Rescuing Reality

It is an observed fact, that the Correlation Results differ, at different detector angles.

See my link at the top of this page, for the explanation why this happens.

Rob McEachern

Jack,

I tend to agree with your trusted expert opinion, though I struggle with Sutherland's definition of "realism". He says:

"My research is concerned with the interpretation of quantum theory and such issues as Bell's non-locality, the quantum measurement problem and the nature of interference. In particular, I am interested in mathematical extensions to both quantum mechanics and quantum field theory that reinstate realism explicitly.

"By realism here I mean the assumption that an underlying physical reality exists in the absence of measurement. Surprisingly, maintaining this assumption in conjunction with quantum mechanics leads (via Bell's theorem plus certain reasonable assumptions) to either a clash with special relativity or to the existence of backwards-in-time effects. Since the experimental success of relativity and the theory's attractiveness in my eyes make me wary of abandoning it too hastily (even at a 'hidden' level), my research is focused on possible models involving backwards causation. In particular, I have constructed a time-symmetric formalism in which events are determined by both initial and final boundary conditions. A second model of this type is presently being formulated." http://sydney.edu.au/time/people/sutherland.htm

I don't think an "underlying physical reality" is necessary to assure local realism. I agree with Sutherland's time-symmetric determinism, with the proviso that the entropy generated by past and future events is identical. Entropy hides its origin (information from the future is as likely as information from the past), so entropy is a good candidate for the 'hidden variable'. Initial and final boundary conditions then have a common source, eliminating the boundary between classical and quantum physics.

Hello Mr Sarfatti,I see that you are on LinkedIn also,If it is with baryonic bosonic photonic thermodynamical particles, FTL is not possible.The special relativity if it is broken must be with particles which are not relativistic, nor baryonic.We cannot travel in time and we cannot pass c with baryons.Best Regards

Doc is still in you Tom :)you are going to really invent it one day this machine.and the formalisation of broken laws appear like the FTL with baryons.

The holism and Bohm is in you Mr Sarfatti, apparently you like his works and his interprétations of our quantum mechanics.

:) Let's dialog so and let's unify consciousness;matter and energy ....:)and let's fight the psychological sadeness due to social comportments ...

More highly creative hoop-jumping to preserve that "underlying physical reality". Is anyone willing to go out on a limb and state what they think "physical" means? If not, why fight to maintain an empty concept?

The physical is "that which is" (whatever that may be), as opposed to that which is not, or that which is only thought to be. However, the only real issue (not an empty concept), which has been an issue for over 2000 years, is the distinction between a physical model and a computational model. For example: An orrery is a computational model of the solar system, but regardless of how accurately it might predict planetary motions, no one seriously believes that it provides a physical model of the system - driven by a bunch of gears, cranked by the hand of god. The "shut-up and compute" school, view QM as only a computational model - precisely because they view all the standard interpretations of QM as being wildly implausible physical models.

Rob McEachern

Robert, we are thinking about different scenarios. I was just thinking about X, Y and Z perpendicular orientations of Stern Gerlach apparatus.

If talking about polarizers I think it is a mistake to imagine that a polarizer passively extracts some of the of the photons from the population and does not provoking a response by the photons that pass. I have used the expression "selection pressure" for that provocation, thinking of how species are altered by the environmental challenges they encounter. If the outcome of the encounter with the measuring polarizer is a new state then Bell's theorem is not relevant as it was proposed to show that the realism of pre determined states will not fit with quantum experiment results. The three polarizer demonstration with two perpendicular polarizers not allowing light through but a 45 degree polarizer inserted between them then permitting some light through, seems to show that the light passing through the middle polarizer is altered by the encounter.

We are indeed thinking of different scenarios. You keep missing the point, of the Bell tests. The point is, in the Bell tests, there is no second measurement - ever. Each entity is only measured once. Hence, it makes no difference if a first measurement would alter a second, because a second is never, ever performed, on any given entity. That is the entire point of the experiment. The reason "entangled" entities must be used in such experiments, is to absolutely guarantee that if you measure the same property of each member of the pair, you will get the exact opposite result - always. But what do you get when you deliberately perform different measurements on each member of a pair? That is the only question of interest. A "weird" result can never occur for the reasons you have described - a first measurement on one entity influencing a second, on the same entity - because no such second measurement is ever performed.

Rob McEachern

You got it. People, especially mathematical physicists and philosophers (Aristotle in particular), want math to be something other than what it is. Math is nothing more than a symbolic language for describing relationships. In physics, it can be used to describe how things behave. But it can never reveal the cause for why they behave as they do, which is what so many really want to know, and want math and deductive logic to provide. The reason for this is simple: math identities cannot be physical identities. a(b+c) = ab+ac only describes the final outcome, not the mechanism/algorithm/"physical reality" (one multiplier versus two) that caused the outcome. To say that a math identity even exists, is to say that there does not exist a unique mechanism for obtaining any given value - the two sides of the identity are not in fact "physically" identical - only their "values" are identical. It is ultimately no different than saying that five pennies do not make a nickel, physically, but do add up to one mathematically. Hence, entirely different, often wildly different, physical interpretations (underlying mechanisms) can be assigned to the same math equation, because math identities enable one to rearrange the equation into a different form, thereby implying a different physical mechanism for evaluating the equation. Which form did Mother Nature chose to use? The math cannot answer that question. Only an actual observation, of Mother Nature's chosen form, in operation, can answer the question.

Rob McEachern

The words "physical" and "exist" have no non-circular definitions. I'd say that in fact, they have no meaning. And continued insistence that there obviously is - or has to be - a "objective physical reality" contributes nothing and is only holding us back. Is this Copenhagen? If so, that's where we need to go.

"The words "physical" and "exist" have no non-circular definitions. I'd say that in fact, they have no meaning."

You got it. The problem is, the same is true of all short symbols, including all words. Their information content (in the Shannon sense) is too small for them to contain any intrinsic meaning at all, so all such meanings are simply made-up and slapped on extrinsically. The issue is; Is there even any possibility that there might be a one-to-one relationship, between any such set of symbols, and a corresponding set of "things" in "physical reality"? The answer, in some cases is "no" - when the number of symbols differs from the number of things "out there", there is no possibility for a one-to-one relationship. If you employ too many components (like spin components) in your symbolic description of reality (how spin behaves), then there can be no possibility whatsoever, of any one-to-one relationship with reality, if spin "in reality" only has one observable component. Assuming that there is a one-to-one relationship (I ought to be able to measure more independent, uncorrelated compoments!), is why QM interpretations seem so weird.

Rob McEachern

Like so many other things, the definitions of words are relative. A dictionary defines words in terms of other words. But there are a couple of words that don't fit in that scheme; their "definitions" are just lists of synonyms. I think that's significant - they're not just outliers, they're outside our system of meaning. Look up "exist" and you get something like "to have being".

Can someone claim to have a theory that proves there's something "physical", without defining the term? I'd say no, it would just be more hand-waving.

Robert, I'm sorry my earlier posts could have been clearer. I am not talking about influence on the result of a second measurement on the same particle but the second measurement I mention is the first one done on the "entangled" partner.

In regard to the 'Selection pressure' description I have been thinking that the filtering out of some of the photons is like natural selection culling those individuals who can not survive the challenge and an analogy for the alteration of the surviving population is the epigenetic change that allows new phenotypes to be expressed by the genotypes that remain. The remaining population is not merely the pre-polarizer population minus some photons.

Some things are much easier to define by what they are not, than by what they are. Scientific theories, for example, cannot be proven or verified under any circumstance - later observations may necessitate revisions. But they can be falsified. And so can their interpretations. The long-standing claim that no classical system can reproduce Bell-like correlations has now been falsified. See the link at the top of this page; note also that there is no reference to any physical laws at all, either quantum or classical - it is pure math. As I noted in a FQXI essay contest several years ago, physicists have been mistaking the properties of the mathematical symbology that they use to describe reality, for properties of "physical reality itself" for a long time.

As for what exists, as Descartes noted centuries ago, the only thing that we know exists, with certainty, is our own thoughts. Hence, applying the point made above, "physical reality" might be best defined as that which exists, independently of our own thought.

Rob McEachern

There is no "filtering out" in the Bell tests. Every particle that is ever detected is detected. The detection is the measurement. Where there has been no detection, there can be no measurement.

Rob McEachern

What "exists, independently of our own thought" is, most obviously, the set of rules governing those experiences. There's an independent framework to our reality in terms of what can and can't happen. There is consciousness, there is experience, there are laws governing that experience. I don't recall making those laws or specifying the initial conditions, so I regard them as existing independently.

But to me the word "physical" adds nothing to the discussion, it's an empty concept, it's just sounds in the air. What exists between observations is apparently wave function, a probability distribution of what those observations might turn out to be. It makes little sense to debate whether it's "physical"; we might as well say it's "divine". Physicists would find the latter claim meaningless and unscientific, but they don't apply the same skepticism to the former.

Robert, sorry for being unclear once again. My second paragraph was just about polarizers not Bell's tests.

The polarizer is interesting because it is both providing a selection and a provocation, it seems to me. By provocation I mean it is inciting a response rather than being inconsequential inert measuring apparatus.