Hi Joy (and Tom),
Yes, nothing quite stands in the way of clear communication like using the same language, but with different intended meanings. So on the point:
"You seem to be suggesting that what is responsible for entanglement---at least in the singlet state---is *light*"
This is not a suggestion, but the standard QFT view of the interacting particles in a spin singlet state. For most singlet cases in QFT, there is a virtual-particle connection between the particles in terms of the gauge bosons - photon, W/Z, gluons - depending upon the particle charges, and no fermionic particle is genuinely chargeless (unless you find a right-handed neutrino!). So in the QFT view, it is the spin of these bosons which is ultimately responsible for the strong quantum correlations between the spins of the particles in the spin singlet state. For the hidden variable framework to say that QT correlations come from somewhere else - i.e. not QT - it must successfully capture this QFT view in order to go beyond it.
The exception to this general QFT view is the neutrino correlations you pointed out, as the strong correlations in this case are between 2 left-handed neutrinos with different flavours. So the strong QT correlations are flavour correlations which aren't accounted for in QFT because they are not due to the spin of a photon, W/Z or gluon connection. This marks a weak point of the Standard Model - I'm suggesting this points to the non-associativity of the octonions, because my model with an octonion space reproduces particle flavours.
Then there is my suggestion, which comes from the fact that dimensional reduction of a pure geometric 11D GR yields the Standard Model Lagrangian (up to colour group only) with S7 gauge space - this can be read straight from the attached paper (sec 2.3-2.4 eqns 2.20 and 2.22 of attached paper give my eqns 14 and 18 in sec 4 of my paper) which is a review of the state of KK in 1987, before Witten falsely claimed KK couldn't give EW chirality - i.e. the dimensional reduction is standard stuff. As for all KK-theories, the 4D gauge connection is a *gravitational* connection in the full 11D - that is why KK can unify gravity with particle forces. So I have NO disagreement over the wording:
"I have been arguing, on the other hand, that what is responsible for entanglement---at least in the singlet state---is *the geometry and topology of the physical space*, or more precisely the gravitational interaction."
There is no "other hand" in my suggestion, the gauge connection of 4D field theory - i.e. QFT - IS about the *geometry and topology of the physical space*. What I'm looking for is a metaphysical proof in 3 parts (the highlighted words make it metaphysics):
1) Strong QT correlations *must* be due to the topology of physical space
2) That necessarily *requires* the existence of compactified dimensions - then the connection IS a form of gravitational interaction in its most general sense
3) The compactified dimensions *must* be S7
On first reading of your Ch 7 it seemed to me that you had already proven this, but you have been disputing this in our discussion - I still think that in the mathematical framework you have the core of the proof I'm seeking. In your proof, it is the expression of causation as a factorisation condition which gives the critical condition of mathematical closure that selects the fundamental number systems C, H, O - the C case being trivial.
In my case, I have causation expressed as GR. The topological condition for the existence of topological monopoles demands a mapping from S7 to S3, and then the causal dynamics of GR also gives S1. So the essential physics of our two approaches is the same - expressions of causation - and the topological conditions pick out the same fundamental number systems - C, H, O. In my case there is a very open issue between N and R, whereas I pointed out the same issue is implicitly present within the hidden variable framework. It seems to me that between us we have a round peg and round hole, and I can't see them not fitting. Because we have the same very basic underlying physics and maths, the claim that they are in contradiction strikes my as being similar to claiming that we have a proof that in physics 1=0. That is very unlikely!
Best,
Michael