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  • Post #31

" ,,, You really ought to familiarize yourself more with the thinking and writing of people who believe in BT instead of accepting on faith what its detractors say ...:

nmann, people who "believe in" BT or any other theorem or theory are not doing science in defending their beliefs. They are doing science only by demonstrated correspondence between the theory and the physical result. When the fundamental assumptions of the theory (probability measurement schemata based on infinite domain and range) only guarantee a result (nonlocality) consistent with the assumption -- one had better question the science, because the logic of double-negation has no chance of meeting the scientific standard of objective knowledge.

That's all we detractors are saying.

An observer-created reality is not rational -- this irrational tenet can only stand uniquely alone among the results of objective science when there is no alternative. If one replaces the assumptions of probability with a specifically constructed domain of defined limit, the nonlocality of quantum correlations is an illusion, and the locally real alternative is in evidence. It's sound math, it's sound physics, it's good science -- and Joy Christian has done it.

Edward Gillis, even though I disagree with your assumptions, I appreciate your competence in seeing them through to their logical conclusion -- and wish you the best in the contest.

Tom

ahahah stop your car Benhur.

And buy a bibble Tom.ahahah it will be good for your redemption.

Spherically yours

and buy also some books of maths, and make several copies and give them to your friends ! Because there it becomes ironical. I just say that for your credibility :)

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  • Post #33

Hi, E.E.K.,

Well, questioning logic became unavoidable post-Gödel.

You, of course, following (I accept this on faith) d'Espagnat, specifically noted inductive logic. Which is notoriously slippery, only partially codified and thus certainly more open to challenge than deductive logic. But to whatever extent Bell's thinking, as adapted by d'Espagnat and Harrison (see below) was inductive, the result's Venn-provable. Take the formulation (presented here without the official inequality or plus signs, sorry):

Number of (A, not B) plus Number of (B, not C) is greater than or equal to Number of (A, not C) --

and then construct a tripartite Venn diagram with circles or ovals A, B and C. (Instead of "Number" think "Amount of Space"). For simplicity try it first with the shapes separated with no overlap:

(1 [because no A is within B]) plus (1 [because no B is within C]) is greater than (1 [because no A is within C]) ... 2 is greater than 1. Good so far.

Now, continuing with the maximally simple, do it with complete overlap:

(0 [because all A is within b]) plus (0 [because all B is within C]) is equal to (0 [because all A is within C]). ... 0 plus 0 = 0. Still good.

Next play with the degree of overlapping however you want. Try overlapping two to whatever extent you wish while putting one aside. The inequality still holds. (We need to assume both that d'Espagnat's derivation from Bell is valid and that Harrison's tweaking of d'Espagnat is also.)

As I've noted elsewhere, the formulation works with all sets of separable physical objects as long as you can define three parameters. If you had dogs running around in a fenced parking lot full of automobiles you could define such a set because dogs and cars have weight, length (or height) and color, and are animate or inanimate, black or not, have fur or not, are or aren't predominately metal etc. Or take a paragraph of text. Make the individual words your set members and three specific letters your parameters. Still works. In English, Russian, any alphabetical language. Then take your existing data table and switch the parameters around ... make A into C, C into B and B into A. Still works. Pretty profound, actually.

Now, it's the macroscopic world we're doing this in, and the logic is classical. BT is (BT and Leggett are) formulated as classical logic because that's the logic we know. It's entirely conceivable that BT is experimentally violated because classical logic doesn't cut it when you're experimenting with microscopic entities. Theorists tend to give that possibility less weight because BT (and its spinoffs such as Bell Entanglement) are based the same logic and general formalism that makes nuclear bombs explode and semiconductors semiconduct but still it could be.

Naturally we'd probably need a whole new logic and mathematics to deal with the microworld in that case.

Hi nmann,

I don't wish to use Ed's thread for this.

You mention the logic that "makes nuclear bombs explode". I have at least twice on these threads quoted Norman Cook, who has submitted an essay on nuclear dynamics. He points out that the main theories of nuclear structure are incompatible, and have been for over 50 years. I'm not sure what this proves about logic.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Joy.

I have looked at your paper, and at Richard Gill's refutation. I have also downloaded your rebuttal of Gill. It will take a while to go through all of the arguments.

In the meantime, I have constructed a somewhat pedantic, but pretty explicit derivation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt version of Bell's inequality. This is the core of Bell's theorem. Could you explain, in simple terms, either what is wrong with it or why it does not apply to the analysis of the entangled states that Bell considered.

Assume that there are 2 systems, labelled 1 and 2. Assume that there are 2 properties that system 1 might or might not possess, labelled A and A'. Assume that there are 2 properties that system 2 might or might not possess, labelled B and B'. These properties, A, A', B, B', can bear any logical relationship whatsoever to one another. They might be the same. They might be opposite. They might be independent, or they might be correlated (positively or negatively). Define quantities, a, a', b, b' as follows: a = 1 if system 1 possesses property A; a = -1 if system 1 does not possess property A. Define a', b, and b' analogously.

Now consider the quantity constructed by multiplying the quantities from different systems in pairs and adding or subtracting them as follows:

ab + ab' + a'b - a'b'

There are 16 possible combinations of values of a, a', b, and b', resulting in 8 possible combinations for ab, ab', a'b, a'b' :

a a' b b' ab + ab' + a'b - a'b'

+1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 -1 = +2

+1 +1 +1 -1 +1 -1 +1 +1 = +2

+1 +1 -1 +1 -1 +1 -1 -1 = -2

+1 +1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 +1 = -2

+1 -1 +1 +1 +1 +1 -1 +1 = +2

+1 -1 +1 -1 +1 -1 -1 -1 = -2

+1 -1 -1 +1 -1 +1 +1 +1 = +2

+1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 +1 -1 = -2

-1 +1 +1 +1 -1 -1 +1 -1 = -2

-1 +1 +1 -1 -1 +1 +1 +1 = +2

-1 +1 -1 +1 +1 -1 -1 -1 = -2

-1 +1 -1 -1 +1 +1 -1 +1 = +2

-1 -1 +1 +1 -1 -1 -1 +1 = -2

-1 -1 +1 -1 -1 +1 -1 -1 = -2

-1 -1 -1 +1 +1 -1 +1 +1 = +2

-1 -1 -1 -1 +1 +1 +1 -1 = +2

In every case, the quantity, ab + ab' + a'b - a'b', is either 2 or -2.

Each of the 16 cases can occur with some probability between 0 and 1.

These 16 cases are mutually exclusive and logically exhaustive, so

the sum of any set of them must be less than or equal to 1 (and, of

course, it must be greater than or equal to 0). The expectation value

of the quantity can be computed by multiplying the probability of each case

by the value of the quantity in that case (either 2 or -2). The maximum

value is +2, which occurs when the probabilities of all of the cases with

negative values are zero. The minimum value is -2, which occurs when the

probabilities of all of the cases with positive values are zero. It cannot

be less than -2 or greater than +2.

Thanks,

Ed

Vijay,

Thanks for your comments. You make some good points. In discussing human (and feline) intuitions about continuity, I was trying to make the point that we have a very deeply ingrained tendency to believe in local causality, and it obviously describes a great deal about how our world works. But there might be limits to how far the concept can be pushed. There are other "laws", i.e., generalizations that hold for a wide class of phenomena, but are not truly universal (Hooke's "law", Ohm's "law", etc.). Clearly, the notion of local causality has a much wider application than these examples, but that does not imply that it is truly universal.

Ed

nmann,

Yes, I had seen the commentaries on Bell's theorem, and I admire your willingness to engage on this issue. I have avoided it until now because the disputes tend to become heated, and time is severely limited.

My first response to the challenges (maybe not the best) is to write out and post as explicit and clear a derivation of the CHSH version of Bell's inequality as I can, and ask for a clear explanation of what is wrong with it. A legitimate counterexample should provide sufficient insight that such an explanation should be easy. I had started to do that here, but then noticed that Joy Christian had posted a comment to an earlier thread that you had started above. So it will be posted there. It is a bit long-winded, and pedantic, but there does not seem to be any way around it.

Concerning the motivation for my thesis, I find Bell's analysis and the experiments that have confirmed the quantum predictions to be decisive. The analyses of Leggett and Gisin, and the work of the Zeilinger and Gisin groups has done a great deal to deepen and extend our understanding of the implications of quantum theory. But Bell's analysis clearly rules out local causality, and for me, that is the crucial point.

I do disagree with the Zeilinger group's characterization of "realism". Gisin has pointed out on a number of occasions that realism does not entail determinism. The fact that a system in a z-spin eigenstate does not have a well defined x-angular momentum does not mean that the system is not real. The fact that a particle in an entangled state might not, by itself, possess any well-defined properties does not mean that entangled states are ill-defined (just nonlocal). A sphere has a well-defined diameter; a cube does not. That does not lead us to question the reality of the cube.

Unfortunately, Tresser appears to make exactly this mistake. The following quotation is taken from the abstract of one of his recent papers. Perhaps, I am misunderstanding it, but it appears to contain a flat-out logical contradiction.

"We prove versions of the Bell and the GHZ Theorems that do not assume Locality but only the Effect After Cause Principle (EACP) according to which for any Lorentz observer the value of an observable cannot change because of an event that happens after the observable is measured. We show that the EACP is strictly weaker than Locality. As a consequence of our results, Locality cannot be considered as the common cause of the contradictions obtained in all versions of Bell's Theory. ... This work indicates that it is Weak Realism, not Locality, that needs to be negated to avoid contradictions in microscopic physics."

If EACP is strictly weaker than Locality, then it is implied by Locality. If

EACP is false, the Locality is ruled out a fortiori. Tossing out other basic assumptions will not save locality. It has been many, many years since I taught logic, but I don't think that the rules have changed that much.

I have not had a chance to look at the Gisin group's moving reference frame experiment. Suarez' claim that the quantum correlations should be viewed as originating outside spacetime seems to be generally in sync with some of the statements of Gisin regarding the difficulty (impossibility?) of embedding nonlocal quantum effects in relativistic spacetime. I would have phrased it differently, but I hold a similar view. I think that a logical account of nonlocal effects has to assume some sequencing even beyond what is provided by the universal time suggested by Gisin, and I think that Suarez might have been making a similar point.

In the process of writing this I noticed that you had posted a nice, simple derivation of Bell's inequality below. The one that I am posting above is different enough that I think it is still worth doing.

Ed

Edwin,

Thanks for your post. I have read your essay. I do believe that logic and math are more certain than physical laws. If we give up logical coherence, then we can believe that local causality is both true and false. we can conclude anything that we want, and no experiment can rule out anything. Obviously, I accept Bell's result, and I will continue to do so until someone can explain very clearly what is logically wrong with the straightforward derivations of his inequality.

Thanks again for your comments, and good luck.

Ed

G S

Thanks for your comments, and your question is a good one. I believe that the assumption that is wrong is that the most fundamental laws should be formulated in a relativistic spacetime. Of course, the majority of people doing research in quantum gravity would say something similar, so it might not sound very original. My point is that, even without worrying about unifying gravity and quantum theory, the problems in understanding quantum measurements indicate that we should look for a different framework. It might have less structure, or at least a different structure from standard Minkowski space. The standard relativistic description would then be reconstructed by considering the class of coordinate systems that are compatible with our observations. Our observations are consistent with the full set of relativistically allowed coordinate systems because the lack of complete determinism makes it impossible to trace which of many sequences of events actually occurred.

Although I do not think that he would agree with many of the points that I make, Julian Barbour, has also posed the question of how much spacetime structure we could strip away, and still recover current theory. I find his work extremely interesting.

Thanks again,

Ed

Hi Ed,

I will tell you both what is wrong with the Bell-CHSH argument and why it does not apply to the analysis of the entangled states considered by Bell.

As stated, there is nothing wrong with your or Bell's argument. The inequality you and Bell-CHSH derived is a completely straightforward and mathematically valid inequality.

But here is a problem: Bell-CHSH inequality is not respected by Nature. It is routinely violated in the actual experiments. So, clearly, at least one physical assumption that has gone into the derivation of the inequality must be wrong, or at least unjustified. The question is: Which assumption?

Bell of course thought that it was the assumption of local causality that was unjustified. But I think that he was unduly influenced by his fondness of Bohm's theory to think that.

Suppose we did not know anything about quantum theory or Bohm's theory. We could of course still derive Bell-CHSH inequality, as Bool did before Bell. Without the knowledge of quantum theory do you think we would blame the violations on non-locality? Not unless we are completely mad.

So what is going on behind the violations? Well, to begin with not all alternatives, ab, ab', a'b, and a'b', can be simultaneously realized in any actual experiment. Only one pair can be realized at a time. So there is clearly an assumption of counterfactual definiteness of the joint outcomes ab, ab', a'b, and a'b' that has gone into the derivation of the inequality. But this can be eliminated by considering a single pair, say ab, for the sake of argument, because even a single pair produces stronger-than-classical correlation. So, counterfactual definiteness cannot be the real culprit behind the violations.

What other assumption, then, has gone into the derivation that could be wrong. Well, I claim that it is the assumption of wrong topology of the co-domain of the measurement functions Bell considered. Bell assumed measurement functions of the form

A(a, L) = +1 or -1

in the very first equation of his famous paper. But one cannot write a function like this without specifying its co-domain. Usually one assumes the co-domain to be just {-1, +1}. But I have proved that that makes the above prescription of Bell incomplete. With {-1, +1} it cannot satisfy the completeness criterion of EPR. The only way to satisfy the completeness criterion is by taking the co-domain to be a parallelized 3-sphere.

Here is where things get a bit technical. To understand why what I am saying is true, I invite you to read the attached paper of mine (which is the first chapter of my book). Please read at least up to page 4 to understand my argument. Further details can be found in several other chapters of my book.

I hope this helps,

JoyAttachment #1: 11_Origins.pdf

Hi Ed,

You say, "I do believe that logic and math are more certain than physical laws." I do also. What I do not believe is that logic and math underlie physical existence! Some seem to think that physical existence emerges from logic and math, and others in this contest seem to be saying that if you get rid of space and time and causality (etc?), coming 'as close as possible to "nothing"', that math and logic will still be there. This is the assumption I question.

You say, "If we give up logical coherence, then we can believe that local causality is both true and false. we can conclude anything that we want..." It is my opinion that that state of affairs already holds, although usually not in the same physicist's mind. Even above, while quoting Tresser, you note: "it appears to contain a flat-out logical contradiction". It's possible that you and Tresser conclude different things. And, beyond a certain point, I'm not sure that such things are resolvable. Joy and his competent opponents have certainly not been able to resolve such. Anyway, I do not reject logic, but I probably would do so before giving up local realism. Even then I would continue to believe in the efficacy of logic for most things, just as math approximations are useful even in the case of unsolvable problems.

For both experiential reasons, intuitive reasons, and because my local realistic theory (of which my essay represents just the tip of the iceberg) seems to answer unresolved questions, I choose to work with local realism. If I am wrong, then I can consider it a hobby. I am not yet convinced I am wrong.

Thanks again for your excellent essay and for hosting such stimulating comments on your thread.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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  • Post #42

Hi, E.E.K.,

I should have noted that the Venn circles don't need to be the same size. More on the order of a Euler diagram. That brings the exercise more in line with physical reality.

You are not -- how can I put this? -- dealing with the real issues of BT. You've admitted you don't really know all that much about BT. JC (not the Second Person of the Trinity in this case) has accused you of not understanding the material he advances in relation to BT, maybe not even BT itself. But still you reject Bell's Theorem.

Also waiting for Ed.

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    • Post #43

    Wait ... a truly excellent post yesterday.

    I hate the layout of this site. The honchos apparently believe it's more logical than straight chronological order. That's because nobody ever told them you can number posts for reference.

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    • Post #44

    Not just one excellent post.

    nmann,

    Thanks for your post. In my reply to you on Sunday I inadvertently erased a sentence that should have gone before my remarks on Tresser's work. It normally would be no big deal, but it makes it sound as though I am attributing some of the errors that Tresser makes to Zeilinger's group, and that was definitely not my intention.

    After criticizing the Z group for their characterization of realism, it should have read:

    " Zeilinger's group is very clear that they are ruling out certain classes of nonlocal, deterministic models, and they do NOT make the mistake of supposing that one could decide to abandon realism, and thus save local causality.

    Unfortunately, Tresser appears to make exactly this mistake."

    I have a high regard for the work that the Vienna group has done, and I don't want to criticize them unfairly. I do think that they, and many other people, are sometimes a little too quick in considering what assumptions we might start throwing out. Giving up local causality is a huge step in itself, but Bell's analysis appears to force us in that direction. I also advocate accepting limits on determinism, but we are not logically compelled to take that step.

    de broglie-Bohm theory gives a deterministic nonlocal account of the quantum correlations. It's just that if we take that route we have to either accept the fact that (as Elitzur and Dolev say) "hidden variables must be forever hidden", or look for possible violations of signal causality (as Valentini has pointed out).

    It just seems to me that we should take things a step at a time, before we start giving up on logic, and our belief in an objectively existing external world. It's true that we need to be open-minded, but we also need to be clear-headed and careful.

    It's time to get on with my day job,

    Ed

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    • Post #46

    Ed,

    Thanks for the response. In at least one interview AZ has noted that something sounding suspiciously like Superdeterminism cannot be ruled out, although he personally finds such a world unimaginable (because, among other things, you wouldn't truly be doing science if you couldn't freely choose your experiments). (In the same interview he makes clear his views concerning realism. The two freedoms. Yes, there is something we call "the moon" and this something probably exists independent of observation yet all we know is our construct "the moon" which doesn't clarify much but what's our choice?) And once again this quote from the Z group's Leggett paper. The first time I read it I thought, hey, these folks need someone to edit their English for erroneous negation. But I was wrong. It says exactly what the authors meant it to say.

    "We believe that the experimental exclusion of this particular class indicates that any non-local extension of quantum theory has to be highly counterintuitive. For example, the concept of ensembles of particles carrying defi nite polarization could fail. Furthermore, one could consider the breakdown of other assumptions that are implicit in our reasoning leading to the inequality. These include Aristotelian logic, counterfactual de finiteness, absence of actions into the past or a world that is not completely deterministic[.]"

    I'm ignorant as to whether any experiments have been proposed by 't Hooft or others that might provide Superdeterminism something more than metaphysical status. My sense is you'd somehow need to muck around down at the Planck limit amid the quantum foam and that this is not do-able for HUP reasons. A default might be to go total Tractatus and say that "Free Will" and "Determinism" have never been conclusively formulated as genuine logical propositions (Conway to the contrary?) and so deserve to be consigned to silence -- or at least, more kindly, classified as "outside the world". As for jettisoning classical logic ... you'd be discarding the human mind's warrant to explore the microworld if (as I do) you believe our modes of cognition are embodied and selected for throughout the course of life's macroscopic existence on this planet.

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    • Post #47

    nmann quoting Zeilinger et al, ""We believe that the experimental exclusion of this particular class indicates that any non-local extension of quantum theory has to be highly counterintuitive."

    Not just counterintuitive, I think. Is there really any way that standard quantum mechanics can be coherent without nonlocality? Despite attempts by some notables (Tobias Fritz, e.g.) to do away with it, any probabilistic measure scheme *must* assign value to nonlocality in order to render a closed judgment on "the experiment not done."

    Tom

    Tom,

    There is no point in arguing with the quantum mystics. They *want* to remain mystified. Any clear-cut, deterministic, local, and complete description of reality (like this one) is "noisily unreconstructed." How else can they continue to amuse themselves? How else can they continue to demand more public funding?

    Joy

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    • Post #49

    A Quantum Mystic is someone who believes in a Universal Quantum Consciousness communicating internally within itself and between you and me by means of "mind-pixels" (read: particle spin) per one Huping Hu, Ph.D, J.D. (who, IIRC, dropped a couple of congrats in Edwin Eugene Klingman's box a contest or two ago and was warmly and personally thanked in return) and his lady wife ... you want more data, google it.

    FYI.

    nmann,

    Unlike several who frequent these threads, I see no point in being nasty to others. I tend more to subscribe to the old saw about the reason academic squabbles are so nasty is because the stakes are so small.

    I'm not sure what you're referring to, but I don't apologize for personally thanking anyone who says something nice to me, whether or not they meet your approval.

    And finally, I have never written or even thought in terms of 'mind-pixels', nor have I written of "Universal Quantum Consciousness". I do consider those who believe that conscious awareness and free will 'emerge' from the arrangement of Lego blocks in some specific order to be either fairly unaware of awareness per se, or as simply never having thought through the matter, but as this 'Darwinian' mystical idea of the emergence of awareness is the consensus required of true modernist believers, I tend to avoid the topic unless it's in an appropriate forum. And then I never say anything even remotely related to your characterizations. For those who are interested in what I have to say on this topic, see here. You chastized me yesterday for not being aware that your favorite sources had also admitted that it's possible that logic is at fault rather than local realism, and now you seem quite ready to pontificate on something you clearly have little understanding of.

    What's the matter with you, wake up on the wrong side of bed or is it something you had for breakfast?

    Edwin Eugene Klingman