Rescuing Reality

Jack Sarfatti,

From my message above: "Which kind of time is involved in your view of 'timelike'? In case there is any uncertainty about what I mean by 'unique fundamental time', it is not a measure of object activity. The unit of second does not measure it. The unit of second is a measure of object activity. It is defined as such. My reason for asking this question is that I find [theoretical] physicists' claims that a measure of object activity is the property of time, as being empirically unsupportable. The empirical evidence for object activity contains an indefinable property of time as part of its basis. What time is your time?"

What kind of time are you using when you say: "FTL violates relativity. Back From The Future does not." Can you please give your definition of time, and, compare your definition of time with your understanding of the continued indefinable status of time as a property of empirical evidence? Thank you.

Lots of people have missed something rather subtle. Einstein was correct - "Subtle is the Lord." Bell's Theorem is based on a well-known assumption. That assumption has now been demonstrated to be false - and demonstrated the old-fashioned way - by actually constructing a simple, classical system that produces the same correlations as the so-called Quantum Correlations. See the link at the top of this page.

Rob McEachern

This is a very subtle point indeed. The mistake is in the presumption of instantaneous time, which is a useful but ultimately limited approximation. Time only emerges from action, not the other way around, and so time really does not exist independent of the matter and action from which it emerges. Since actions are finite, moments are also finite.

Action is what transmits information and action is limited to something that science calls the speed of light in space. However, quantum phase is also a part of action as well and so entanglement or phase correlation is a part of quantum but not classical action. It is therefore the emergences of both time and space from the actions of matter that is what orders the universe and limits information transfer. Although photon transmission through space is a very useful approximation of reality, it is just an approximation.

Thus it is the very words that science uses like quantum jump or simultaneous or local that are the very impediments for understanding the way the universe works.

Gavin William Rowland,

That's sure what I got out of the article. I'm not a mathematician or a physicist, so I'm simply left wondering: what could backwards in time "messaging" even mean, when the concepts of "sending a message" or "affecting" imply causality, an interval of time, a now-and-then sequence? If you simply gut the meaning of those words and can only show me a page of incomprehensible math, I will not feel that realism is being restored. To be fair, I'd like to hear what the people working on this concept might try to offer in the way of a natural-language explanation.

The mistake has nothing to do with time, or even physics - it resides within the mathematical description of the observations. In the best, general description of Bell's theorem that I have ever come across ("The Quantum Theory and Reality", Bernard d'Espagnat", Scientific American, Nov. 1979) d'Espagnat identifies the "subtle" assumption: "These conclusions require a subtle but important extension of the meaning assigned to a notation such as A. Whereas previously A was merely one possible outcome of a measurement made on a particle, it is converted by this argument into an attribute of the particle itself."

In other words, the simply act of making multiple measurements (of supposed, multiple spin or polarization components) has been "converted" into the belief that multiple components actually exist, as "attributes of the particle itself." The problem is, that single bits of information do not and cannot have multiple components. Hence, any system that has the "attribute" of possessing only a single bit of information, will render the "subtle but important extension" totally false. The paper linked to above, constructs just such a system, and then demonstrates that it also exhibits the so-called "quantum correlations", despite the fact that most physicists have deemed that to be impossible, for any classical system.

Rob McEachern

If you say the future "affects" the past, my reaction is that you're just misusing a word. In a static 4 dimensional block universe, I would agree that one could say adjacent points on a time-like line somehow constrain each other, but that amounts to geometry. The 4 corners of a square constrain each other's locations, but they're not messaging or "affecting" each other, at least in the agreed-upon meanings of those words, because there's no action involved. Now rotate that square so it aligns with your time axis, with 2 corners in the future and 2 in the past...

Yes agreed Jim. I'm not a mathematician or physicist either, but i find it hard to see how backwards causation can help rescue local realism. Either there is some kind of deep explanation, as Steve and Robert suggest, or local realism is violated. But as far as I understand it is violated whether you go for instantaneous action at a distance OR backwards causation.

As you say it would be interesting to hear what Leifer has to say about his proposal. Personally I think quantum non locality is mediated by, or occurs within, the nonmaterial dark energy which is supposed to be everywhere. I guess everyone comes up with their own explanation, which is why we have so many interpretations of QM's.

I realize that this is difficult for civilians because it is difficult for a technical audience as well.

Time and space are very useful notions, but time and space simply do not represent all of the action in the universe. The universe is full of matter and that matter is in all kinds of action.

All can agree on this.

Actions follow a natural order that science calls time, but quantum actions also show the property of phase coherence. Phase coherence makes it seem like an action in one part of the universe determines an effect in a very different part of the universe instantaneously. Therefore in time, phase coherence can make it seem like an action precedes its cause and so backwards messaging is born. Note that people very much smarter than I spend many pages of discourse over this simple proposition.

Science does not measure events from the future because there are no certain quantum futures and measurements only take place in the present moment. It is classical logic that suggests that the future might affect the past. The singularities of classical logic allow any number of odd results.

Quantum logic says the future is largely but not completely predictable and so no quantum action precedes its quantum effect.

It seems that every attempt to 'restore realism' end up asking me to conceive of action without, or outside of, time. And I can't. All I see are circular arguments and words stripped of their definitions.

There have been many variations of "something happens, causing time to flow". Objections are dismissed as mere "philosophy" because, well, here it is in the math...

If you mean by realism that there is no meaning for quantum phase, good luck with that universe.

If you mean by realism to include quantum phase, then all you need is matter and action to form a universe. Time and space simply emerge from matter and action. Space emerges from the action of the electron charge radius and time emerges by counting electron spin periods. So both time and space emerge from the discrete action of discrete matter in a finite universe.

Action, you see, has an implicit dimension of either time or space or both, but it is action that defines what we call time.

Steve Agnew,

Could you please elaborate on what it means to describe either space or time as being emergent?

"... Time and space simply emerge from matter and action. Space emerges from the action of the electron charge radius and time emerges by counting electron spin periods. So both time and space emerge from the discrete action of discrete matter in a finite universe.

Action, you see, has an implicit dimension of either time or space or both, but it is action that defines what we call time."

Does 'emerge' mean that time and space are made to physically come into existence? Does it just mean that 't' and 'd' in physics equations are mathematically justified? Does it refer to additional 'degrees of freedom' or 'new dimensions' either physical or mathematical? if none of these, then what does 'emerge' mean for space and time? Can it be explained so that it can be visualized?

"Action, you see, has an implicit dimension of either time or space or both, but it is action that defines what we call time."

I assume this does not mean that space and time are defined in terms of pre-existing properties? Are you saying that what we call time is simply and only a measure of object activity? Is momentum nothing more than the product of force and 'a measure of object activity'? How do innumerable cases of independent action provide for common standards for time and space? What are the units for time and space?

If this doesn't fit well with your view,then, please share something more about your view of the 'physical?' emergence of space and time?

What do you mean with "singularities of classical logic", and do you include incommensurables (irrational numbers) in "any number"?

I wonder if e.g. both the diameter and the circumference of a circle are countable multiples of electron charge radius.

I appreciate your hint to the often ignored bilaterality of forces like gravitation.

I also appreciate your attempt to deal with decay issues.

However, I don't like mystic speculations. As an old engineer, I am admittedly still lacking a comprehensive understanding of absolute phase even in quantum mechanics. Hopefully someone can lecture me.

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You objectivity is important Eckard,I like read your posts always concrete about our physics.I have seen that a lot of people confounded spirituality and measures.We can have an universal faith and in the same time we can respect our foundamental irreversible laws of God.Some persons try to insert a mysticism but the real relevance is to calculate correctly thisphysicality.It is a main problem in the sciences community, it is the same with hidden variables.Civil Engineers for me are the most skillings in science,they know well the maths and of course it is important for our towns and nuclear systems for example.The calcuations muts be precise simply.Don't stop never to be rational, we need that on FQXi also Eckard.

Regards

Boy these are hard questions. Action by standard physics is the integral of energy difference, the lagrangian, over either time or space or spacetime. Time and space are therefore implicit in action and are just another way to keep track of action.

We can count the spin periods of an electron as a sequence of actions, which is what we do and we call that counting time. That is how time emerges from action and likewise space emerges from the charge radius of the electron. We know that matter is a part of the universe and how matter distributes affects action and so we also like to keep track of matter. The charge radius is an intrinsic measure that allows us to keep track of matter as space or volume. That is how space emerges from matter and action.

This approach gets rid of all of the pesky infinities that plague space and time. Any 1/r2 force has a singularity at r=0 and the indivisibility of space is a tough nut to crack. In an discrete aether universe of discrete action, the problems of space and time are simply artifacts.

Rational and irrational numbers are a way that we keep track of space and time because for discrete aether and action, whole numbers are all that one needs. However, carrying around 1e39th digits is real silly since most action only needs a percent or so of precision for prediction. So we carry around a convenient number system that helps us predict action.

In the aether universe, all energy and momentum are equivalent to mass changes just like for all matter-energy equivalence. Therefore aether is fully compatible with relativity's MEE, but aether does not really have event horizons or light cones. The decay of the universe is what defines the speed of light and that means that all event horizons are where they belong in defining the edge of the universe.

This does mean that as matter decays, force and the speed of light increase, but that simply is the way the universe works. The galaxy red shift is real but due mostly to the slow speed of light in the early universe and therefore the weak charge and gravity forces as well...but there was more matter in the early universe.

The units for time and space are both dimensionless counts of spin periods and charge radii. We then assign those dimensions any convenient metric just like we do with wavefunctions, which are also dimensionless.

...oh yes, the question about absolute phase is also a good one. Since phase coherence decay is what differentiates a quantum and classical universe, the question of an absolute quantum phase comes up.

The phase of a photon resonance between an observer and a source is another way to define distance or separation and the only object that is the same distance from anywhere in the universe is the CMB creation. Anyone in the universe can measure the CMB distance and therefore know the size of the universe and that size is equivalent to an absolute phase.

That is how to measure absolute phase...

Hello Mr Agnew, I like your generality.That said I don't understand why you insist on this luminiferous aether.I can understand that like all you imrpove your works and it is difficult to change the line of reasoning.But you could extrapolate with the gravitational aether, it is more logic simply and more general.You can do it Jedi of the Sphere :)

Here is a link to the d'Espagnat article in Scientific American, noted above: The Quantum Theory and Reality The quote is from page 166.

Rob McEachern

There was a neural impulse that told me the universe was an impulse of matter and the Fourier transform of a impulse of matter is a matter spectrum that shows the amounts of matter as a function of mass as kg. The universe matter spectrum has electrons, protons, neutrons, photons, people, planets, stars, galaxies, and so on, but is absolutely dominated by a very large number, 1.2e125 of very small particles, 8.7e-69 kg, called aether. I also call this particle gaekron as a tribute to matter and time, but really to honor Newton and Einstein and all of the old guys, aether is a more appropriate term.

The ancients almost always have had some kind of an aether; the Chinese dao called it qi and still does call it qi; the Japanese alchemy, kami, is the spirit of all objects; the jinn of the middle east is spirit; and the western term aether became distinct from spirit about the time of Newton. Modern science disdains the term aether as too mystical, but aether has snuck back into science as vacuum oscillators and quantum foam and Higg's field.

It is about time...or is it about action?...that science restores the discrete aether to its rightful place as one of the two founding principles and axioms. Discrete aether along with quantum action come together to make the universe.

I must admit that I have never found any best general description of Bell's theorem. Since Bell did not do any real spectroscopic analyses, it is impossible for me to derive anything meaningful Bell's theorem. Somehow quantum transitions are these magical entities according to Bell and many others that have instantaneous correlations and there is never any mention of the very important property of quantum phase coherence.

Look...many very smart people unnecessarily complexify the simplest notions of the universe ostensibly to make some kind of point. Bell's theorem, in my humble opinion, is simply a complexification of a rather simple reality: Quantum phase coherence exists.

Until science can agree that classical observers do not measure phase and that quantum observers do measure phase, there is really no need for discourse. Without spectrometers, science cannot observe sources. With spectrometers, science either measure quantum phase or not measure it.

If the spectrometer does not measure quantum phase, that is fine, but do not try to argue that that is reality. Just try to get by. If the spectrometer measures quantum phase, then you have a shot at the pleasure of discovery of how the universe really works.

The d'Espagnat article is simply incomplete and has a host of all the regular hidden assumptions. It does not deal with time or space, it never mentions phase coherence or its decay, and this article is exactly what is wrong with much of the current quantum phase coherence discourse.

What we need are essays that discuss the nature of quantum phase coherence and what it means. Instantaneous quantum jumps are fine little approximations, but there is a time and phase dependence to all quantum action. Classical action also works quite well for most of gravity action except for dark matter, dark energy, and black holes. Then it needs serious fixin...