You cite my work (ref. 4) via a cryptic "with better than 50% random success". 50% is not sufficient; even 55% happens often by coincidence; and the Quantum Randi Challenge demands reproduction of the QM Bell violation (99%). The proper reference is arxiv.org/abs/1207.5294 .

Moreover: If you allow missed anti-correlation, the QRC paper already gives a simple example program that violates Bell much more often than 50%, also described here: QRC Solved?.

Sascha,

The worm turns, doesn't it? After many months of libeling Joy Christian in a public forum with falsehood and innuendo, and suborning others to do the same, you complain of unfairness.

You can certainly fool some of the people some of the time with your truncated quotes and the ugly strawmen you build from them; however, I can by fact and source support everything I have said:

1. Randi's rationalist challenge has nothing to do with your strange idea of Bell's theorem and what it implies.

2. Most scientists are not familiar with social constructivism, and those who are do not base their science on it. Poll them.

3. Yes, one should care whether science is a rationalist enterprise. Has nothing to do with you, just your misguided and irrational philosophy of science.

4. You have no physical analogue to Wheeler's simple idea, nor any possibility for such. (A computer simulation is not a physical analogue.) The source of Wheeler's proposal is the continuum, not the quantum, which you would know if you were at all familiar with the body of his work as a relativist, " ... in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe." The correspondence between discrete information output to discrete elements of a continuous range of input variables is a continuous measurement function.

Tom

"After many months of libelling Joy Christian in a public forum with falsehood and innuendo, and suborning others to do the same..."

It is far worse, Tom, it is far worse. Mr. Vongehr has resorted to activities that border criminality.

He has twisted my words and even fabricated words in my name. He has simply manufactured some posts and email correspondence as if they were by me and posted them on his blog, with active help of the proprietor of the Science20 blogs, Mr. Hank Campbell. Wrongful defamation in the public forum is a crime in many countries, and---as you already know---Mr. Vongehr has committed this crime many times over.

You are giving respectability to this man on your author page which he does not deserve.

    Dear Thomas,

    I have read your essay and I appreciate your viewpoint. Your essay is very well-written, interesting and highly relevant. I wish you good luck in the contest.

    Recently, I have noticed some wild variations in community rated list of contest essays. There is a possibility of existence of a biased group or cartel (e.g. Academia or Relativists group) which promotes the essays of that group by rating them all 'High' and jointly demotes some other essays by rating them all 'Low'. As you know, we are not selecting the 'winners' of the contest through our ratings. Our community ratings will be used for selecting top 35 essays as 'Finalists' for further evaluation by a select panel of experts. Therefore, any biased group should not be permitted to corner all top 'Finalists' positions for their select group.

    In order to ensure fair play in this selection, we should select (as per laid down criteria), as our individual choice, about 50 essays for entry in the finalists list and RATE them 'High'. Next we should select bottom 50 essays and rate them 'Low'. Remaining essays may be rated as usual. If most of the participants rate most of the essays this way then the negative influence of any bias group can certainly be mitigated.

    I have read many but rated very few essays so far and intend to do a fast job now onwards by covering at least 10 essays every day.

    You are requested to read and rate my essay titled,"Wrong Assumptions of Relativity Hindering Fundamental Research in Physical Space". Kindly do let me know if you don't get convinced about the invalidity of the founding assumptions of Relativity or regarding the efficacy of the proposed simple experiments for detection of absolute motion.

    Finally I wish to see your excellent essay reach the list of finalists.

    Best Regards

    G S Sandhu

      Joy, you're right, of course. It isn't my intention to elevate the position of Vongehr's frivolous ideas to the level of a serious scientific discussion.

      What has always stuck in my craw is the moral implication of what he and Campbell are about. Disguising a gossip blog in the clothes of science is hardly the noble undertaking that it is advertised to be.

      In a famous confrontation at the Cambridge Moral Science Club in 1946, Wittgenstein wielded a fireplace poker in the face of visiting lecturer Karl Popper. The details are unclear.* What is not unclear, is that Popper's withering criticism of Wittgenstein's philosophy led Wittgenstein to demand an example from Popper of a "moral principle." Popper's reply: "Not to threaten visiting lecturers with pokers."

      Someone has to, as Bertrand Russell is said to have done -- at the moment Wittgenstein took the red hot poker from the fireplace and waved it at Popper -- say, "Wittgenstein, put down that poker at once!"

      To not say so, is as serious a moral breach as the threat itself.

      Tom

      *_Wttgenstein's Poker_, David Edmonds & John Edinow, Haper Collins 2001

      Sascha Vongehr complains on his blog: "Experts agree that solving the

      Quantum Randi Challenge would deserve the Nobel Prize. However, experts also keep demanding to reformulate the challenge with a variation of the Bell inequality called 'CHSH'."

      I should hope so. The experts are the ones who have studied EPR/Bell and its CHSH extension to a considerably higher standard than an unpublished arxiv paper that reads as if it were a sophomore term paper written the night of the big frat party beer bust.

      Because I know Vongehr's proposal to be flawed in principle -- the idea of it bears hardly even a superficial resemblance to the real Randi challenge -- I hadn't read the paper before. Now that I have, I am even more incensed that such babble survives on the borrowed credibility and reputation of the scientific enterprise.

      I went in expecting to dissect the paper and refute it point by point. It turned out to be a waste of time to even read, much less bother to refute -- Vongehr's principal notion is that "The described multi-player game computer setup constitutes a classical physical system; computers are physical! In short: if the computer setup could violate Bell's inequality, that very computer network would be a classical physical system that violates the Bell inequality and such would deserve a Nobel Prize."

      This is not just laughable; it borders on the insane. Coming from one who regularly savages serious researchers as "crackpots," and recommends Prozac, it comes across to me as simply pitiful. At any rate, it is the easiest matter to refute the notion: if Vongehr understood even the first jot of Wheeler's information-theoretic program that he pretends to, he would know that it isn't computers that are physical; information is physical. Current research in complex systems -- such as that by Strogatz, et al in the small world effect, and Bar-Yam, et al in bounded rationality -- clearly show that interacting systems (even a multi-player game such as V proposes) show little change on the large scale over long time intervals. Undaunted by empirical facts and actual experimental results, though, V allows his players to win against large odds because they live in parallel worlds. Sorry, dude, we all live in the same world where even your own "peer reviewer" Richard Gill acknowledges that the law of large numbers applies equally to every case, and that experimental results must be independent of theoretical expectations.

      As for this gem -- "About the equivalence of classical physics and classical computation: All experimental observations have finite resolution due to experimental errors/accuracy. The (today practically limitless) finite capacity of computer memory does therefore not present an obstacle to those who believe classical physics to involve true continuums." -- Good to know that Sascha has all the time in eternity at his disposal. Seems that he not only truncates critics to suit his whims, nature herself gets a close haircut.

      There are no "true continuums." There are continua constrained by abitrary boundary conditions, and there is THE continuum. It was the continuum, singular, from which Wheeler derived quantum information, and which every mathematician distinguishes from discrete numbers.

      Now if one can prove that the simulation of a continuous function is a continuous function ... no chance that Vongehr is up to it, though.

      Tom

        Hi Tom,

        Solving (defeating) his dumb challenge would be beyond deserving of a Nobel Prize since it is rigged to be impossible. Sheesh, De Raedt et al, already busted Bell with their mathematical model and Joy has busted Bell even better with a great physical model. Since Bell was wrong you can't use his specific criteria to rig the game. That is just not fair. One only needs to use the EPR-Bohm criteria. Rigging the game unfairly is something the Bell followers really should stop doing.

        Best,

        Fred

        But Fred, Vongehr doesn't even rise to the level of using Bell/CHSH criteria (read his paper). His proposal has no experimental criteria at all, just an inductive inference that is not independent of his expectations. Even a subtle rigging would be something worthwhile. The whole thing is just the biggest nonsense, and even his expected outcome is already falsified.

        Tom

        On a more positive note. I have posted a description of how my work provides agreement with Joy Christian's conclusions and a possible means by which Joy's work may be extended to include relatistic dynamics more explicitly. On the 3 spaces considered in Bell's analysis, Bell could be viewed as actually being 0 for 3 and not just 2 for 3.

        Michael

        Thanks, Christian! You have probably surmised that I am pleased to reciprocate, for your insightful essay.

        By the way, knowing that you were at the University of Pisa in the same period, I am reminded of delightful conversations I had in Vienna at Karl Popper 2002 with Guglielmo Tamburrini, then an associate professor in philosophy of science (now, I see, since 2005 Professor in philosophy of science at Universita' di Napoli Federico II). I'm afraid my own presentation didn't fare very well in this group of eminent scholars; I learned so much, though, and remember Guglielmo particularly with warmth and good feeling.

        All best,

        Tom

        all this story was a simple strategy in fact. Incredible, it was easy to find the parameters you know. You invent even persons who do not exist in fact.

        Let's play so,The works of Joy Christian are wonderful. You are right tom, it is fascinating.

        Well Mr Witten, Mr Tegmark, you permit a circus like that, since that I posted my theory of spherization in 2005 on net. I have known FQXi in 2008 I beleive, I have shared my general idea. I improve it in a total transparence. But I cannot accept the play of Jonathan, Tom,and his frustrated strategic friends.

        Even Ray was not real. It is not well all thjis story. And now they try with the faith and the religions.A pure bad strategy in fact. The excuse is not the competition and the theory of games. No!!! it is totally different.

        I am surprised in fact. In fact Jonathan, Ian, and you are bizare.Probably that you make a simple strategy for the opulences or if you were obliged now.In all case it is simply a bad comportment from you and your friends. Have you seen the film, Man on a ledge , don't forget my name dear friends. Be sure. You can even, like I said, killing me. It is not a probelm for me.

        Me I have the correct kissing number spheres and the correct spherization. In fact New York merits more than this comportment. New York is the town of the freedom. The real innovators are always known and respected. I am going to spherificate New York Tom. I am ready for the revolution spherizationj optimization harmùonization. A real crazy revolutionary, conscious and with wisdom of course. It is the war agianst the bad everywhere in all countries, religions or cultures. The well will win, it is simply an evident universality.

        ps the Works of Joy Christian are wonderful, It is so important. It is cool like that no? Jonathan it is cool like words and reaction no? You do not imagine my friends my universal love. I even forgive you.Irritating no? A man on a ledge my firend, it is for me in fact this Film. New York New York, I arrive very soon. I am going to put in competition all the universities and institutes of New York. :) revolution with wisdom of course.The improvement like the torch of foundamentals. I will imrpove New York in all humility of course.

        ps 2 I beleive that Mr Witten And Joy merits 1 the milnor prizes, all even, and the nobel also. Evident , so evident with a tetryonization of superimposings of course.

        Regards

        Steve parano but I am right.

        On the chance that readers may not fully understand the technical explanation from my essay (bottom of page 1) of why V's "quantum Randi challenge" is the veriest nonsense, I invite you to read critically the sources he links (which are of course, only his own ramblings) with the following facts in mind:

        The law of large numbers and the principle of regression to the mean (both well known to mathematicians and statisticians and both well tested as fundamental rules of probability) prescribe the upper limit 0.5 independently of the wave decoherence effect between individuals playing a psychic guessing game. V's delusional prediction is that coincidental violations of the predicted value within some random time interval co-opt the Bell/CHSH expectation; i.e., in the belief that violation of the upper bound in some particular run of experimental results is significant. It isn't, for at least 2 reasons -- 1) the law of large numbers tells us that we can't predict the next result of a fair coin toss with better than 50% probability; each coin toss (Bernoulli trial) is independent of every other; 2) even averaging the coincidental violations from a large number of truncated runs won't work, because regression to the mean will overwhelm the result. This, because V's proposal cannot escape the "equally likely" assumption that attends all probabilistic results -- if he chooses to "cherry pick" experimental runs for coincidental violations of the upper bound and average them, the result is meaningless; if he chooses to truncate some run to suit his expectation, the result is meaningless. (V's most outrageous, and experimentally falsified, claim -- as I've noted elsewhere -- is that arbitrarily large computer memory is an adequate substitute for time-limited experimental results.)

        Long time followers of FQXi fora and blogs might recall that Richard Gill and I had some heated exchanges a few months ago, over this issue. Gill claimed that Joy Christian's framework does not meet the standard of Bell/CHSH statistical violations in a probability measure schema. This in itself is seriously silly, because there is no probability function in Joy's framework, either expressed or implied. None. Zip, zilch, nada. The framework is completely analytical.

        V takes the silliness a step further. His quantum Randi challenge doesn't need Bell/CHSH support, he says (which makes one wonder what Gill, whom V acknowledges as his "peer reviewer" thinks about V's experimental protocols) because it's for a "lay audience" who can see the correlations for themselves. To expose clearly why this is merely mind numbing gibberish, let me ask my own "lay audience" -- suppose I show you that I have tossed a fair coin 100 times and gotten 100 straight "heads." Will you bet 1 dollar to my 100 that the next toss will be heads? -- probably, because the risk is low and the potential return is high -- yet will you bet 100 dollars to my 1 that the next toss will be heads? I give my lay audience more credit for their intelligence in spotting fallacies and charlatanism.

        One might wonder why I expend so much energy on something that I don't think is worthwhile in the first place(and can actually demonstrate the case). It's for the simple reason that V whipped up his impressive sounding but ultimately fatuous "quantum Randi challenge" and attached Joy Christian's name to it -- in order to flagellate serious researchers in his public forum, while inviting well known scientists (including Gill) to participate. And the social climate favored V's strategy -- Christian had already been waging a pitched battle for quite a long time, with some of these same researchers, who gullibly piled onto V's notion, without actually having any facts in hand. If they are not now red-faced, they should be.

        I spent too many years in high-level marketing and advertising, to not know the power of the strategy called "positioning." It depends on using a known name to elevate an unknown name. It's how Avis overtook Hertz in the rental car competition long ago -- when Hertz practically owned the market, Avis ("we try harder") pounded their position as "number 2" when they were only a *very* distant number 2, and used Hertz's own strength against them, until the companies were running even.

        Okay for marketing, where the perception is the reality. Bad for the rationalist enterprise called science.

        Tom