Scientists Transfer Info Between Atoms (Star Trek Teleportation is REAL!)

Local 6 News ^ | 6-16-2004 | AP

[vannrox]

TED: 2:55 pm EDT June 16, 2004
UPDATED: 3:03 pm EDT June 16, 2004

In a step toward making ultra-powerful computers, scientists have transferred physical characteristics between atoms by using a phenomenon so bizarre that even Albert Einstein called it spooky.

Such "quantum teleportation" of characteristics had been demonstrated before between beams of light.

The work with atoms is "a landmark advance," H.J. Kimble of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., and S.J. van Enk of Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J., declare in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Two teams of scientists report similar results in that issue. One group was led by David J. Wineland of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., and the other by Rainer Blatt of the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

Teleportation between atoms could someday lie at the heart of powerful quantum computers, which are probably at least a decade away from development, Wineland said. Although his work moved information about atomic characteristics only a tiny fraction of an inch, that's in the ballpark for what would be needed inside a computer, he said.

His work involved transmitting characteristics between pairs of beryllium atoms, while the Austrian work used pairs of calcium atoms. Each atom's "quantum state," a complex combination of traits, was transmitted to its counterpart.

Key to the process was a phenomenon called entanglement, which Einstein derided as "spooky action at a distance" before experiments showed it was real.

Basically, researchers can use lab techniques to create a weird relationship between pairs of tiny particles. After that, the fate of one particle instantly affects the other; if one particle is made to take on a certain set of properties, the other immediately takes on identical or opposite properties, no matter how far away it is and without any apparent physical connection to the first particle.

[DannyTN]

Evidence. This is not evidence that God exists. But it is evidence of how little man really knows.

If we don't know how this works, then how confident are we in saying things like the universal constants that we have observed for the last 200 years are indeed constant and have never changed?

How much faith should we really put into the scientific theories developed over the last 200 years that support old ages of the universe and evolution?

For me who has the benefit of knowing God, the answer is little. Don't get me wrong, I'm not disputing the scientific observations, themselves. But I do question many of the absolute conclusions that have been built, such as extrapolations into past time, simplistic models that are assumed to accurately model much more complicated phenomenon, etc.

For you who don't have the benefit of knowing God, yet, I encourage you to keep an open mind.

[PatrickHenry]

How much faith should we really put into the scientific theories developed over the last 200 years that support old ages of the universe and evolution?

None. Scientific theories don't travel on faith. Faith (as philosophers use the term) is the acceptence of a proposition in the absence of verifiable evidence or logical proof.

Scientific theories are accepted because -- and only as long as -- they are: (a) consistent with all relevant observations; and (b) make verifiable predictions. The history of science indicates that even widely accepted theories are overturned if evidence is found that contradicts the theory. The best-known example is the once universally believed idea of a steady-state universe, which recently gave way to the big bang theory. Today, there are no "steady-staters" clinging to their disproved theory on faith.

So if there are good scientific reasons why a theory should be rejected, it will be. No faith is involved.

[longshadow]

So if there are good scientific reasons why a theory should be rejected, it will be. No faith is involved.

Similarly, if one asks why we should have confidence (not faith) in scientific methods, one need only look at the example given by Brian Greene during his recent C-SPAN talk during a book-tour appearance. Greene recounts the story of one of his colleagues who is a expert in some aspect of quantum physics, who performed a 1000+ page-long calulation, based on current scientific theory, of some magnetic property of the electron. Essentially, the theory allowed his colleague to make a prediction accurate to TEN digits of the property.....

.... and then shortly thereafter, researchers doing experimental work actually measured this property of the electron, and lo and behold the predicted AND observed values were in agreement -- RIGHT DOWN TO THE TENTH DIGIT!

So, you are absolutely correct when you say that it's not about "faith" when scientists do science; it's about confidence that derives from extraordinarily accurate predictions made based upon scientific theory and borne out by experimental or observational measurement. It is the confidence one gets from repeated successes, which are only possible because we throw away or revise those theories whose predictions don't comport with reality.

[DannyTN]

"we would not have a business interest in simple communication across the galaxy at this time, but in getting ourselves back and forth. That is the goal. Make it happen."

I think we would have a lot of interest. Granted travel would be better. But instantaneous communication and control of remote probes.

We could build and send probes to nearby stars looking for inhabitable planets.

The 26 nearest stars range from 4 to 11 light years away. If we could send probes that could reach 25% of the speed of light, we could have probes to 26 planets in times ranging from 16-44 years, but once there we wouldn't have to wait 4 to 11 years for results, we would have them instantly.

Just compare how much trouble we have with mars probes because of the time delay in receiving data and issuing commands.

Plus as someone pointed out earlier. Instantaneous, unbreakable, unjamable military communications. That's big.

[DannyTN]

The entire economic base falls flat on it's face as everything valuable becomes worth only as much as the energy needed to copy it. Star Trek indeed!

Only the material economy. The economy would transform, to be one of Energy Generation, Intellectual Property, Entertainment, Health Care, Excercise and Weight Loss facilities.

We are already making the transition to the "Dream Society". This would just speed it up. The economic dislocations would be great, but the great thing about this, is since food could be printed by the government, it would reduce the cost of social programs. Who cares how much is given away if it's only costing you a few cents of energy as opposed to 20-30% of your salary.

[kAcknor]

The economy would transform, to be one of Energy Generation, Intellectual Property, Entertainment, Health Care, Excercise and Weight Loss facilities.

Scary stuff. Look at us today, things are so easy for many in the developed nations that boredom is the base of most actions.

Although there are many that use physical activity to counteract it, for the large (pun intended) majority free time entails hours of mindless visual/aural entertainment that leads to overeating and obesity.

Indeed, that alone insures the results you envision, but I believe the great wealth potential in a medical solution to being overweight will lead to a method befitting our laziness. ;)

OTOH, the pessimist in me is screaming to point out that peaceful transitions of this order are rare, and it's probable that hundreds of thousands of poor, uneducated, unemployed and unemployable screaming for "More, more, more!" will cause many bad times prior to the survivors being suitably socialized into the more benign aspects and great potential of the new society.

[AntiGuv]

OK, I've pondered this quite a bit since my last post, at considerable risk to life and limb! (I'm absent-minded enough when I drive ;) So, I think I have put together a much improved and more coherent way to convey the points that I've been trying to express all along. So, here's the new deal! =)

First of all, I want to unsatisfactorily dispense with two sub-items that keep popping up: (a) the subluminal transfer of information and (b) the coordination of quantum mechanics with special relativity.

In the first instance, we are simply assuming that information may be transmitted via quantum entanglement regardless of whether that is ever proven true in actuality. If we simply declare that quantum entanglement cannot convey a signal then we may very well be correct but we are evading the actual topic at hand: causality. The questions of information transfer raise significant problems with the no-cloning theorem and with the uncertainty principle, but those are separate issues (which though very intriguing are nonetheless tangential). The very existence of quantum entanglement invokes those and all we can say is: that’s just how it works & we don’t yet know why!

Now as for the second issue, I simply want to reiterate that quantum mechanics and special relativity are not a unified theory; the two cannot be encompassed within a single known mathematical framework. The very phenomenon of quantum entanglement underscores that discrepancy and indeed its conjectured existence first made that clear. We cannot use the discordance between quantum mechanics and special relativity to controvert either nor can we transport the principles of one to the other. This is a rather crucial aspect because we are here discussing precisely those circumstances in which the two are brought into greatest conflict within our current models.

OK, so moving right along, I think I’ve identified what appears to be the central impediment to which I was alerted in contemplating this post from PatrickHenry:

If the hypotheticallly instantaneous transmission system makes them both into a single frame of reference, then you'll never have a 3d reference frame, because it too will be in instantaneous communications with the others.

OK, in order to address this issue I want to begin by posting two links regarding wormholes (which I would’ve found much quicker had they been in the correct folder..) that feature the most relevant points. While Traversable Wormholes covers a lot of pertinent topics, the key parts begin with the following excerpt under Time Travel:

Wormholes are constrained by relativity to travel at sublight speeds and are time-dilated as per normal. Clocks placed at the mouths of a wormhole always remain in synchronisation with each other. If I look through one end of a wormhole and compare the near clock with the far clock they always agree. Even if one end of the wormhole is travelling at relativistic speeds many light years away. Einstein says moving clocks run slow. There would appear to be a paradox here. We observe the two clocks keeping time with each other, yet relativity says the 'distant', travelling clock is running slowly. How do we reconcile this? Only by concluding that the distant clock has been displaced in space and time.

Now, here is the crux I think of why we’ve been talking past one another, surely due in no small part to my often poor articulation skills. Our quantumly entangled communication channel (henceforth “ansible”) is always operating on the same inertial frame. This is why I keep emphasizing the point that nothing is ‘moving’ anywhere in the course of the transmission: even if one terminal is being carried along at a relativistic speed on our starship, its clock will always remained synchronized with the terminal at the other end. In effect, our understanding of quantum entanglement dictates that the entangled particles are not subject to relativistic time dilation; indeed, they can be said to coexist in the same point in time-space regardless of our external perception of them. That is the basic essence of the phenomenon.

The apparent paradox arises because the starship’s clock is in the course of, let’s say, 86.6% luminal velocity running at half the rate as the clock on Earth, and vice versa due to time dilation. However, as far as our ansible is concerned, the two terminals are perfectly synchronized with one another and this synchronization is fixed in that inertial frame in which they originated. So, before I get to the implications of that and the (possibly unwise) mental leaps I was making in reconciling this discordance, I want to introduce another piece of the puzzle excerpted from Wormholes and Time Machines:

Most physicists will find this result [wormhole instability] very satisfying, for it avoids a sumultaneity paradox. Einstein's special theory of relativity treats space-time in a very even-handed and symmetric way. It requires a complete equivalence of "inertial reference frames", space-time coordinate systems moving through space with any constant speed (including zero). These must be equivalent by any internal measurement that would single out one such frame as special. For example, no measurements made inside a spaceship traveling at near light-speed can show different results from similar measurements made when the ship was at rest in space. In special relativity "at rest in space" is a meaningless concept, since that condition is undetectable.

Thus, a semi-permanent wormhole would present a problem for special relativity not only because it would breach the light-speed barrier but also because the reference-frame symmetry would be broken. If a wormhole connection between separated regions of space existed only long enough to permit a message to be sent, it would seem that a reference-frame test could be made that would single out one reference frame as "preferred". Absolute space would be detected and defined.

Our basic disagreement, I now suspect, revolves about the reconciliation of our starship reference frame with our ansible reference frame which is also the Earth’s reference frame. Our quantum-entanglement ansible is indifferent to the time-dilated reference frame of our communicators, but nonetheless all the communications are taking place on the inertial frame of the ansible, which is the same at both ends. This is a severe violation of special relativity but then that is simply an apparent fact of the phenomenon of quantum entanglement itself. It is in the course of the interaction of our traveller and his ansible that the two separate spheres of quantum theory and special relativity are bridged (much to our dismay..)

How, where, why does the bridge exist? Who knows – that’s what physicists are trying to figure out. My guess would be it’s on some Superstring in the Tenth Dimension =) – but that’s something well beyond my understanding (or anyone else’s at this moment).

OK, so in the course of my previous comments I made two dreadful errors of my own (hanging head in shame), and here they are. First, when I kept reiterating that our communiques were traversing a single inertial frame I did not properly define what that was and when I would segue back and forth between that and the two reference frames of our communicators and then alluding to a necessary third observer (reference frame) to create a second inertial frame I did not specify what the hell I was talking about.. This was evidently the source of much confusion.

Anyhow, to make things as clear as I’m able, the one inertial frame of our transmission is that of our quantumly entangled ansible which happens to coincide with the reference frame of our Earthbound terminal even when it is being operated from the reference frame of our starship terminal. The third reference frame necessary to create a second intertial frame must be some other ansible operating on a ‘frequency’ different than that of our first ansible and then somehow interacting with both of our first two communicators – thereby introducing our causality issues.

When I said that you were ‘incorrectly’ privileging first one reference frame and then the other, I meant that by coordinating the times of each transmission as if they were taking place on the reference frame of the respective terminals, you were in effect treating them as if they were operating along two different ‘wormholes’ in each direction, rather than traversing one two-way wormhole. In effect, our entangled particles were forcibly subjected to the relativistic time dilation experienced by their surroundings, but that is not the current understanding of the phenomenon! We cannot treat our ansible transmissions strictly as if our two speakers are speaking to one another, but rather must treat them as if our two particles are ‘communing’ with one another and that this “spooky action at a distance” is then interpreted into the respective reference frames of their observers.

It is a bridge between quantum mechanics and special relativity – galavanting through the ether. =)

Now, that leaves unresolved the fact that our communicators are nonetheless operating in their own respective reference frames and must somehow interpret the ordering of the transmissions, which must be chronically linear if we are to avoid causality loops and the implosion of the universe.. It was in my conjectural reconciling of this phase that I made my second dreadful error, because I performed some mental acrobatics moving our transmission from the classical level to the quantum level to the relativistic level and back to the classical level without bothering to explain what I was doing, in part because I was not altogether clear myself what I was doing until alerted to it while pondering this post and this post by Physicist.

OK, so what did I do? When I was trying to draw a ‘verbal picture’ in my first lengthy post, and what I was trying to convey when invoking the graphics in sharpblue’s article, can perhaps be better depicted in the following solution to the apparent Twin Paradox.

Please check out the link to see a Flash animation of the transmits in action. This is a much better graphical layout of that which my parallel and perpendicular lines with variable time frames were attempting to capture (and why I later said that I know the lines were not in fact parallel). My previous formulation was a pallid, pathetic imitation of one side of this exchange.. :(

So, in effect, what I am doing from a mathematical standpoint is correcting for the ‘twin paradox’ over and over again each time a transmission is sent in order to represent the time dilation effect. Stated differently, I am effectively dropping the starship into a stationary position every time it transmits even though in actuality the starship remains in near-luminal motion. Since the ansible is operating as if it never left earth, which on whatever level quantum entanglement operates might as well be the case, I am basically performing the same correction that the twins must perform to reconcile their age discrepancy upon the star travelling twin’s return home.

Now, this little mental trick is open to significant objection! The first and foremost which occurred to me much earlier but which I didn’t raise because I figured we had enough issues to deal with is that although the communications may be instantaneous as far as the ansible is concerned, they would probably not be perceived as such by the communicators due to the time dilation factor. Hmm.. Better yet, let me take the possibilities as I see them in order:

1) It may well be the case that our ansible simply refuses to function when moving at relativistic speeds (or more precisely that we cannot detect its functioning due to our motion). In that case, we could communicate instantly at will over interstellar distances but only when we occupy the same inertial frame as does the ansible - when in motion the starship’s transmitter would be deaf and mute.

2) More likely the case (I think), and what I’m referring to above, it may be that our time-dilated perception of the communiques while in motion leads us to perceive those as if they are stretched out interminably at one end but a mere unintelligible blip at the other. Again, we can communicate just fine when dropping out of motion, but while in motion everything would be uselessly garbled (actually, this implies the possibility of certain modulations to correct for the time-dilation effect, but let’s not go there either!)

3) Finally, it may just be the case that the entangled quanta somehow compensate for our own experience of relativity, and thereby the ansible works just fine even when the ship is in motion. That’s basically the scenario we’ve been discussing all along since the alternatives are a much different or a much shorter (it doesn’t work – get over it!) kind of debate.

In whatever case, the simple two-way use of this same ansible and presumably any other ansible operating on the same inertial frame cannot violate causality! That’s because the communication itself is occurring on the same inertial frame no matter what the relative inertial frames of the persons communicating! Again, to return to my earlier notation, that does not ultimately resolve our problem at hand because there will always be at least some other inertial frames which can at least hypothetically interact with that inertial frame thereby raising the prospect of causality loops. Short of that, so long as the starship itself does not travel at superluminal velocity, then we cannot cross the time travel boundary because the communication itself is not travelling at any velocity. Heck, as far as the entangled quantum is concerned, it may as well have never left the Earth at all!

There’s also the conundrum of what happens when we turn the far ansible terminal around and bring it back to Earth, but that’s a whole ‘nother can o’ worms! I’ve already devoted enough hours to this one!! =)

I hope I’ve finally made myself clear! Now please tear it apart so I can withdraw back into my orderly intuitive little cave where I belong! :p

[AntiGuv]

Darn, I already see one typo. Here is the sentence corrected:

First of all, I want to unsatisfactorily dispense with two sub-items that keep popping up: (a) the superluminal transfer of information and (b) the coordination of quantum mechanics with special relativity.

Not the "subluminal" transfer as I wrote initially.

[AntiGuv]

*sigh* There's one more typo I want to correct, just because it makes things read better. The blockquote from Traversable Wormholes should end with this:

How do we reconcile this? Only by concluding that the distant clock has been displaced in space and time.

The emphasized "and" makes it read properly.

Please ignore the few spelling typos and I don't think there are any other substantive ones.

[AntiGuv]

repeat for proper ping..

*sigh* There's one more typo I want to correct, just because it makes things read better. The blockquote from Traversable Wormholes should end with this:

How do we reconcile this? Only by concluding that the distant clock has been displaced in space and time.

The emphasized "and" makes it read properly.

Please ignore the few spelling typos and I don't think there are any other substantive ones.

[AntiGuv]

There's one last quick point I want to make (I promise!) barring any potential replies. The following may appear inconsistent, though it's not as I understand things!

Wormholes are constrained by relativity to travel at sublight speeds and are time-dilated as per normal.

...the entangled particles are not subject to relativistic time dilation...

That is to say, the location of a wormhole is subject to time dilation as per normal, but the traversal of the wormhole is not. Imagined differently, if you were to step through a wormhole you would find yourself in that point in spacetime dictated by the prior motion of the wormhole, but you will not have experienced any time dilation in the course of the transition. You may be 10 years in the 'future' but you will not have aged 10 years - or even 10 seconds!

This can create its own causal quandary if the opposite end is returned to its departure point, but then I've already alluded to that.

[PatrickHenry]

I applaud your efforts. A few comments are all I can do, because if I allowed myself to get seduced by this topic, it will take over the rest of my life:

The universe (or part of it) that can enjoy instantaneous contact via your "quantumly entangled ansible" constitutes a privileged, universal frame of reference. Very Newtonian, I think. It can't co-exist with special relativity -- at least not as I understand it. Adding the wholly conjectural effects of wormholes to the picture doesn't help. It's an unnecessary complication that doesn't need to be considered while the basics are being ironed out. I like to take it slow, only one wild concept at a time.

In whatever case, the simple two-way use of this same ansible and presumably any other ansible operating on the same inertial frame cannot violate causality! That’s because the communication itself is occurring on the same inertial frame no matter what the relative inertial frames of the persons communicating!

Alas, I think it does. Once earth and the ship have passed a few messages back and forth, you still have the earth getting messages from their future. Same issues as before. Or so it seems to me.

[DannyTN]

WOW, you really brought out the dark side didn't you?"

"that hundreds of thousands of poor, uneducated, unemployed and unemployable screaming for "More, more, more!" will cause many bad times"

With this technology they wouldn't necessarily be poor. At least they wouldn't be hungry and everyone could probably have their own house. But uneducated, unemployed and unemployable would remain problems. What to do with their spare times. Drug use would probably soar.

Of course, the government could need to do some things like require education of groups in certain circumstances. If the economy didn't respond quickly enough with new jobs in new technologies and entertainment, which it would in the long run, the government might need to step in with some challenges, terraforming Mars or Venus or something to employ people and help kick start the economy.

So I don't know that we would be as bored as you might think. It's not a necessary outcome that we be that bored.

[AntiGuv]

The universe (or part of it) that can enjoy instantaneous contact via your "quantumly entangled ansible" constitutes a privileged, universal frame of reference.

In a localized sense, yes. I tried to convey that here:

If a wormhole connection between separated regions of space existed only long enough to permit a message to be sent, it would seem that a reference-frame test could be made that would single out one reference frame as "preferred".

If you examine that link further - Wormholes and Time Machines you will find that the causality problems are raised only when the far end of the wormhole that has travelled at relativistic speeds is brought back to its departure locale.*

It can't co-exist with special relativity -- at least not as I understand it.

Wormholes are not contrary to special relativity. Einstein himself was troubled by the realization that his theory permitted time travel! In any case, here is an intensely scientific, extremely mathematical hypothesis of how the two may coexist:

Relativistic, Causal Description of Quantum Entanglement and Gravity

Here is a notable excerpt:

One of the most important features of quantum mechanics is the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect, in which strong correlations are observed between presently noninteracting particles that have interacted in the past. The problem of understanding the consequences of the EPR effect is still controversial. Experiments on entangled particle states have verified the ‘nonlocal’ nature of quantum mechanics. One disturbing feature of the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics is that the nonlocal nature of the entanglement process has been divorced from our common intuitive ideas about spacetime events and causality. The standard interpretation asserts that for photons (or electrons) positioned at A and B, separated by a spacelike distance, there is no exchange of classical information and superluminal signals between A and B are impossible according to special relativity. With the advent of the possibility of constructing quantum computers and performing ‘teleportation’ experiments, the whole issue of the spacetime reality of the EPR process becomes more problematic.

Adding the wholly conjectural effects of wormholes to the picture doesn't help. It's an unnecessary complication that doesn't need to be considered while the basics are being ironed out.

But the mathematics are identical as far as causality is concerned!! Maybe I should've made it clearer that it's ultimately but an analogy, but for all intents and purposes our ansible is behaving like a tiny wormhole. I thought borrowing the concept of wormholes would make things easier to conceptualize, not more difficult.

Once earth and the ship have passed a few messages back and forth, you still have the earth getting messages from their future.

Of course you do, but each reply message is received at a later point than when the recipient sent the message to which he receives a reply. Hence, no causality violation!! The 'future' from which the earth is getting messages is the 'future' location of the ship, but that 'future' is interacting across the ansible with only the earth of its 'past' that initially messaged it. If you visit the Traversable Wormholes commentary and check out the subsection titled Empire-Time vs Co-Moving Time, that concept is better explained.. The only thing we require to preserve causality is that no one at a given reference frame receives a message cognizant of a previous point in time in that recipient's reference frame. So long as that is the case, it does not matter if the recipient is in the past of the transmitter's reference frame because the recipient cannot interact with that past!

I thought we'd already covered that.. *sob* =)

* If I understand correctly, this problem actually should not exist with our entangled quanta because they don't exhibit that particular trait of wormholes! Although we must perceive them as if their location is time-dilated, that is only because their surroundings are time-dilated. They themselves are not subject to special relativity and so once they are brought back into one another's vicinity we perform one final, grand 'twin-paradox correction' and all is well!

[AntiGuv]

Opps! I meant to write:

The only thing we require to preserve causality is that no one at a given reference frame receives a message cognizant of a future point in time in that recipient's reference frame. So long as that is the case, it does not matter if the recipient is in the past of the transmitter's reference frame because the recipient cannot interact with that past!

[PatrickHenry]

The only thing we require to preserve causality is that no one at a given reference frame receives a message cognizant of a previous point in time in that recipient's reference frame.

That is precisely the problem that will arise, I believe. I pointed this out in post 119. One of us is seriously wrong about this.

[kAcknor]

WOW, you really brought out the dark side didn't you?"

LOL! Well, it was late and I had a hard Friday. ;)

So I don't know that we would be as bored as you might think. It's not a necessary outcome that we be that bored.

I don't see boredom as the outcome, but more of a symptom. I admit to being somewhat the pessimist, and I'm rarely disappointed and it allows the occasional surprises to be that much more enjoyable.

As to any possible futures, the best way to foresee that, in my opinion, is to simply look at the past. Many things change and technology has driven our culture since the first of us hit something with a rock and noticed the sharp edge. Technology is only half of the equation, human nature controls the rest and THAT changes only slightly, if at all.

[AntiGuv]

But your post 119 treats the exchange as if you have this:

Earth ---------------------> Starship

Earth <--------------------- Starship

That formulation is behaving as if there were two one-way communication channels with each one originating in the reference frame of its transmitter and then received in the reference frame of its recipient.

Unless I'm dreadfully wrong, the way to conceptualize our ansible is thus:

Earth <---------------------> Starship

You only have one two-way communication channel that is fixed in one inertial frame which happens to coincide with the Earth's reference frame even when transmitting from the starship's reference frame. This is because the entangled quantum on the starship that is interacting with the entangled quantum back on Earth remains on the same inertial frame.

Thus, a semi-permanent wormhole would present a problem for special relativity not only because it would breach the light-speed barrier but also because the reference-frame symmetry would be broken.

You are preserving the reference-frame symmetry, but the reference-frame symmetry is broken!!

[PatrickHenry]

The messages are instantaneous, but each message is a separate event. This is what happens, as I've described it in post 119:

Event one, Earth sends an instant message on July 4
Earth (July 4) ------> Starship (July 3)

That, by itself, is not a causality problem. It's the response that generates the problem.

Event two, the ship, having received that message on July 3 (ship time) sends an instant reply back to earth, which must arrive earlier than July 3:
Earth (July 2) <------ Starship (July 3)

So Earth gets a response to its July 4th message before that July 4th message was sent. Yes, it looks crazy. But that's what will happen, if I've got my special relativity right.

You are saying that the messaging system is, in effect, a wormhole, and that this prevents messages from arriving on Earth earlier than the ship's sending date. I don't think so. Each end of the wormhole has a different date. Wormhole or not, the message arrives earlier than it's sent (no matter which end is sending). That's my understanding. I've been wrong before, and maybe I'm wrong now, but I think that wormhole is going to be spitting out responses to messages before the messages are sent.

[AntiGuv]

Each end of the wormhole has a different date.

That is not correct. The ends of the wormhole are synchronized, even when moving at relativistic speeds. This would be a more accurate depiction of the exchange:

Event one, Earth sends an instant message on July 4 Earth (July 4) ------> Starship (July 3)

Earth (July 4) <------ (July 4) <------ Starship (July 3)

This is because the wormhole is synchronized. The Earth is transmitting to the wormhole which is transmitting to the starship. The starship is receiving that transmission in a 'universally' time-dilated fashion because it is on a different reference frame from Earth.

The starship is then transmitting to the wormhole which is transmitting to Earth. The wormhole receives the message in a locally non-time-dilated fashion because the transmitter is travelling on the same inertial frame as the starship. However, the earth also receives the message in a locally non-time-dilated fashion because the wormhole is transmitting along the same inertial frame as Earth.

You are preserving the reference-frame symmetry, but the symmetry is broken!