Dear Peter,

Thanks for leaving that information and scoring my essay. Managed to bump you up a couple of ticks.

Cheers,

Peter

Dear Peter

I read your essay and much of your conversation with Stefan. It is interesting to read your interpretation of QMs and it gave me the opportunity to brush up on a few things.

I wish you good luck with your project - you have taken on quite a challenge!

Gavin

    Peter,

    i'm not quite through and need another answer.

    I visualized the main ingredients on the unit circle. I found that there are two points on it where both the curl and the momentum are zero. This should be the case, if one visualizes the unit circle such that the north pole is up, the south pole is down and the equator is horizontally. The zero/zero locations then are at the left and right of the circle, both at the equator. At the north and south pole curl is max where momentum is zero. At the center of the unit circle (sphere) at the front and at the back (both located at the equator), curl is zero and momentum is max.

    In between these relations of the both properties (curl and momentum) their respective intensities follow the phase relation of sine & cosine (as is also the case for the above presented relations).

    Since these relations must have been fixed at the source (before interacting with some measurement device), i ask myself if the source does regularily send out only twin-particles with such a fixed architecture. By architecture i mean that if one particle has the north pole faced towards its propagation direction, the other particle will have its south pole faced towards its own propagation direction (and vice versa of course) and all the other relations follow due to internal particle arichtecture. Since curl and momentum for both particles are conserved, it has to be this way. What does this say about the sources properties? Isn't this a strong hint that the source works strictly deterministic and without any randomness?

    Best wishes,

    Stefan Weckbach

    Stefan,

    "i would demand the details of such a mechanism. Because i would like to know more about fundamental reality and whether it is strictly deterministic (although maybe with some noise and untracable chaos within it).."

    Yes, so would I, and I assume all would! Sure the model helps by narrowing the possible range of 'particle' dynamics that produce the observed outcome, but that's all anything is physics has EVER done and can ever do!

    "Bell's assumptions may have been indeed wrong (and yours also)." As a top QM statistics professor 'R' pointed out in a blog here recently Bell MADE NO assumptions! Of course where 'R' was wrong is that Bell stated clearly he used QM's assumptions, which he believed MUST be wrong somewhere. I simply show he was right, and where. The only 'assumption' I must make an an axiom is if momentum exchanged on an interaction at different orientations is equivalent to it's distributions across the surface of a spinning sphere. It was in testing that hypothesis (as part of the ontology) that I found the ONLY classical model EVER that reproduces QM's predictions! Of course it's incomplete and may not model reality, but that last sentence remains true.

    "I would be very surprised if such a theory that predicts something different than QM cannot be constructed in principle, since QM with all its weiredness was also constructed as a 'circumvention' of some problems and it works well and has predicted many phenomena." You misunderstand how 'QM' arose. Bohr & Co STARTED with a complex set of findings. If any theory finds something different it would be WRONG as it doesn't correspond to reality! To paraphrase QM then; it gives a complex mathematical algorithym that works, but no physical analogy was possible so say's; "all this weird unphysical stuff must happen to give these results".

    Now I've just shown there IS a physical analogy which can produce the findings!

    "I visualized the main ingredients on the unit circle. As in computing, one flaw in input and all that follows is nonsense!! There are NO 'zero' points! Nature is 3D so a circle CAN'T model it. Think 'sphere'. Now you missed a key statement; 'UP/DOWN' and 'LEFT/RIGHT' are equivalent arbitrary labels as the poles may ALSO be either. The key word is; 'ORTHOGONAL'(to the poles, i.e. at 90o).

    SOURCE: I discuss in more detail in the paper but the typical model for a splitter, i.e. Stern-Gerlach magnet will work viz. A particle inputs, possibly at any random angle and certainly with a 50:50 chance of North being left or right. The pair head off in opposite directions, one 'led by' N and the other by S, (but with some ellipticity of polarity possible due to orientation). However remember the big power player here is the FERMION FIELD! - so in the simplest case the only thing that matters is whether pos or neg states 'arrive'. And yes, +/- will tend to 50:50.

    The point I made strongly in my essay is that it IS DIFFICULT to embed and remember more than 3 things at once, which you're finding, and there ARE FAR MORE than that in the ontological construction giving the solution, and some informed by recent science. That's why neither Bohr nor Einstein could find it in the 1920's so argued at Solvay in '27.

    Peter

    Peter,

    i know that we talk about spheres. I only scribbled a unit circle first. For convenience, lets assume the north pole being up, the south being down. These are the maximum points for this 'axis'. It follows that the equator is a horizontal line (the x-coordinate-line of the unit cirlce if you will). At the front of the equator (in the middle of it seen from the front of the unit circle) the momentum property is maximum, since at the other side of the equator it is minimum. Therefore at the front side (middle of equator), the curl is zero, since up and down it is maximum (+1, -1). What's left are the both sides of the sphere (if we visualize the unit circle as a sphere what we want to do). So, left and right (in terms of the unit circle at 90 degree and 270 degree) both curl and momentum are zero (zero means half the way between +1 and -1).

    If they wouldn't be zero, how can you explain that for two subsequent polarizers (one for unpolarized light, the other for the result having went through polarizer number 1), orientated relative to each other at 90 degrees, no particle will go trough the second polarizer? But since your interaction mechanism is unclear, it could well be that the particle will go through (but this would be in contradiction to experimental findings). Nonetheless, at the other twin-particle with the same polarizer-settings, it then will not go through. So you need two points at the sphere, distinguished by 180 degree, for which no 'intensity' can interact with the field and lead to 're-emission'.

    ""I visualized the main ingredients on the unit circle. As in computing, one flaw in input and all that follows is nonsense!! There are NO 'zero' points! Nature is 3D so a circle CAN'T model it. Think 'sphere'. Now you missed a key statement; 'UP/DOWN' and 'LEFT/RIGHT' are equivalent arbitrary labels as the poles may ALSO be either. The key word is; 'ORTHOGONAL'(to the poles, i.e. at 90o)."

    I conclude from this that two twin-particles, produced by, say a down-conversion process, are 'only' complementary insofar as their complementary parts do always stand orthogonally relative to each other. Say, if the left particle has north left, the right particle has its south pole right. The latter particle then has its maximum momentum at one point of the sphere, the other particle 180 degrees away (but always on the equator, defined by the position of the poles!). If another particle(-pair) has its north pole up (from the same point of view of an 'observer'), the other particle will have its north pole down, and again the latter then has its maxium momentum at some point on the sphere, namely at the equator, its twin 180 degrees away from that point, also on the equator. So the twin-particles can come in arbitrary spinning directions and orientations of their poles and equators from the twin-source, but always must conserve the above described relationships in relation to each other. If the equator plane is spinning up, the equator plane of the twin particle must spin down. Is this the correct understanding?

    "If any theory finds something different it would be WRONG as it doesn't correspond to reality!"

    I think this would be only true if we had discovered all the consequences of QM yet. How can we know that we already have? I mean, other causal mechanisms could well lead to other experimental findings. That these findings aren't yet made has then its cause in the mathematics of QM, which does not predict or indicate such experimental findings. So nobody does look for them.

    Best wishes,

    Stefan Weckbach

    • [deleted]

    • Post #131

    Peter, yours is a brilliant and fascinating investigation of the physics of learning, and of its potential for improvement, but being rooted in science, it lacks an appreciation of the meta-physics of transcendence, negativity, and creativity (not to mention teleology).

    I'll give brief examples, which seem so obvious and commonplace only because we possess these capabilities inherently: The concept of infinity cannot be learned, it cannot be defined (rendered finite), and yet we all have an intuitive (transcendent) grasp of what it means - we have a word for it! Negativity can involve a notion like "this situation is unacceptable, but an alternative can be imagined and may be possible." Creativity can involve the imagination of something that doesn't exist: The first hand-drawn representation of an animal, for example; we take representation for granted only because the original creative concept has been handed to us. (I go into these sorts of issues in more detail at http://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/453 .)

    This isn't to disparage the brilliance of your creativity, only to criticize your lack of self-appreciation!

    Stefan,

    The best way to consider the sphere is that the energy level, or 'momentum', at any (latitude) orientation is the same, across the whole surface. The 'distribution' is only between what we've called AM and curl. To prove this, spin up a rubber sphere, then take a 2nd sphere (or a dynamometer) and hold it against the first. At the poles the 2nd will be made to rotate, but then at its equator there will be the same AM! Conversely; touch them at the equator of the first and the AM is transferred, but now look at the POLES of the 2nd and we find the same CURL amplitude as at the poles of the first! So there is NO POINT ON THE SPHERE WITH LESS MOMENTUM THAN ANY OTHER, but there are TWO classes of momenta, distributed orthogonally.

    As I said, If you try to reduce this to a (2D) circle it fails to reveal nature.

    "If the equator plane is spinning up, the equator plane of the twin particle must spin down. Is this the correct understanding?" Yes. As I've written many times it's best to always remember there's no such concepts us up/down or left/right in space. Just orthogonal and opposite with 3 degrees of freedom. Anything beyond basic rotation is entirely observer dependent, even 'translation' is relative. Think on this; Who's to say Bob and Alice may not be floating upside down in relation to each other!

    You're also in danger of becoming too focused on the pair. Don't forget that it's the relative relationship with the field electron that dictates output. It would then be far better to think of the relative outputs from interactions as simply either 'SAME' or 'OPPOSITE' directions.

    In other words the findings and stats aren't really reporting on 'state pair' states but RELATIVE states at the interactions (that needs a little thought too!)

    "..other causal mechanisms could well lead to other experimental findings. That these findings aren't yet made has then its cause in the mathematics of QM, which does not predict or indicate such experimental findings. So nobody does look for them." That is a good point. So if you can think of any do test them or let me know! There ARE some, but purely seen as alternative solutions to well established interpretations, i.e. 'backwards causality'!. The problem is, because Diracs maths is essentially correct, any such finding is likely to be hailed as a "new implication of QM" not any proof that embedded assumptions are wrong. That's how physics seems to work; If there's disagreement on any theory, some unpredicted finding comes along and BOTH sides interpret it as a proof!

    In this case however the very fact that some classical mechanism IS possible is the revelation. Certainly if it had been found at any time in the FIRST 50 years, from 1920 to Bell's era, it would have been recognized immediately and the nonsense all dropped. But now after ANOTHER 50 years the weirdness may be too familiar and deeply embedded to be overturned.

    That's one reason my essay identifies the need for humans to self evolve thinking methodology to allow understanding of nature to advance.

    Peter

    Peter,

    „In other words the findings and stats aren't really reporting on 'state pair' states but RELATIVE states at the interactions (that needs a little thought too!)"

    How can the sampling of many twin-pairs then reproduce the Bell-curve? Surely, one can analyze the measurements in terms of independent interactions at every measurement station and this of course must be done, since the two stations do independently choose with what angles they operate in each trial (either by the will of the experimenter or automatized).

    But all this has to result in the Bell-curve at the end and the latter is a description of correlations of twin-pairs, not of some cosine-like distributions of some momenta at a single particle. If the twin-pairs are not send out from the same sample source in always the same spatial orientations (except for north and south interchangeable and therefore also for up and down), i would conclude that the Bell-curve cannot come into existence with your approach. If only spatial orientation is rendered at every measurement interaction, but no intensity of momenta, then the final photoamplifiers need no treshholds. If it is only the relative angle of the photoamplifiers field with the incoming particle which decides what channel does click and your statement 'NO POINT ON THE SPHERE WITH LESS MOMENTUM THAN ANY OTHER' should be true, then on the basis of what criteria can the photoamplifier then discriminate what channel should click and at the same time act according to QM probabilities which change with angle and are correlations that produce a continuous pattern, namely the Bell-curve. This can't be done with only a digital description of two classes of momenta that have at no point on the sphere less momentum than any other.

    I re-read your comment at 21.Mai 10:56

    "The 'requantize' the energy by absorption and re-emission, and their angle DICTATES the new Cosine values of curl and AM."

    I think i understood this; the relative angle between incoming particle and the field of the measurement device.

    The question for me is now whether the twin-particles produced by the source are produced with some cosine values of curl and AM (surely then due to the orthogonally- and opposite-rules you mentioned) or not. The second question is what triggers both of the final photoamplifiers to produce the Bell-curve over time if the sine- and cosine patterns are not existent on a single particle. Remember, perfect correlation can be explained classically, but there are cases where these perfect correlations (or anti-correlations) resolve more and more into a 50:50 chance. This behaviour must be reproduced by your scheme and for that it is necessary that the source's twin-particles that are suitable to be sampled come always with the same initial orientations (except for the exchange of north/south and up/down). By 'same initial' orientations i do not only mean that the two particles must have 'opposite' initial orientations, but their common spin-axis' for their two momenta must always be of the same orientation (relative to an observer with a fixed point of perspective towards the source) for every sample pair.

    Best wishes,

    Stefan Weckbach

    James

    Thanks for your kind words. I tried to deal with 'creativity' in terms of an Architect, handed a blank sheet of paper with just a context and sets of complex criteria and limiting rules. This goes beyond the normal 3-part analysis of conscious intent which STARTS with the blueprint. In fact it ALWAYS 'involves the recreation of something that doesn't yet exist'.

    The complex multi-level 'feedback loops' from imagined scenario's create the 'aims' and teleology in the same way as Erik Hoels essay, but the 'information channel' limitation is overcome by the additional 'spin state' identified in the classical reproduction of quantum mechanical predictions, effectively 'decoding' most of the so called 'noise' in the Shannon Channel (Also see the 'IQbit' in my It from Bit essay 'The Intelligent Bit'). However I also showed that randomness only reduces and is never entirely eliminated (at orthogonal interaction angles).

    But I know (and warned!) it was too much to ask for all of the densely crammed elements of the ontological construction to be identified, remembered and put together on one read, and indeed each would have benefited from expansion and reinforcement were there space.

    Your link isn't live. If you're not sure how, click 'link help page' above the reply box, copy & paste it in, then be careful not to include any spaces each end of the link address. I'll then take a look, but possibly after the contest!

    Thanks, and very best

    Peter

    Stefan,

    Hmm. you keep forgetting key bits so conclude wrongly. I can't blame you, I struggled for ages! But the video does derive this, or also see the end notes of my previous essay experiment using colours. Remember the x axis scale of the Bell curves is detector field angle, and there are TWO curves offset by 90o, so when one peaks & troughs the other is crossing zero (mid height), and vice versa. Now consider the finding not as 'spin up/down' but just as 'same/different' to the detector electron direction.

    We'll say Bob and Alice can rotate their dials at will. When the SAME angle they get opposite results, when at OPPOSITE angles they get the SAME results. Now when they're at 90o relative to EACH OTHER (anywhere around the dial) the correlated results have maximum uncertainty. This is because; if the rate of clicks between Bobs two photomultiplier channels is say 60:40, then Alice's will be the inverse so CORRELATION ( a 'relative' function) will be at its poorest (50:50). Of course NEAR 90o it'll still be poorish, whereas near the SAME or OPPOSITE settings it'll be pretty certain. That reproduces the Cos curves of the interactions but this time SQUARED due to the value amplifications of the photomultiplier cascades.

    In the colour experiment it was subjective. When asked how close red was to green it was NOT AT ALL (opposite) but then comparing red & orange, green & lime or buff & sand, in was CLOSE. So the distribution of 'sameness' was non linear. But now asked if yellow is closest to red or to green? (orthogonal switchover point ) Duh! the result was around 50:50.

    That statistical non-linearity is tricky to get your head round at first then keep in there! But don't assume the correlations actually mean what many assume them to mean. The distribution is NOT the original particle momentum distribution itself but that simply repeats itself. The simple subjective essay experiment with a bunch of students gave a surprisingly good reproduction of the Bell curves from the correlations. (of course many just suggest, oh 'that's just proved QM'. Doh!)

    Peter

    Peter,

    thanks again for your reply.

    For not confusing each other, i have to ask again to what devices you refer in your latest post when you speak of Alice and Bob.

    Are the 'dials' you spoke of the well known birefringent crystal polarization analyzers, or are they polarisation filters (the latter have no two output channels, no ordinary and extraordinary rays)? I asked this some post above and you answered you refer to polarisation filters. Do you still refer to polarisation filters? You also answered you refer to electrons when mentioning Alice and Bob and the term 'spheres'. I only need to know what you refer to in your latest post, to understand what you are talking about.

    In my scenario i use polarisation filters and the particles i refer to are photons. Do you refer to photons or to electrons? You mentioned the fermion field, but for me it remains unclear - or to say better, i got a little confused now - what your source does emitt for Alice and Bob, electrons (fermions) or photons (Bosons)? If you refer to electrons, do Alice and Bob experiment in your latest post with electrons and birefringent crystal polarization analyzers or with electrons and polarisation filters?

    Could you please send me a reference to what experiment you refer when mentioning Alice and Bob? I have to be clear about what you have in mind and about what experiment you are talking when trying to understand what you want to show me. Thanks!

    Best wishes,

    Stefan Weckbach

    Stefan,

    For consistency stay with polariser/modulators & twin channel photomultipliers (PM's). The important fermions are those of the rotatable polariser FIELD. Remember the main differences between travelling pair fermions and 'photons' is the former take more field interactions to be 'modulated'.

    My last post was late Sunday so not as clear as it should have been! But it also seems you didn't check back to the Bob & Alice essay I directed you to. There are clear diagrams and a findings chart (end note). Human brains store visuals easier than numbers so study the figs and sketches. Do Bob & Alice have a future?

    What I forgot was I also devised a way for YOU to experiment in 2D. Draw a circle and perimeter cosine number distributions from +1 to -1 between poles, then also in a different colour +1 to -1 orthogonally (so starting at 90o = the equator).

    Now draw a smaller circle with radians at say 5o intervals from zero round 360o (so 180 is opposite)o, then cut it out and pin it concentrically on top of the first.

    Now wherever 0 happens to be you can choose any angle on the top disc as the RELATIVE angle between Bob and Alice's detector dials. Now for ANY position going in 5o increments plot (z axis) each colour Cos value onto a graph.

    The outcome relationship from Bob & Alice's RELATIVE settings will then become clear and self apparent. All we then need to do is add the PM cascade amplification effect (as in QCD), so square the Cos values (which means they now represent the PM 'click' rates) and do the plot again.

    Now you've fully reproduced the experimental findings and 'predictions' of QM with a Classical mechanism. Something still considered impossible! What's more you've shown that so called 'superposition' and 'entanglement' effects purely emerge from the orthogonal TWIN momenta and maintained axial relationship between the pairs, NOT anything weird & spooky!

    However DOING this is relatively easy compared to the near insurmountable task of getting doctrinal mainstream science to understand, accept and adopt it! But maybe that doesn't matter as (look around you!) we're probably not yet ready for a quantum leap in understanding.

    Let me know if you run into problems with the experiments and I'll help.

    Peter

    Dear Peter,

    I perused the paper you got published in the Hadronic Journal and can't find any inconsistencies, although I'm not nearly as familiar with astrophysics as you are. I found it interesting that you peg dark matter down to plasma from quasar jet activity that gathers around a galaxy. If your idea is right then it's no wonder they can't find any on earth since it would be restricted to the halo.

    As to your chagrin that it didn't get published by the top mainstream journals I wouldn't feel that way if I were you. It must be difficult if you don't have the appropriate letters next to your name and besides, you got another paper published in arXiv which I would think is quite the accomplishment.

    Cheers,

    Peter

    P.S. I hope your 2nd Minkowski doesn't see my essay.

    Peter,

    i read your essay ‚'Do Bob and Alice have a future?'.

    It seems that both Alice and Bob experiment with electrons and use as 'analysers' Stern-Gerlach magnets. Bob did in fact use polarisers to experiment with electrons and seemingly also used photons with the Stern-Gerlach magnets.

    You wrote

    "So something was wrong. Whatever he did, half the spin results were identical with the same settings, the other half with opposite settings!"

    the figure 5 in that essay shows that there are 4 quadrants, 2 on the left, 2 on the right. The ones at the left are symmetrical to the ones at the right. For a 'Bell believer' this mirrors the classical and non-classical correlations. For a 'Bell denier' this mirrors that every twin pair comes into the experimental setup with a fixed symmetry and a common propagation axis.

    But now assume that we first measure the vertical 'spin-component' of the spin half particles. For all particles that have spin 'up', we now measure the horizontal 'spin-component'. Since we now measure an orthogonal variable, the results should arise in the well-known 50:50 manner at both sides. After that, we now measure the particles again orthogonally to the previous measurement. Again there should only arise values in the well-known 50:50 manner.

    In other words, whatever we do after the first measurement (vertical component), 'half the spin results were identical with the same settings, the other half with opposite settings!" for every further added measurement station (but now not as the Bell-curve, but linear).

    The latter paragraph is not surprising in light of your approach, since you defined an increasing randomness towards the relative angle of 90 degree. What is surprising to me is that doing an analog experiment, not with electrons, but with photons, we can erase the very first measurement (vertical 'spin-component') by superposing the up- and down particles of the vertical measurement after the subsequent horizontal measurement and therefore forcing the twin pair to give always the SAME answers. Interrupting the superposition by blocking one path to its creation, and the 50:50 situation is restored again, independent of what is happening with the other particle. So what one does in one path (locally), does impact what happens in the other path.

    You know these experiments. Interference on both sides of an entangled system can locally (on one side) be created or destroyed and subsequently this has an impact on the twin particles' 'behaviour' (it does contribute to interference or not, dependend on what happens on the other side). This cannot be explained by subsets or ensembles, it is a very real correlation of action-at-a-distance, since for interference, the particle has to avoid certain regions more than for non-interference (so the probabilities change for that twin-particle due to what an experimenter does on the other side with the other particles).

    Best wishes,

    Stefan Weckbach

    Stefan,

    I confess I'll have to read my own essay again to understand your commentary! Things have also evolved of course. One BIG No No in your description relates for instance to;

    " we first measure the vertical 'spin-component' of the spin half particles. For all particles that have spin 'up', we now measure the horizontal 'spin-component'." We famously can't do so, indeed it's a philosophical problem that Bell goes into that we can't 'check on' the state of a particle 'on the way' to compare it's state on arrival. Indeed even individual 'time resolved' particle comparisons have been tricky as the theory was only ever based on 'streams'. As I wrote, the analysis isn't really correlating what it's assumed it is, indeed the whole concept of applying mass statistics to individual occurrences is highly dubious anyway.

    It would be very helpful to read Prof William McHarris's essay which I've just read, which agrees and quite brilliantly explains the background, set ups, limitations and issues in QM.

    I also don't know what you mean by 'Bell deniers'. I don't know any exist! His theorem is undeniable. I certainly agree it.

    Finally I can't see what you refer to in your last paragraph as it's incorrect, unless you're referring to so called 'delayed choice' type interferometer experiments which use the same flawed starting assumptions so end up with the same 'spooky' inferences. There is NO case where 'action at a distance' is required to explain the findings.

    I can explain the quantum eraser etc but it takes some space. A key is, in the definitive experimental set-ups count how many mirrors (so state reversals and delays) there are on each side of the system! If your brain is locked in to the Classic QM mechanism (which I can see it mostly isn't yet) the solution may fall out.

    The 'concentric circle' experiment I described above should let you prove it conclusively to yourself. But do read the McHarris paper first.

    Best

    Peter

    Dear Peter

    Quite interesting your essay - at least at the point I could follow it. And lots of common viewpoints.

    Interesting to know that John Wheelers said "Never make a calculation until you know the answer". When in a research work, I have similar rule: "never use an equation unless I am able to replace it by plain text"; or, in the other words, "I always have to know more than equations".

    Other important statement is "We aim for 'the scientific method' but

    tend to use default response mode, so reject anything unfamiliar, which precludes advancement. Deciding truth on a who not what basis is a similar default error. Teaching only mathematical physics can't help expand capacity to 'understand'. Your "default response mode" is basically my "mind search-engine" and what you say here is exactly what I think, although I have not mentioned it in my essay because it was not about the mind.

    After around section 7, I began to feel lost because of my limitations (and also my methodology). It's a pity because it seems to be very interesting, but we have to choose our fields of concern, isn't it? I am not qualified to follow your reasoning there. However, both your ideas and your writing style captured me until then.

    Concerning your question about the role of gravity in promoting the ever larger connections between entities, surely it has a fundamental role; however, I would not say that its role is more important that any other - even the psychological ones, because without our social tendency the human society would not be possible.

    Yet, if you want to know if there is one property responsible by all this, I would say "yes". However, that property is behind all we know - behind matter, radiation, fields. We still conceive the universe as having "particles" and a "vacuum", both with properties but being two different entities. We cannot model the universe differently. Yet, we begin to understand that particles shall be some sort of perturbation of the medium we call vacuum. We are just grasping this conception of the universe but it is only there that we can find a common cause for everything we know.

    I want to thank your nice words about by essay. I am happy to know that it pleased you.

    Good luck for the contest!

    Alfredo

      Peter,

      Yours is a very interesting essay. I am not going to pretend that I understood everything that you suggested in it, but I do see how you drew the conclusions given at the end of the paper.

      I know there are many ways to interpret the contest theme; however, I am surprised at how many essays, including yours, try to develop direct links between the mathematical laws and higher brain functions and higher intelligence. I realize that that is a valid approach to the theme, but it seems like a very difficult undertaking.

      As you know, in my essay, I suggest that when DNA can cause something in its favor to happen rather than have to live at the mercy of its environment, it has exhibited intent. Therefore, by merely offering a step from inert matter to that of DNA (and RNA), it seems the question of how the mathematical laws give rise to aims and intentions is fundamentally addressed (although I am not saying that I did a good job of addressing it). As living entities evolve into systems of higher complexity; of course, the sophistication of the aims and intentions grows.

      Perhaps, in this situation, an incremental approach to ultimately understanding how the laws relate to higher intelligence is more useful than trying to eat the elephant all in one bite. Maybe we need to learn arithmetic and algebra before we tackle calculus and differential equations. I suspect, given the breadth of knowledge displayed in the essays submitted; we could probably come up with a good model of the initial jump from inert matter, driven by its surroundings, to living systems, manipulating their surroundings.

      At any rate, good luck to you,

      William.

        Peter,

        i think the experiment i spoke of was first meant as a thought experiment, figured out by Zeilinger and Mike Horne in 1985 and then presented at a conference in 1987, as far as i remember. It indeed was not a quantum eraser experiment, since i confused it with another experiment. So here it is:

        Take a source that produces twin-particles which propagate in opposite directions. At each direction from the source, place a double-slit barrrier. The source and the distances between two slits on a barrier is such that at the measurement screen behind each double-slit, there does not appear an interference pattern, but a homogenous gray.

        Say, the twin-particle propagating to the left is called A, the other, propagating to the right, is called B.

        Scanning the detection plane (with a detector B) of particle B (from left to right or vice versa) gives a random pattern of impacts which lead to the homogenous gray.

        But repeat the experiment with the difference that now we also install a detector (photomultiplier or such) in the detection plane for particle A at a specific place. Now repeat the experiment by measuring the relative frequencies of impacts at the measurement plane B (while detector A is always at the same location) by again moving it (from right to left or vice versa). Now you get non-random relative frequencies of the impacts, they form an interference pattern.

        For the relevant coincidence counts, detectors A and B together produce an intererence pattern in the plane of particle B. One can also once more change the relative frequencies of impacts at the detection plane of particle B by slightly shifting detector A. One can do this until the maxima and minima at side B for the placement of detector A in the first run and in the second run (the latter the one with the slightly shifted detector position) build up together a totally washed out 'interference pattern'.

        The fact that a detector is used at side A alters the relative frequencies of impacts on side B, irrespectively of how large the distances between the two detector planes are. Since nothing has changed at the source and at side B, one is forced to correlate the initial change of patterns with the use of detector A. But how can the use of detector A influence what detector B measures...

        My term 'Bell deniers' is confusing. I should have written entanglement deniers, since you accept Bell's theorem, but do not think that spooky-action-at-a-distance is reality, but only a misunderstanding. In a certain sense i do so, because i do not think that there is really an action at a distance in space and time. But i rationally think that there is a reason for the above described behaviour, although maybe not tracable with our usual notion of causality.

        The above experiment was conducted and confirmed. In this experiment one can neglect the particles which did not hit the detectors or did not hit the double slits.

        Best wishes,

        Stefan Weckbach