Classical Spheres, Division Algebras, and the Illusion of Quantum Non-locality:

Florin Moldoveanu

"It is ludicrous to expect these multi-particle correlations to be reproducible in the same simulation built specifically for the 2-particle EPR-Bohm scenario. "

The rejection criteria at detection devices depends only on the local physics of detection and should apply to ALL wavefunctions. IF NOT, THE MODEL IS CONTEXTUAL. And I do recall the prior emphatic statements that the model is non-contextual. Apparently the tune is now changed and non-contextuality is the new ludicrousness.

On the Pearl paper, it is a tour de force in integration and I am half way done doublechecking his math. I found it very interesting that there are an entire class of detection loophole solutions.

Florin Moldoveanu

Richard, sorry I did not read the posts earlier, M is indeed for Mermin. To be 100% correct we should call it: GHZ-S-M (S from the "emotional blackmail" person-Shimony).

"So here is my LHV model. The source decides what joint measurement setting should hold in the next run. It generates the right outcomes for those combined settings. It transmits the whole caboodle to all three measurement stations. Alice (and similarly Bob...) picks a setting. Inside the measurement station, the measurement device compares Alice's setting to the desired one for this run, and generates the right outcome if they match, and a zero if they don't."

Yes, this would work, but can this generate EPR-B outcomes to? Joy claims his model is non-contextual and therefore it should work. (By the way, as strange as it may seem I do not seek to disprove Joy) In a LHV with detection loophole is interesting to see how far can the model be stretched. Since there is freedom in Pearl's solution, maybe it can be used to generate both EPR-B and GHZ, who knows?

Thomas Ray

Florin, after all this time, I find it hard to believe that you know so little about Joy's framework.

If nonlocality is wrong, so is quantum mechanical contextualism. There are really only a few simple things one has to understand:

The measurement function is continuous from the initial condition.

The initial condition is defined by the topology.

The topology is closed under multiplication.

The topology is simply connected.

Nonzero torsion guarantees quantum correlations as points of the Hopf fibration at every scale, independent of arbitrary coordinates such as detector settings.

Richard Gill

Florin, the trick I described works for any experiment in which each party has only a finite number of different settings. The detection rate decreases as the number of possible setting combinations increases.

It's purpose is pedagogical.

Joy Christian

Hi All,

I have now published the penultimate version of the simulation of my local-realistic model for the EPR-Bohm correlation: http://rpubs.com/jjc/13965. With sample size of 10^7, the resulting plots are spectacular---especially the last one. The simulation provides us nothing less than a window to how Nature truly respects the geometry and topology of the parallelized 3-sphere.

If you wish to know more about the inner workings of Nature and how she reveals her topological beauty to us, then please do read at least some introductory parts of my book:

Florin Moldoveanu

Hi All,

Contrary to public perception, I am not after disproving Joy wrong (this is already settled and I see no point to it unless either FQXi reverses its finding or Joy published his results in a peer-review paper). I do find however detection loophole models interesting.

Florin Moldoveanu

Errata:

Instead of "I am not after disproving Joy wrong", please read "I am not after proving Joy wrong" or "I am not after disproving Joy".

Sorry for the confusion, oops, I tripped on a double negation.

Thomas Ray

"I tripped on a double negation."

So does the proof of Bell's theorem. :-)

Richard Gill

Now that we have perfect simulation models, it's maybe time to step

back and ask ourselves what we have achieved. I think there is a little

problem with these simulations. [I posted this text a few days ago - my

apologies to those who read and crticised it earlier].

The problem is in the heart of the simulation. In order to generate

outcomes for A and B we obviously need values of the settings

a and b, and we need a realization of the hidden state lambda.

In these Philip Pearle / Caroline Thompson like models, lambda is effectively generated

by the rejection method: an initial randomization can generate both states lambda

and non-states - points lambda outside of what Joy defines to be the domain of

A(a, .) and B(b, .). So we just keep picking a lambda from the big set of states

and non-states, till we are lucky enough to get a state.

The criterion for rejection appears to depend on a and b.

In other words, the domain of the hidden state and hence also its

probability distribution, depends on a and b.

Maybe this only appears to be so? Maybe if you have checked that

some criterion involving a and b is satified, then it is also satisfied for

all possible a' and all possible b', hence it not actually "measurement

setting dependent"? Well, that is what Christian claims, but I have

problems with his use of "for all" and "there exists". And for me

it is clear that Bell's theorem shows that this selection *must* be

measurement-setting dependent. You can only violate Bell's inequality

by violating one of locality, realism, or no-conspiracy. In this case the

simulation is evidently local realist. So it violates "no-conspiracy",

aka "freedom".

In my opinion, the cause of all this sorrow is the attempt to simulate

Christian's S^3 based mathematics within the confines of local realism

on classical computers. That enterprise is doomed to failure ... by Bell's

theorem. Earlier, Christian always admitted this. He always said: you can't

disprove a true mathematical theorem. You have to *circumvent* one.

I believe that Christian's model cannot be reproduced in flatland. It would

need a kind of Möbius strip in space-time which alters the measurement

outcomes (the measurement outcomes which Alice and Bob

saw and collected in their respective labson distant planets on distant galaxies)

as they bring them back in their space-ships through the wormhole,

back to the main lab on Planet Earth.

Fred Diether

Richard,

It doesn't really matter. Even though perhaps the simulations aren't perfect, they still beat Bell and illustrate that he did in fact make a mistake as far as applying his model to the physics of EPR-Bohm scenarios. But Joy's model as best illustrated by geometric algebra goes beyond that and explains the origins of quantum correlations. A profound discovery.

What we should get back to is for you to ask more questions about what you don't have a full understanding of with Joy's math. Which you freely admit that there is some that you don't understand.

Fred

[deleted]

The algebraic part of Einstein's metric tensor framework allows analytic continuation of the metric by transporting in a generally covariant way, the coordinates of one inertial system to another.

Students of Einstein know that, as Kevin Brown put it:

" ... we should not forget that general relativity is still restricted to a preferred class of coordinate systems, which comprise only an infinitesimal fraction of all conceivable mappings of physical events, because it still excludes non-diffeomorphic transformations."

Einstein favored adding degrees of freedom (dimensions) to the continuum theory provided one could cite sufficient and necessary physical reasons to do so. I doubt that Einstein considered the physical meaning of non-inertial diffeomorphisms, or else he would have exposed the error of quantum theory early on. In any case, though, that's the mathematical error correction that makes Joy Christian's framework viable for both the classical correlations of inertial systems and quantum correlations in non-inertial systems, so that correlations are continuous and broadly classical, at every scale. Brown continues:

"It's interesting to consider how we arrive at (and agree upon) our preferred equivalence class of coordinate systems. Even from the standpoint of special relativity the identification of an inertial coordinate system is far from trivial (even though it's often taken for granted). When we proceed to the general theory we have a great deal more freedom, but we're still confined to a single topology, a single pattern of coherence. How is this coherence apprehended by our senses? Is it conceivable that a different set of senses might have led us to apprehend a different coherent structure in the physical world? More to the point, would it be possible to formulate physical laws in such a way that they remain applicable under completely arbitrary transformations?"

Thomas Ray

Last was mine.

Thomas Ray

"In this case the simulation is evidently local realist. So it violates 'no-conspiracy', aka 'freedom'."

No, it just adds the degree of freedom necessary to elevate a computation from the S^2 manifold to S^3, with the nonzero topological torsion that guarantees quantum correlations without invoking Bell's theorem.

Richard Gill

PS technical comment to Joy concerning R: I suggest you add to the last "plot()" command the further optional argument "ylim = c(-0.0005, +0.0005)" so that the range of the y axis is extended enough to see the red curves. (I hope I got the number of zero's right).

Alan Lowey

Joy,

Is there any current day high profile scientist who has agreed with you in respect of your so-called "illuminating the illusion of entanglement"? All the modern sources say that the mainstream scientific community has accepted the reality of quantum entanglement.

Alan

Richard Gill

Alan, the "mainstream scientific community" does not *think*. It follows. It believes several impossible things simultaneously, every day, before breakfast ... and unlike the red or white queen (sorry I forget which) it doesn't even realise that that is what it is doing.

Richard Gill

PS regarding your question Alan: the answer is "no". And since I just stated that I had my doubts about "mainstream scientific consensus", I will emphasize, with all due respect, that I do believe that Joy's illumination is illusory.

No serious scientist unquestionably accepts the judgement of the mainstream scientific community (whatever that means. Most people mean "me and my friends and establishment figures with whom we identify".)

Alan Lowey

Richard,

I appreciate that Joy and yourself are at the forefront of a possible new paradigm in physics. All that I ask is that you both acknowledge the logical possibility that particles might be able to travel faster than light. Einstein's relativity might be wrong. The legacy of Newton's theory of gravity not requiring a mechanism, even though a spinning helix structure can achieve a force of attraction, lives with the mainstream scientific community today.

Is is too much to admit that a spinning helix wave/particle has yet to be properly pursued as a viable alternative to an aether-like theory of gravity?

Alan

Thomas Ray

" ... acknowledge the logical possibility that particles might be able to travel faster than light."

Do you acknowledge the logical possibility that the sun's movement might be caused by Apollo driving his fiery chariot across the heavens?

Alan, logical possibilities are determined by a framework of assumptions. Relativity, however, is not merely an assumption; it has measured correspondence to physical facts.

Alan Lowey

There appears to be two possibilities:

(i) Joy is correct and "quantum correlations" can be explained by an aether-like theory.

(ii) Einstein is wrong and "quantum entanglement" can be explained by faster than light particles.

Alan

Richard Gill

According to John S. Bell (Bertlmann's socks and the nature of reality) http://cds.cern.ch/record/142461/files/198009299.pdf there are (at least) *four* possibilities. And later he admitted there is a fifth, which I like to call "Bell's fifth position" http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0301059

Modern treatments of Bell's theorem pose it in the following way: quantum mechanics is incompatible with the conjunction of locality, realism, and freedom. The three words here actually carry a quite technical, context-dependent meaning: do not confuse them with the same labels as used in other fields of discourse; see the online encuyclopedia article http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/entanglement_(physics) by Boris Tsirelson. So one can discard quantum mechanics, or locality, or realism, or freedom. Moreover, so far this was only about theory (about mathematical models). If we put nature into the picture as well, other possibilities arise.

Richard Gill

PS another very recent summary:

http://www.math.leidenuniv.nl/~gill/Klaas_Landsman_Bell_talk.pdf

pjackson

Richard,

(Feb.28.pt2). "Bell's theorem shows that this selection *must* be measurement-setting dependent."

I agree, and not just the theorem itself. But you suggested above;

"In your experiment, Peter, the "settings" (numbers between 0 and 180) are part of the measurement outcome. Not pre-set, independently, by experimenters."

Not necessarily; The ideal set up (as Weihs) allows Alice to decide her setting BETWEEN the toss and the arrival. My protocol does so. Alice chooses a number instantly BEFORE arrival and only the corresponding card colour is shown.

The tosser can send the H or T pack each time (physically or electronically) to ensure no possible problem with the "no-conspiracy" condition. Each detector behaves consistently and symmetrically, (exactly as is anyway required for the Bell set up), but the outcome IS setting dependent.

I have a particle analogue not dependent on incomprehensible maths. We can have a Bohr 'sphere' if we want, but critically it's EM field is toroidal, as all are. We then invoke a torus spinning on it's axis.

A torus has a very unusual quality. This needs some fundamental 'outside all invisible boxes' non-homocentric thinking as the common assumption that spin can't be found as 'changed' when electron 3-momentum is flipped at 90^o is shown to be wrong;

Let me jet you out into deep space and ask you two questions;

1. Which way is 'up'?

2. Two donuts approach you face-on (within plastic spheres if you wish), each spinning on it's axis in opposite directions. Now thinking in 'absolute' terms, Are they identical entities, or different? (if different, then how?)

In the discrete field dynamic they are identical - but still observer frame dependent. i.e. Only their *direction of propagation* wrt a particular observer defines if each is spin 'up' or 'down'.

Nick Mann

So is there going to be an experiment or not?

Jonathan Dickau

I think all that's lacking, at this point...

is the funding necessary to perform the relevant experiments.

Regards,

Jonathan

Richard Gill

Joy and I hope to find sponsors. A bit of crowd-funding in order to run the experiment of the century.

Nick Mann

Too bad the Anniversary Fest in Vienna is nigh. It would've been icing on the cake to have this distraction definitively sorted. Too late now.

Jonathan Dickau

What if we start by taking Heisenberg seriously?..

The notion of non-commutativity for objects and spaces can explain Quantum Mechanical behavior. This was noted by Heisenberg, but quickly forgotten when the work of Schrödinger became the prevailing explanation for QM phenomena. In the introduction of "Noncommutative Geometry Year 2000" (NCG2k attached), Alain Connes explains how reading about Heisenberg's conjecture when studying Ritz-Rydberg atoms - that perhaps the nature of space itself is non-commutative - spurred him to develop the subject of Noncommutative Geometry. Joy Christian also says we should re-examine the nature of the background - our assumptions about spacetime - because a skillful re-framing of those concepts can deliver a local-realistic description of QM phenomena. The crux of his argument for a disproof of Bell's Theorem rests on the fact there exists a solution or family of solutions satisfying Bell's - or Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen's - criteria of locality and realism - provided we allow continuation into the next dimension, making Quantum Mechanical space more like S^3 than S^2.

What affords us this liberty is the presence of topological torsion in Joy's model, which can be thought of as twisted tension or tension with a twist. That is to say; his model is realistic, if we assume that the fabric of space is literally fabric-like and topological and also allow that there is a twist to its connectedness - when comparing the smallest and largest levels of scale. Torsion can replace curvature in the conventional relativistic description of gravity, yielding something called teleparallel gravity. To fully accommodate this, we need to expand Physics' kit of applicable mathematical tools somewhat. In the paper 'Connecting connections' by Bel (also attached). which was cited numerous times by Joy, he refers to the Weitzenböck connection and something called a 'Quo-Tensor' and this hearkens back to what Connes calls 'Quotient Spaces,' which are the counterparts of normal extended spaces, in Noncommutative Geometry. In all fairness; I am no expert, but some of these inferences are obvious if you understand topology. And I'll leave off there, for now.

All the Best,

JonathanAttachment #1: NCG2k.pdf Attachment #2: 1_0805.0846.pdf

Jonathan Dickau

To be clear...

Like Tom, I am no fan of the title of Joy's book, finding his insistence on calling it a disproof problematic or objectionable. Like Phillipe Grangier, I feel that by a strict application of commonly accepted definitions, what Joy has presented is not a disproof as such - and he agrees this is reasonable. However; if the crux of Bell's argument is a complete accounting of all physically-realistic possibilities, and Joy shows there is a large class of applicable solutions that are unaccounted for in Bell's scheme; perhaps what he has presented is a disproof after all.

The matter of a codomain of the measurement space is no small affair, if what Bell has done is to mistakenly exclude a range of interaction and measurement parameters that is present in nature. So the question of local or physical realism is shifted, by a change in context. The main question is whether Joy's model allows us to reproduce other aspects of known Physics, aside from any explanation of quantum mechanical correlations arising from geometric alignments.

More later,

Jonathan

Jonathan Dickau

Going on..

I think that one thing to consider is whether our common descriptions of QM reality mistake global properties for non-local ones. Non-proximity does not necessarily imply distance, if there are invariant or covariant quantities. It is true that global properties are not localized, but they need not be scalars either. Global properties in the topological domain can locally appear to be scalar quantities, but they are actually pseudo-scalars or tri-vectors wrt R3.

'nuff said,

Jonathan

Joy Christian

Thanks, Jonathan.

As always, very thoughtful remarks.

Best,

Joy

John Cox

Jonathon,

Thank-you much for providing such practical comments on this subject, they are very helpful in getting a handle on what the math itself is. I don't understand why torsion can replace curvature in the conventional relativistic description of gravity, could you elaborate, please. I have thought for some time that perhaps the causation mathematically of singularity and the inability of GR to define a particulate size mass is due to any mass quantity being treated as the average in a corresponding volume, rather than only a proportion of that quantity existing at a constant density relative to mass which would be the same thing as an 'average mass density'. From that the inward and outward motion potential in prescribing a boundary specifying a size makes good sense.

thanks, jrc

Jonathan Dickau

Thank you John,

Briefly; either curvature or torsion can serve to stretch the spacetime fabric. The paper on Topological Torsion by Prof. R.M. Kiehn (attached) which Tom first cited back on Dec. 20th may help explain some of the concepts. The short videos explain well the part that's hard to put into words. I am no expert, but fortunately that Prof. Kiehn has chosen to correspond with me and discuss torsion in the context of using Joy's model to explain Bell's experiments. So I may be able to offer some more insights into the role of torsion very soon.

Regards,

JonathanAttachment #1: toptorsionb.pdf

Richard Gill

Yes, let's take Heisenberg seriously.

I recommend Philip Pearle's beautiful work on the CSL model, see http://arxiv.org/a/pearle_p_1 , and I recommend Slava Belavkin's "eventum mechanics", see https://www.maths.nottingham.ac.uk/personal/vpb/research/mes_fou.html and http://www.maths.nott.ac.uk/personal/vpb/research/cau_idy.html

What I find especially exciting is the link between those two approaches. Through the mathematical technique of dilation every classical stochastic process can be "lifted" to a quantum stochastic process. This is just a generalization of the well known fact that a mixed quantum state can always be thought of as the reduction of a pure bipartite state to one of its components, "the church of the larger Hilbert space".

The CSL model *is* an eventum mechanics model.

The idea is to take the Born law and the Heisenberg cut seriously. We must "position it" (the cut, I mean) in a way which respects causality.

Another way to say the same thing is: we add to conventional QM a superselection rule which tells us which quantum superpositions are inaccessible. The rule must be causally consistent with the unitary Schrödinger evolution of the whole system. Continuously in time, as the state shifts into impossible superpositions, it collapses.

Thomas Ray

Thanks, Jonathan. Once again, your superior skill at scientific exposition is a welcome breath of fresh air through the smoke of obfuscation.

" ... some of these inferences are obvious if you understand topology."

Indeed. I have been puzzled for years at the widespread mainstream response to elementary proofs, not just in topology -- in almost every area of analysis. It's as if most have abandoned any idea of spacetime continuity, even with clear evidence.

Best,

Tom

Thomas Ray

"Through the mathematical technique of dilation every classical stochastic process can be 'lifted' to a quantum stochastic process."

Exactly, Richard. Then understand that the reverse is also true. Then our mutual conjectures are provabe.

Yours: "There does exist a radius distribution such that the cosine is reproduced exactly."

Mine: "For every classical measurement, there exists at least one quantum state."

If spacetime is continuous, our conjectures are dual to each other.

Richard Gill

Tom, you wrote "Exactly, Richard. Then understand that the reverse is also true. Then our mutual conjectures are provable. Yours: There does exist a radius distribution such that the cosine is reproduced exactly."

Seems you missed the excitement of the last couple of days. My conjecture was proven by Phi Pearle in 1970. Using some very professional and entirely classical analysis.

Thomas Ray

Richard,

To follow up:

As Jonathan noted, "It is true that global properties are not localized, but they need not be scalars either. Global properties in the topological domain can locally appear to be scalar quantities, but they are actually pseudo-scalars or tri-vectors wrt R3."

Some objections that I have seen, toward applying topology to locally real measures have been just this -- topology is global; how can it have anything to do with locality?

There is an arithmetic example (due to Karl Popper), that I have often used to show "at least one" correspondence between local and global properties results in correspondence between all local and global properties, given sign reversibility:

Popper reformulated two (still open) arithmetic conjectures, in this way:

Goldbach Conjecture G: For every natural number x > 2, there exists at least one natural number y such that x y and (2 x) - y are both prime.

Twin Primes Conjecture H: For every natural number x > 2, there exists at least one natural number y such that x y and (2 x) y are both prime.

The Goldbach Conjecture is falsifiable in principle; a program to test the conjecture potentially halts if it hits on a counterexample. The Twin Primes Conjecture is not falsifiable in principle.

It's the same with Bell's theorem formulated in R^3. The theorem is true in that domain because it cannot be untrue -- it nonconstructively assumes what it means to prove.

When we move up a dimension to S^3, which is the same as S^2 X S^2, and R^3 is compactified by a single point at infinity, reversibility under cross multiplication depends on a sign change for pairwise correlated points of the Hopf fibration, which implies analytical continuation.

All best,

Tom

Thomas Ray

"My conjecture was proven by Phil Pearle in 1970. Using some very professional and entirely classical analysis."

Then doesn't that close the case for analytical continuation over the S^3 manifold?

Thomas Ray

Adding a superselection rule does the same thing to quantum mechanics as the plus sign does to the twin primes conjecture. It must be true because it is domain dependent (and experimentally, detector setting dependent) and not falsifiable.

Eliminate all superfluous assumptions, and quantum mechanical reversibility in continuous spacetime meets all the requirements of Joy's measurement framework.

Robert McEachern

Jonathan wrote: "if what Bell has done is to mistakenly exclude a range of interaction and measurement parameters that is present in nature."

That is exactly what Bell did. But the real problem is not that Bell did it, but so do ALL other physicists, when they ASSUMED that the ability to determine multiple "measurement parameters" corresponds to measuring multiple "attributes" of the entities being measured. Single bits of information do not have multiple attributes.

Rob McEachern

John Cox

Jonathon,

Thank-you for the link to Kiehn, it also helps to know he finds topology a formidable task of study. It's completely new to me but fascinating that it can apply to both metric and non-metric measurables. Thanks again, I'll watch and learn. jrc

Thomas Ray

"Single bits of information do not have multiple attributes."

Rob, neither do pairwise correlated bits. That's why the multiply connected space of conventional quantum mechanics is so much less powerful an explanation of correlated events, than the simply connected topology. The multiply connected space must bring along the baggage of linear superposition and nonlocality that the simply connected space jettisons.

Robert McEachern

Tom

"...an explanation of correlated events..."

There are no correlated events that need to be explained. Just LOOK at how observations of coins are correlated. That is the only explanation needed. No math. No Topology. Just a simple pair of coins. Exactly WHAT do you think you are finding correlations between, when you observe a fixed coin (or spin half particles) along different axes, and make the astounding discovery, that along some axes you see a "head" and along another you might see either a "head" or a "tail", with correlation statistics quite unlike any other type of classical object??

Rob McEachern

Jonathan Dickau

The difference Richard, is this..

When dealing with quantum mechanical entities like particles or photons you have a non-commutative coin. Imagine if your coin was actually a spinning top or gyroscope. Try to flip it, and it wants to go a different way. Sure it can be flipped over, but if you rotate it by one axis there is a force along another.

So until you figure out the rules for how to make it go the way you want, by applying a sequence of moves to spin it by 90 degree increments into the orientation you desire, it can appear counter-intuitive and unpredictable. To solve the puzzle, a particular direction and sequence must be observed.

These are also the rules of quantum measurement, as Heisenberg discovered.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan Dickau

To be clear...

I do not mean to imply that the behavior of particles with spin is exactly like a gyroscope or top, and to be more precise one would have to say.

Coins are to gyroscopes as gyroscopes are to particles with spin.

This better characterizes the property by which quantum systems defy prediction.

Regards,

Jonathan

Robert McEachern

"Try to flip it..."

No! NO! NOOOO!

Flipping = disentangling!!!! Why are you proposing to disentangle the pair, just before attempting to observe their entanglement????

Don't flip it! Just Observe it.

The observations behave in a manner that QM dogma states can NEVER EVER, under ANY circumstances, be observed in a macroscopic, CLASSICAL entity.

Forget about spin and angular momentum! The issue is about how a SINGLE BIT OF INFORMATION behaves, when one attempts to observer it. A single bit is unlike any other object in the cosmos; precisely because it is a single bit - it is QUANTIZED! That is what QUANTIZED MECHANICS is about. It has NOTHING directly to do with small physical size. It has to do with the behavior of the smallest possible "packet" of observable information - a single bit. Bell (and every one else) assumed (most of them have not even realized that they have made this erroneous assumption) that the observations of spin-half "packets" are observations of some sort of multi-bit "packet". So, of course, it does not match the correlation statistics of an actual single-bit "packet".

Rob McEachern

Jonathan Dickau

Then perhaps I should say...

One side or the other, a binary distinction, is what distinguishes inside from outside - a topological distinction - and changes in topology encode information. According to Myrhvold, topology is the most efficient or compact way there is to encode information. But there is a difference between a flat plane - which has a top side and a bottom side - and a M6bius strip, whose two sides can be visited in a single trajectory.

This is precisely the difference between a normal sphere S^2 and the 3-sphere or S^3, which is one of the basis elements of Joy's model. In the 3-sphere the inside leads to the outside and vice versa, but in a parallelized 3-sphere there is a twist as well - which creates topological torsion. So a simply connected object like S^3 or S^7 is not like a coin per se, in the sense of having two sides - as the inside and outside are connected.

These figures have an interesting property where a smooth flow initiated at any point will come to involve or cover the entire object, inside and out. So they are continuously evolving forms.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan Dickau

So Richard,

What if every coin you are observing is resting on a Möbius strip? By what criterion do you establish which coins are face-up and which are face-down? What if there is a built-in hidden choice, and you can't know the orientation of the strip relative to you, but only the orientation of coins in relation to the strip? The orientation of the strip is a global hidden variable, in that instance. This example perhaps approximates the flavor of the model that Joy is presenting.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Jonathan Dickau

Obviously..

I misspelled Möbius in the entry two above. It is a Möbius strip whose two sides can be visited in a single trajectory.

Sorry,

JJD

Robert McEachern

"But there is a difference between a flat plane - which has a top side and a bottom side - and a Mobius strip"

Exactly my point!

Two-sided Coins do not "collapse" into one-sided Mobius strips, or anything else, when an observer DECLARES it to be in the "state" of "head" or "tail": precisely because that "State" is not a state of the coin! Idealized coins do not have states! It is the state of the observer's relationship WITH the coin. The so-called "wave-function collapse" has NOTHING to do with the coin per se - it remains the same old, uncollapsed, two-sided coin - it is the observer's "DECISION STATE" that collapsed, when he DECIDED to DECLARE the once and ALWAYS two-sided coin, to be in the state of either heads or tails.

One might say that coins are FOREVER (both before an after an observation DECLARING it to be heads or tails) in a superposition of being simultaneously heads and tails - two sides of the same coin. But that statement implies nothing weird or unusual about a coin (or a qu-bit), or the space in which the coin exists. It merely points out that physicists have PROFOUNDLY misinterpreted what "superposition" actually means in a physical context. Superposition (being simultaneously in two states) does not "look like" some highly unusual, non-local, quantum oddity - it looks exactly like the coins localized in your pocket - simultaneously heads AND tails, until you DECIDE to DECLARE them to be otherwise.

Rob McEachern

Robert McEachern

"By what criterion do you establish which coins are face-up and which are face-down?"

Exactly my point!

The criteria has absolutely NOTHING to do with any property of the coin or the space in which it exists. It is entirely a function of the observer's DECISION about which axis to observe/measure.

The observer is not measuring correlations between the states of the coin - it has none to be measured! The observer is merely measuring correlations between his DECISIONS regarding how to measure the coin.

And like the simpleton looking at a ventriloquist's dummy, he expects to see the coins lips speaking to him, revealing some deep mystery about quantum non-locality, when all along, he himself is the self deluded ventriloquist - the correlations are the result of his behavior, not the coins.

Rob McEachern

Thomas Ray

"There are no correlated events that need to be explained."

Rob, all correlated events beg explanation, or else there are no patterns at all in nature, just acausal random and probabilistic distributions of events.

Because pairwise correlations do exist, however, your emphasis on "single bits" of information is wrongheaded; you maintain that the decision of what to observe rests with the observer -- which is simply the conventional view of quantum mechanics -- and does obviously invoke a pairwise correlation, between observer and observed.

In an objective reality, however, Jonathan's explanation of the role of space in the parsing of events is quite correct; pairwise correlations result from correspondence between "inside" and "outside" points (with no collapse of the wave function), which is well known in topology, and made rigorous in Joy Christian's measurement framework.

Robert McEachern

Tom,

Is a coin, in your pocket, "heads" or "tails"?

Heads or Tails?

Whatever objective reality, measurement framework you think exists, USE IT NOW to state, once and for all, your ONE WORD ANSWER. Heads or Tails? Don't disturb it , or touch it and thereby disentangle it, just use your framework to provide the answer.

Since whatever objective reality, measurement framework you think exists, exists BEFORE as well AFTER you make your answer, it is, as they say "intuitively obvious to the casual observer" that that objective reality, measurement framework you think exists does not CAUSE the coin to become EITHER heads or tails. If it did, then the coin in your pocket would be either heads or tails, BEFORE you observe it - just like Bertlemann's socks are whatever they are, before being observed.

So which is? Heads or Tails?

The answer has nothing to do with the topology of space - that does not change when the answer is given, nor does the coin change, nor does the coin's relationship to the topology of space change. So what changed in the cosmos? One thing ONLY. The observer's decision-state: the observer's DECISION to make a DECISION.

"simply the conventional view of quantum mechanics"

Conventional interpretations of QM deny the very existence of coins - precisely because they do not even realize that they do so - a macroscopic, classical entity that is simultaneously in two states at once - not (heads OR tails), but "mysteriously" (more like superstitiously) both at once - (heads AND tails) And a coin remains an unrepentant, uncollapsed, two-sided superposition of (heads AND Tails), even after the observer has confidently, and DEFINITIVELY (defined to be so), DECLARED it to be otherwise - either heads OR tails.

Rob McEachern

Thomas Ray

"Heads or Tails?

Whatever objective reality, measurement framework you think exists, USE IT NOW to state, once and for all, your ONE WORD ANSWER. Heads or Tails?"

Unmeasured.

[deleted]

Obviously.

And with no hope of ever measuring it, using your framework.

Because your framework does not address the real, objective problem. Neither do any of the conventional interpretations of QM. The problem is a profound misunderstanding of how a single bit of information actually behaves., when an attempt is made to actually measure it.

But as you have astutely observed, just as long as you never even attempt to observe such a thing, you will never have any difficulty in explaining your observations. Hence:

"There are no correlated events that need to be explained.",

since there are no events at all, until you DECIDE to cause them to exist. It is the topology of your mind, not the topology of space, or the topology of the entities being observed, that is the DECIDING factor.

Rob McEachern

Thomas Ray

" ... with no hope of ever measuring it, using your framework."

Rob, the coin exists in a definite unmeasured state in my pocket, whether I choose to measure it or not, just as the moon exists whether I am looking at it or not.

Philosophers call it metaphysical realism.

Robert McEachern

Tom,

"the coin exists in a definite unmeasured state in my pocket, whether I choose to measure it or not"

If you "choose to measure it", then it would not be unmeasured.

But you were asked to choose to make that measurement, and then explain how your framework can confidently state that the coin is now in a definite state of being either heads or tails, while it, simultaneously, never ceases to be a superposition of both heads AND tails (it never becomes other than a two-sided coin) and while another observer, can just as confidently state that it is, simultaneously, in the exact opposite state, than the one that you have measured, by merely choosing a different axis of observation.

Those are the perfectly correlated, perfectly repeatable, perfectly verifiable, and perfectly falsifiable events, that your framework needs to explain, if it is to account for even such mundane objects as the coins in your pocket.

Rob McEachern

Thomas Ray

" ... you were asked to choose to make that measurement, and then explain how your framework can confidently state that the coin is now in a definite state of being either heads or tails, while it, simultaneously, never ceases to be a superposition of both heads AND tails (it never becomes other than a two-sided coin) and while another observer, can just as confidently state that it is, simultaneously, in the exact opposite state, than the one that you have measured, by merely choosing a different axis of observation."

Rob, you are tilting at windmills. If an observer with X-Ray vision tells me that the coin in my pocket is "heads" to her, I am as willing to accept that observation as I am that of a person communicating to me from the other side of the moon who says, "it's dark over here."

This is all perfectly consistent with classical physics and objective, local reality. No superposition required.

Another example -- consider Thomson's lamp, which is on for 1 minute, off for 1/2 minute, on for 1/4 minute ... in an infinite series which we know has a finite sum 2. At the two-minute mark, is the lamp on or off? Clearly, the state of the lamp depends on the initial condition -- the time at which we choose to measure its state. By your framework of continuous states in superposition, the act of observing the lamp determines whether it is on or off -- the light bill at your house should be zero.

Robert McEachern

Tom,

"This is all perfectly consistent with classical physics and objective, local reality. No superposition required."

My point exactly.

And since the behavior of the coin observations is IDENTICAL to the behavior of the spin-half particles, the same applies to them.

No new complicated theory is either required or desired to explain any new phenomenon, since there is no new phenomenon encountered in the EPR experiments - just profoundly misinterpreted classical phenomenon.

Rob McEachern

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