Alan, hoping to help, this is an edited carry-over from my answer to you at
More realistic fundamentals: quantum theory from one premiss.
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Dear Alan,
1. Many thanks for this: "I agree with you that true local realism is at the heart of physics." For it's on this foundation that I hope we (with others) might build a productive collaboration [absent point-particles, nonlocality and unwarranted mysteries].
2. My thanks too for this: "And the mathematical structure of quantum entanglement is incompatible with local realism." But here I'm more cautious: my little qualifier "true" is missing, and I suspect we might presently differ re the nature of entanglement and its definition [see my essay, p.6]. However, given the quality of your own work, I very much look forward to discussing this -- confident that agreement is likely.
3. As for quantum computing: and the mainstream one-day starting to question the foundations of quantum mechanics? In that Bell's "theorem" didn't lead more to water, I doubt much else will lead them to a refreshing drink!
4. And you certainly got this right: "You might be interested in reading my essay, "Fundamental Waves and the Reunification of Physics". I look forward to discussing prevalence waves, wavepackets, and physical waves where -- bypassing probability and all its confusions [eg, see Qbism] -- I have here used my preferred term. Thus I seek to understand objective prevalence waves [say, simple cos2 distributions] via a theory of prevalence amplitudes and wavepackets.
5. As for GR, I am still in the basement, cleaning up the more elementary foundations. But (at the risk of being misunderstood), I am bold enough to suggest that we can together strengthen your position, as follows:
5a. You say: "something close to classical physics should be restored, reunifying physics that was split in the early 20th century."
5b. I'm inclined to say, respecting its outstanding history: classical physics itself should be restored. Thus, for me:
(i) Planck's quantum of action is classical. As EPR made clear; see ¶3.1 in my essay: (iii) "The elements of physical reality ... must be found by an appeal to the results of experiments and measurements [the latter, in our terms, often better described as tests]."
(ii) Bohr's "disturbance insight" is classical. As per EPR above: Malus (c1810) taught us that classical light-beams are disturbed by interactions.
(iii) And so on: special relativity is classical; and from my essay, what I call the laws of Malus, Bayes and Born are classical; in short, true local realism is wholly classical.
(iv) What more might be required of classical mechanics and its modern developments?
6. You say: "QM should not be a general theory of nature, but rather a mechanism for creating discrete soliton-like wavepackets from otherwise classical continuous fields. These same quantum wavepackets have a characteristic frequency and wavelength that define local time and space, enabling GR without invoking an abstract curved spacetime."
I say: please see Fröhner; LINK via #17 in my References. The R-F theorem there says that periodic angular distributions entail discrete angular-momentum distributions, hence discrete outcomes of spin tests: the classical rules for linear and angular momentum holding, not just on average but case by case (as in EPRB). See also the spinor wavefunction in eqn (69).
With my thanks again; Gordon
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Gordon Watson
More realistic fundamentals: quantum theory from one premiss.