Retrocausality Conference

Free Will and Retrocausality in a Quantum World.

Trinity College, University of Cambridge
Winstanley Lecture Theatre [map]
July 1-4, 2014

Schedule | Abstracts | Accommodation | List of Participants | Conference Description

Videos of the conference are available on our YouTube channel.

Schedule. [download pdf]

Tuesday 1 July.

• 12:30–13:30.  Sandwiches and Coffee.
• 13:30–15:00.  Huw Price (Cambridge). “Two Paths to the Paris Interpretation.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 15:00–16:00.  Ken Wharton (San Jose).  “Retrocausal Accounts of Entanglement.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 16:00–16:30.  Coffee break.
• 16:30–18:00.  Nicolas Gisin (Geneva). “Quantum correlations in Newtonian space and time: arbitrarily fast communication or nonlocality?” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 18:15–late  Drinks reception and finger buffet in the Allhusen Room.

Wednesday 2 July.

• 09:00–10:00.  James Ladyman (Bristol). “An Argument for Retrocausality from Weak Values.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 10:00–10:30.  Coffee break.
• 10:30–11:30.  Lev Vaidman (Tel Aviv). “Can future measurements affect the present?” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 11:30–12:30.  Avshalom Elitzur (Iyar). “Nothing – or a Future Anti-Something? Negative values and time-symmetric causality as possible origin of quantum oddities.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 12:30–14:00.  Lunch break.
• 14:00–15:00.  Eliahu Cohen (Tel Aviv). “Rewinding Nature – Measurement, Decoherence and Collapse within the TSVF.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 15:00–16:00.  Adrian Kent (Cambridge). “A Solution to the Lorentzian Quantum Reality Problem.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 16:00–16:30. Coffee break.
• 16:30–18:00.  Yakir Aharonov (Tel Aviv/Chapman) [Talk delivered by Sandu Popescu (Bristol)]. Each Instant of Time a New Universe. [Videos: talk; discussion.]

Thursday 3 July.

• 09:00–10:00.  Matt Leifer (Perimeter). “Ontological Models in the Block Universe.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 10:00–10:30.  Coffee break.
• 10:30–11:30.  Matt Pusey (Perimeter). “Time-Symmetric Ontologies for Quantum Theory.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 11:30–12:30.  David Miller (Sydney). “Pre-entanglement shows that individual quantum systems do not possess states.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 12:30–14:00.  Lunch break.
• 14:00–15:00.  Joe Henson (Imperial/Bristol). “Reviving causality in quantum mechanics: some pitfalls.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 15:00–16:00.  Dustin Lazarovici (Munich). “A time-symmetric relativistic model violating Bell’s inequality.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 16:00–16:30. Coffee break.
• 16:30–17:30.  Ruth Kastner (Maryland). “Why Physics Does Not Preclude Free Will.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 17:30–18:30.   Steven Weinstein (Waterloo). “Degrees of Freedom.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 19:00–late.  Drinks and dinner in the Old Kitchen.

Friday 4 July.

• 09:00–10:00.  Tim Palmer (Oxford). “Bell’s Conspiracy and Schrödinger’s Black Cat – Global Invariant Sets as a possible alternative to Retrocausality.” [Videos: talk & discussion.]
• 10:00–10:30.  Coffee break.
• 10:30–11:30.   Rafael Sorkin (Perimeter). “How interconnected is the quantum world?” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 11:30–12:30.  Fay Dowker (Imperial). “Are there Premonitions in Quantum Measure Theory?” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 12:30–14:00.  Lunch break.
• 14:00–15:00.  Phil Dowe (Queensland). “Who put the ‘cause’ in retrocausality?” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 15:00–16:00.  Peter Lewis (Miami). “Retrocausal Compatibilism.” [Videos: talk; discussion.]
• 16:00–16:30. Coffee break.
• 16:30–18:00.  Roundtable discussion.

 

Accommodation.

Accommodation for participants is provided at St Catharine’s College.

 

The conference is part of the John Templeton Foundation-funded project New Agendas for the Study of Time, hosted by the Centre for Time, University of Sydney.

Attendance is by invitation only.

For further information, please contact Matt Farr.