Is Quantum Theory As Fundamental As It Seems? by Michael James Goodband

Hi Michael,

You are accepting Bell's conclusion without accepting his reasoning. I think Bell would have been fine with that. He would not have been happy, however, with your characterization of quantum or no-signalling non-locality as non-locality in mere "description" and not in reality.

The bottom line for me, on the other hand, is that within your theory of everything it is not possible to reproduce the quantum mechanical prediction of one of the simplest non-trivial quantum states, namely the four-particle GHZ state, in terms of explicit local functions of the form A(a, L), B(b, L), C(c, L), and D(d, L). Thus, from my point of view, your theory fails to be a local theory of reality, just as quantum mechanics fails to be a local theory of reality (excluding many worlds possibility).

I continue to maintain that the only way a theory of physics can be local, realistic, and deterministic is by recognizing---as in my framework---that the physical space we live in respects the symmetries and topologies of a parallelized 7-sphere. In other words, by having S3 in S7 rather than having S3 x S7 as in your theory.

Best,

Joy

Michael,

My experience with using that part of the mind is to simply move back and take a larger view, as opposed to the normal thinking instinct to move in closer and study the details. If you really examined this sense of epiphany, as it occurs, it's like the pieces of a puzzle arranging themselves. So what you are mentally doing is simply giving them the space to work, as opposed to trying to force them together by concentrating. The mind is a very dynamic and organic process, which our sense of immediate consciousness is a particular component. Almost like a lookout on a large ship. Designed more for detecting immediate dangers and reacting to them, or opportunities and acting on them, then serious cogitation.

One point which occurred to me many years ago, regarding the rubber sheet analogy of gravity, is that a cosmological constant means the sheet is only flat when it is completely undisturbed. So when you create pressure on one point, it will "balloon" out over the rest of the sheet to match that pressure. So say if galaxies act as gravity wells/pressure points, the flat space/sheet will balloon out between the empty space galaxies, thus balancing the effect of gravity. This "expansion" of the space between galaxies doesn't mean the overall universe is expanding, only that gravity is being equalized. Currently it seems cosmology forgets galaxies are not just inert points of reference, but contractions of space and neutralize the expansion.

One idea about the nature of gravity that has received some positive response from other amateurs is that since releasing energy from mass creates pressure, logically having energy condense into mass would correspondingly create a vacuum. If E=mc2, then M=e/c2. They can't find any dark matter halos around galaxies, but there are large clouds of radiation, cosmic rays, interstellar gases, etc. So what if gravity is not so much a property of mass, but an effect of energy fusing into mass?

So then you have the expansion of radiation and the gravitational condensation of mass as two sides of the same cycle. The issue of radiation being that while it is absorbed and therefore measured at points, it expands when released into space, rather than traveling through space as a point particle. That way, redshift doesn't have to be explained by recession of the source.

In my digital vs analog contest entry, I used the analogy of a dripping faucet as a possible explanation. In that for local sources, the light is streaming in like running water, but the further way, the more the quantity is reduced, like a faucet being tightened. Eventually the stream is reduced to a drip, but since drips are the same size, the time between each drip grows longer. So if our telescopes are viewing galaxies billions of lightyears away, the light is coming in as single photons. Since the size of a photon, the amount required to trip the electron, stays the same, the wave properties of this light are being stretched/redshifted, as it takes longer for each photon to accumulate. There are other possible explanations as well, such as Christov's Wave packet experiments.

Since space is treated as a measure, it is much easier to describe the contraction of mass in terms of points of measurement, then it is the expansion of radiation, when the actual expansion is better explained in wave, rather than point terms.

As for why physics spends to much effort building on century old models without reviewing their foundational assumptions, that's just a matter of the top down structure constricting the options of the bottom up initiates. Politics.

Regards,

John

(I'm actually at my home computer this time and have access to stored links, but that's a long story.)

I've greatly enjoyed reading the segment above. I agree totally about an interplay between bottom-up and top-down causation bouncing between process limiters, and Michael's description of that dynamic is elegant. Paola Zizzi has recently done work contrasting the divergent logics of schizophrenics with the congruent or convergent logic of 'normal' individuals, that bears looking up in relation to the Dec. 10 02:04 GMT post.

I'll check back here later, and chime in when there is time.

Jonathan

I should add quickly;

I've already been giving quite a lot of thought to the question of how some of the structures can arise by an interplay of bottom-up and top-down constructions, employing the meta-principle of 'make no preference' over the R, C, H, and O number types - and generalizing on an ancient geometry lesson.

My idea of playful exploration - observe, explore, compare - using what Wolfram calls the cascading circular template, but generalizing that each figure is an n-sphere - where n is unknown (according to constructive principles) until there is constructed a framework of half overlapping figures such that a determination of dimensionality can be made.

Anyhow; if we assume 'make no preference,' I think that R,C,H,O emerge naturally as stable algebras - given that construction and little else. I'll work out some details offline before saying much more on this.

Regards,

Jonathan

Greetings All,

I want to thank Edwin Eugene for his insightful and helpful summary of contrasts, before commenting on what's further down.

Reading this particular thread; I find my mind or perceptions turned inside out, again and again, by reading contrasting views of things I thought I understood, and seeing that I understand both parties in large measure, but sometimes need to struggle to comprehend the ways in which they disagree.

This conversation is very educational for me.

Thanks to Michael, Joy, Ed, Tom, and Fred for your interesting food for thought.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Hello again,

The notion of S3 residing in S7 is easier for me to visualize (for whatever reason), than having one (S3) for our spacetime and the other (S7) for particle definitions, but with S7 playing the role of fermion generator it makes sense of the notion that the geometry of spacetime becomes non-associative in the extreme microscale. I am drawn to ask again what role the implied time arrow might play, because growing and shrinking are the same operation - exactly the same - but in opposite direction wrt process evolution in time.

I've more to say, and will comment further later.

Have Fun!

Jonathan

Hi Jonathan,

In my picture, which differs from Michael's, there is no growing or shrinking. Tense-less time (which differs from the tensed time discussed in one of my earlier papers) can be viewed, for example, as a parameter that parameterizes a path in a given S3 fibre of S7, with the latter being S4 worth of Clifford parallels (parallelized 3-spheres).

Cheers,

Joy

Hello again,

The enumeration of 4 types of non-locality in Joy's post on Dec. 8 at 18:45, and discussion about this, was especially interesting. My understanding is that the quantum correlations in Joy's construction arise solely out of the active role played by parallelization - where the surface we are on determines alignments that both the local and distant frameworks are forced to observe. The sense of this arises from the notion that a topological fabric of spacetime is much like the literal interpretation of a Hopf fibration.

Going out on a limb to continue; if we assume S7 is macroscopic then some kinds of observation, or even the particular choice of an experimental apparatus, constitute a choice on the part of the the experimenter that determines, in some manner, which radii within the 7-sphere we are riding through - because those are the dimensions that appear macroscopic - as both size/distance and interiority/exteriority are relative projections in octonionic space or S7. It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? What am I missing here?

Have Fun,

Jonathan

Ah so,

It appears that the post from Joy, just above it, anticipates and partially answers my question raised in the last post. I still want to emphatically make my point that it's really about the parallelization joining the local and distant frames of reference that makes Joy's framework a valid way to explain Bell's and GHZ results. Things that are parallel here are also parallel there. Of course; the experimentalist in me wants to find other ways to validate that spacetime is topological - having the nature of S3 in S7.

More later,

Jonathan

Hmm,

I meant to point out above that I started writing my Dec. 10 23:08 GMT post before Joy's 22:26 GMT post, and found it interesting that he began to answer a question I hadn't asked yet. Now that's simpatico.

I'm thinking now that what causes the strong correlations in Joy's construction is actually just the flatness of octonionic space. To an extent; we can speak of parallelizability as though parallelization has already taken place - as the property is inherent in S3 and S7 - in effect assuring certain alignments will be parallel. One could say that distant elements of space have the same flow directionality, which though invisible is nonetheless influential.

Regards,

Jonathan

Jonathan,

You are spot on. Note how much effort I have put in to explain the significance of parallelization in my latest paper and in the Chapter 7 of my book.

Parallelization, however, is not an inherent property of S3 and S7 in general. They could be round in general, not flat. The quaternionic and octonionic S3 and S7, however, are indeed inherently flat, or parallelized, by the very algebras of quaternions and octonions. Therefore when I write S7 what I have in mind is what Rick calls O and not necessarily what Michael may have in mind for S7. His S3 and S7 could be round and not flat. Points of a round S3 or S7 cannot correlate strongly to reproduce quantum correlations. Points of no other space can correlate as strongly as those of parallelized S3 and S7. All efforts to reproduce quantum correlations local-realistically which ignore this fact are doomed to miserable failure.

Best,

Joy

Jonathan,

I have to say I'm no mathematician. God help me if my life should ever depend on solving a Rubik's Cube. That said, I certainly respect the ability to sustain and build on that degree of conceptual complexity and appreciate where these models have taken civilization. I think though, the chore to which we set ourselves is not so much to project to the next levels of emergent complexity, but to go back and review why this mathematical modeling is creating such a bizarre description of physical reality. C.S.Escher was an accomplished amateur mathematician, yet any five year old would intuitively know what he drew in two dimensions could not be built in three dimensions. Ptolomy is one of history's greatest mathematicians and really all Copernicus and Galileo did was to make the motion of the earth one more part of the system. Yet that particular detail escaped serious consideration for a thousand years. So the search is not so much where does the math lead, but what has been overlooked getting where it's currently at.

Quoting Joy:

"Jonathan,

You are spot on. Note how much effort I have put in to explain the significance of parallelization in my latest paper and in the Chapter 7 of my book."

Very impressive Jonathan.

James putnam

Thanks James, and Joy;

In this case parallelization then means 'all stretched out and laid flat.' Someone once said "the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain," and that almost seems to fit here. So with a parallelized S7 and/or S3 we have strong correlations, and a space that behaves as though it is Euclidean. Cool.

Have Fun!

Jonathan

Given that:

"The quaternionic and octonionic S3 and S7, however, are indeed inherently flat, or parallelized, by the very algebras of quaternions and octonions." A lot of interesting properties come to mind, in addition to the ones cited. Couldn't this fact be exploited to solve the hierarchy or vacuum energy problem? As Tom says, it bridges the local and global frame of reference or erases the distinction, but that should generalize to include the bridging of macro with microscale Physics.

I'll think on this; I have some ideas on how such a bridge could be constructed.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan quoting Joy: "'The quaternionic and octonionic S3 and S7, however, are indeed inherently flat, or parallelized, by the very algebras of quaternions and octonions.' A lot of interesting properties come to mind, in addition to the ones cited. Couldn't this fact be exploited to solve the hierarchy or vacuum energy problem?"

Right on, Jonathan. The mathematical problem of seamlessly uniting analysis and algebra is as hard as the physical problem of explaining the correlation of discrete events within continuous spacetime. The meaning of Joy's seminal result can be summed up easily: there is no non-locality. No simultaneity of events. No quantum entanglement.

Mass hierarchy among string theorists is considered a nonlocal problem resolved by supersymmetry (conventionally, string theory and QFT in general are theories of nonlocal hidden variables) -- which is why I think Michael misinterprets my emphasis on spacetime symmetry as leaving out the broken symmetry of particle physics (and thus my model cannot be realistic). This isn't exactly true -- I think that what nature gives up in spacetime (i.e., continuous, topological) symmetry is restored in the symmetry of particle correlations. A continuous measurement function of correlated properties -- to infinity -- is not only the strongest form of symmetry, it obliterates the local-global distinction by constraining measurement to local events (no value is assigned to nonlocality).

As you insightfully realize, the mass hierarchy problem (along with the cosmological horizon problem) is solved thereby, because broken particle symmetry is an illusion; the mass continuum is as real and as local as the spacetime continuum. What drives the illusion? -- just as Joy has it, the handedness of of the topology, the hidden variable. Every continuous measurement function hides a singularity.

All best,

Tom