[Trachmyr]

In my Sci-fi setting, the one piece of Superscience I use is Causality Comms. They are a good bit more efficient and less costly than presented in UT, and are the "limitation" placed on Sentient AIs... They can only be Transmitted via Causality Comm otherwise the copy is a new identity and will have altered personality/capabilities, this also mean that Sentient AIs cannot be truly copied, but can be transmitted.

I was wondering what the Hive Mind sees as spin-off technologies is Causality Comms were possible? One thing I'm curious about is if they could be used as a form of Energy Transmission... basically the Reciever Unit will be the same size as the normal Battery required, but as long as the Fusion Reactor Entangled with it is operating, it will stay powered for a very long time. Low-Draw devices would still use Tritium Beta-Voltaic Cells, but high Consumption devices, Vechicles and even City power can be handled through Quantum Entangled Recievers.

Obviously with this Tech, AIs can build an interstellar society (In my setting, they have colonies in 7 systems, and ships on route to another 14)... Virtual Reality is like it's own plane of existance, Information is cheap and available everywhere, Encyrption is unbreakable and veryone has a comm implant that can communicate anywhere to anywhere (provided the infrastructure is intact & your QE Cell isn't depleted). But what else can you see as spinoffs?

[Langy]

Going by the typical definition of how causality comms works, no, you can't get energy transmission through them. You could alter the technobabble to allow it, but doing so makes it impossible to suggest other tech advances that they'd spur.

In any case, the main thing preventing causality comms from being Real Science rather than Super Science is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - basically, measuring a quantum state alters that quantum state. If you can break that - measure a quantum state without it changing, and then change quantum states when you want them to change - then you can have causality comms in the real world. I can't think of anything off-hand that allowing this would significantly alter.

However, do note that since it's FTL information transfer, it can allow time-travel like messages from the future.

[Trachmyr]

With adequete Technobabble, could changing quantum states alter the charge of Ions or something similar to that effect?

As for "time-travel-like messages", my understanding is say you have an outpost in Solar System A and B, 50 LY apart. In B you observe new Star in the sky, and can transmit that info to System A 50 years before they would ever see it. And of course AIs can travel between established Solar Systems at FTL speeds. Is that about the gist of it, or is there something more I'm missing.

[lexington]

If we take the causality comms at face value (ie we go be effects not any attempt to analyze the technobabble behind them) enormous, planet sized, computers can be very functional. Normally transmission is limited by the speed of light so an enormous computer needs a long time to process everything but with FTL information transfer that limitation is gone and a planetary computer can call on all of its resources as easily a cell phone.

Originally Posted by Trachmyr

With adequete Technobabble, could changing quantum states alter the charge of Ions or something similar to that effect.

With technobabble you can justify anything you want.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Trachmyr

With adequete Technobabble, could changing quantum states alter the charge of Ions or something similar to that effect?

As for "time-travel-like messages", my understanding is say you have an outpost in Solar System A and B, 50 LY apart. In B you observe new Star in the sky, and can transmit that info to System A 50 years before they would ever see it. And of course AIs can travel between established Solar Systems at FTL speeds. Is that about the gist of it, or is there something more I'm missing.

No, there is definitely more you are missing. We are talking actual 'I call myself from 20 years ago on the phone' time travel. See here for more.

And no, changing quantum states doesn't alter ion charges - ion charges are caused by the physical presence or absence of subatomic particles, and the quantum states changing will not alter that at all.

[dataweaver]

Note that if you don't want "timephones", it's easy enough to say that special relativity is an incomplete model of spacetime, and that there is a preferred inertial reference frame and an "absolute now": special relativity doesn't forbid such a frame; it merely states that for the category of phenomena that it was designed to address, a preferred frame isn't necessary. A case could be made that non-local quantum effects such as entanglement do require a preferred inertial frame of reference*, and that no amount of slinging particles around will "tilt the board" and allow a quantum entanglement to span time.

* In fact, I have seen arguments that the primary difficulty of getting relativity and quantum mechanics to harmonize is precisely this: the equations of quantum mechanics are formulated in terms of an absolute reference frame, and attempting to reformulate them to remove that aspect have been fruitless.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Note that if you don't want "timephones", it's easy enough to say that special relativity is an incomplete model of spacetime, and that there is a preferred inertial reference frame and an "absolute now": special relativity doesn't forbid such a frame; it merely states that for the category of phenomena that it was designed to address, a preferred frame isn't necessary

The actual restriction on a preferred frame is a good deal more complicated, because you have to explain what all the phenomena relativity does explain look like in the preferred frame without contradicting anything. But yeah any time you allow FTL into a world, a preferred frame is the way to go. You can ditch any other relativity connected phenomena you want at the same time - time dilation pretty much must go (explaining away the experiments that seem to show it is one of those tough non-contradiction problems), and the huge (greater than v^2) kinetic energy buildup approaching c is a good one to dump.

In fact, I have seen arguments that the primary difficulty of getting relativity and quantum mechanics to harmonize is precisely this: the equations of quantum mechanics are formulated in terms of an absolute reference frame, and attempting to reformulate them to remove that aspect have been fruitless

There have been some modest successes with relativistic treatments - lowering the 6s orbital energy and explaining the color of gold is rather famous. But for the most part, quantum gravity theories tend to involve supposedly pretty mathematics so fiendishly complex nobody can solve them enough to make a testable prediction....

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The actual restriction on a preferred frame is a good deal more complicated, because you have to explain what all the phenomena relativity does explain look like in the preferred frame without contradicting anything. But yeah any time you allow FTL into a world, a preferred frame is the way to go. You can ditch any other relativity connected phenomena you want at the same time - time dilation pretty much must go (explaining away the experiments that seem to show it is one of those tough non-contradiction problems), and the huge (greater than v^2) kinetic energy buildup approaching c is a good one to dump.

I've heard mention that, if the preferred reference frame is restricted to faster than light phenomena, relativity can still basically apply as it's been described to everything going slower than light. I'm not sure how exactly that works out though. But then, settings which feature FTL travel at all generally don't draw such a restriction, and simply ignore relativity.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

I've heard mention that, if the preferred reference frame is restricted to faster than light phenomena, relativity can still basically apply as it's been described to everything going slower than light. I'm not sure how exactly that works out though. But then, settings which feature FTL travel at all generally don't draw such a restriction, and simply ignore relativity.

That's right. The most common method of handling this is the use of 'hyperspace' or something similar; a state of being where the laws of relativity fail. While not in 'hyperspace', you are still restricted to the normal laws of relativity.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by malloyd

The actual restriction on a preferred frame is a good deal more complicated, because you have to explain what all the phenomena relativity does explain look like in the preferred frame without contradicting anything.

That isn't as much of a problem as it would first appear. In fact, the ability to represent any frame of reference from the perspective of any other frame of reference makes it trivial to represent any frame of reference from the perspective of a single frame of reference. That's what's meant by special relativity not requiring a preferred frame, but not forbidding it either.

Originally Posted by malloyd

There have been some modest successes with relativistic treatments - lowering the 6s orbital energy and explaining the color of gold is rather famous. But for the most part, quantum gravity theories tend to involve supposedly pretty mathematics so fiendishly complex nobody can solve them enough to make a testable prediction....

Quantum gravity isn't where the conflict between the two theories is most pronounced; it's a much more fundamental issue than that. Take the wave function collapse of two entangled particles: when the wave function collapses, both particles shift from indeterminate states to concrete states. So far, so good, except that "when the wave function collapses" carries the implicit assumption that you can define a single, consistent moment in time that the collapse occurs. IOW, you've just defined a preferred reference frame. That's the core of the conflict.