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

Robert McEachern

From the abstract of Sasha Vongehr's paper cited by Richard"

"The DRC challenge is to modify the hidden variables so that the predicted QM behavior arises, including anti-correlation."

Entangled coins reproduce the QM behavior without modifying any hidden variables - precisely because there are no variables at all, hidden or non-hidden.

From Tom's post:

"The measurement function is continuous from the initial condition, something you will not understand until you admit that the structure of space plays a role in what we observe."

So, is there a continuos measure of the Head-ness of a coin? Can you tell me what structure of space I'd have to live in, to observe a coin that is 90% heads and 10% tails? I've never seen such a thing during any coin-toss at the start of a football game. "Heads" and "Tails" are not measurements - they are decisions and they are discontinuous.

You are both barking up the wrong tree.

Rob McEachern

Thomas Ray

"I've never seen such a thing during any coin-toss at the start of a football game. 'Heads' and 'Tails' are not measurements - they are decisions and they are discontinuous."

Independent measurements of known binary values, Rob, are not discontinuous with the measure space. All discrete decisions are binary, and "observation" = "measurement."

Robert McEachern

"Variable" = that which can vary.

A coin as exactly ZERO variables. A so-called qu-bit has exactly ZERO variables.

There is NOTHING to vary! It is only you PERCEPTION of the thing that is varying! The thing itself NEVER varies!

QRC assumes there is at least one variable being observed.

Bell -like theorems assume that there is at least one variable being observed

ALL QM interpretations assume that there is at least one variable being observed.

That is the problem. The thing being observed never varies, it has zero variables. That is what a "bit" is, and that is what the world of physics has failed to understand.

QM correlations are not measuring correlations between variables - there are no variables!

The correlations are between decisions-about-perceptions, not about measured variations of falsely presumed-to-exist variables.

Rob McEachern

Thomas Ray

That's an interesting proposition, John R.

Allowing the technology were available to physically map complex subsystem similarities to measured self-similar events in the larger complex system, it might work.

Topology is already useful in weather prediction; I see no reason why it couldn't apply (in principle) to the "weather" beneath the surface. First, we have to settle this question of whether there exists a boundary between quantum and classical events.

John Cox

Alan,

Sorry but I have no answer for that, except that it's not my topological model it's Joy Christian's. And that is what I'm struggling to learn about. It is getting way ahead of the game to propose theoretical questions beyond the comparison of regimes of classical correlations with same sets of quantum correlations. At issue is that QM has always held that classical mechanics cannot identify all the conditions and probabilities as does QM.

The only reason I suggested application to estimating oil deposits is that the distribution of giant molecules in rock formations is a statistical probability within a closed system, and there would be huge quantities of data to compare results against... and the Oil Patch is always looking for improved methods of prospecting and estimation of reserves, and the guys here are looking for funding to conduct experimental protocols. And if you hadn't noticed, they fight like a bunch of Wildcatters themselves. 'Course they're independent producers themselves, just in a different business.

jrc

Richard Gill

Rob, so you are taking the post-modernistic position that nothing exists and science is empty.

Thomas Ray

"A coin has exactly ZERO variables. A so-called qu-bit has exactly ZERO variables."

Unless its state changes in time.

"There is NOTHING to vary! It is only you PERCEPTION of the thing that is varying! The thing itself NEVER varies!"

I agree with you in this sense: a Zen master asked his disciples about a flag waving in the wind -- what is waving, the flag or the wind? One said, the flag is waving. One said the wind is waving. The master's answer is that the wind is not waving, the flag is not waving, your mind is waving.*

No question, that a discrete observation is processed and recorded in the mind of the observer. There is also no question, though, that the objective state evolves covariant with the observer -- which we know from the physical results of special and general relativity.

"QRC assumes there is at least one variable being observed."

"QRC" is the veriest nonsense. It assumes that the processing and recording of discrete information by discrete minds is identical to the state evolution of continuous functions in the objective world.

* To my memory, from Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters.

Joy Christian

Just to be clear, I am not proposing the experiment for your benefit. I am proposing to confirm that property of our physical space which is already obvious to me, and would have been more than obvious to both Einstein and Pauli. Unfortunately it is not obvious to the ardent followers of Bell, and hence my proposed experiment.

In the experiment I want to see four full cosine curves, each corresponding to one of the four pairs of settings in the Bell-CHSH inequality. From these, you are welcome to pick your four correlations, with Alice repeatedly choosing between one of two angles, and Bob between one of two angles, e.g. Alice 0 and 45 degrees, Bob 22.5 and 67.5 degrees.

John Cox

Tom,

What the Oil Patch has in subterranean mapping these days is astounding. It would be a ready made experimental device. I'd think the biggest problem would be keeping the data sets that would already be available from seismic surveys and estimates from fields that have already produced enough to qualify the original estimates, at a manageable number. I'll poke around a bit and see what sorts of agencies and organizations there are presently that might be looked at for a proposal opportunity. jrc

Robert McEachern

"Superpositions", you either perceive them or you don't. But they are both there ALL the time - like the heads or tails of a coin, the thing being observed never varies. Simply because you "see" one, does not cause the other to cease to exist WITHIN the actual superposition. Nothing has changed WITHIN that superposition.

Rob McEachern

Thomas Ray

Rob, superposition is a mathematical -- not a physical -- concept. Hard to understand what you are saying here. Even with binary information encoded within the same space -- as in your optical illusion examples -- the discrete figures are not perceived simultaneously.

En Passant

Brilliant idea, Nick. Yes, we could make tiny perforations around the torso of the mosquito (you know, the kind used on detachable forms), right where we deem the center of gravity to be. Then, if we create a vacuum around the mosquito, it will explode in two and we can capture the event with a high-speed camera. Richard can help us with the statistical analysis using R (and no, R does not stand for Richard).

Since you have so much interest in this experiment, maybe you can contribute to the effort. Would you please contact your local chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and ask them whether such an experiment might be considered inhumane, and then report back on this forum.

Using your idea will make the macroscopic experiment possible much earlier, as the cost per mosquito is negligible. We may not even have to rely on crowd-funding, because students will be fascinated by this experiment and will offer to make the perforations for free. It is a win-win Nick, but we have to wait for your SPCA verdict first.

Thomas Ray

Rob, how about the spinning dancer illusion?

Would you say that the left and right sides of your brain are in a continuous state of superposition?

[deleted]

Tom,

"superposition is a mathematical -- not a physical -- concept" Are you quoting my 2012 FQXI essay?

"the discrete figures are not perceived simultaneously" Neither are the heads or tails of a coin, nor the spin-up or down of a particle. But they all EXIST (are in "being") simultaneously, and un-VARYINGLY.

"Hard to understand what you are saying here" The illusion IS a "BIT"! That is what a bit IS! It is something that when you change the "reference", you change the PERCEIVED state into one of two values, without ever changing a "state" WITHIN the thing being observed.

If you put a coin on a glass table (used as the reference: meaning observe from ABOVE) you see one thing, but if the reference is "observe from below", you see another, even though the physical object has not changed at all, in EITHER space or time.

When you observe the voltage in a computer memory, REFERENCED to a voltage level BETWEEN two perceived levels, Then you will perceive one state of the bit's perceived value if you reference ABOVE the reference level and another if you reference BELOW the reference level.

The PERCEIVED value of ANY bit (the only kind of value that it "has"), is ALWAYS RELATIVE - to some reference. It is NOT an ABSOLUTE encoding. It is not "contained" WITHIN the bit.

THe EPR experiments simply uses the perceived value of one entangled measurement as the reference for the other. Which is all that I am doing with the coins. Hence, there is no FIXED reference, like a table-top. Each pair is "flipped" by (in communications engineering jargon) "recovering the reference" as the perceived-state of one entity within the entangled pair, and then using that reference to DECIDE something about the perceived-state of the other.

That is what entanglement actually MEANS - one entity is being used as the reference to decide the RELATIVE state of the other. There is no ABSOLUTE state, no variable, WITHIN the pair. Nothing in the illusion is changing in either space or time.

Consequently, it is obvious that any change in your perception is not being CAUSED by some variable - that which has varied - WITHIN the illusion, or an entangled pair.

Rob McEachern

John Cox

Richard,

You won't put any kind of propellant on the space station. Such a proposal won't get you on a waiting list, it would put you on the Watch List.

End of story. jrc

Robert McEachern

Tom,

The spinning dancer illusion is related to a common problem encountered in modern communications, called phase-lock-loop acquisition.

Imagine you are in a car, on a circular race-track, and trying to catch up to another car that is rapidly passing you at a constant speed. If you accelerate fast enough, you will catch-up and see the car remain in front of you. But if you failed to accelerate fast enough, the car will suddenly appear behind you, rather than in front of you. Now, you may have to decelerate in order to "catch up". The sign of the rate of change of your phase angle around the track may change, and, in real systems, may fail to ever "catch up", because they keep flipping back an forth in their estimate of the direction of the change in the phase correction, needed to acquire lock. In effect, they keep changing their reference, because of the modulo 2-pi effect; the car at the other side of the track is simultaneously both +pi and -pi away from you. Another two-perceived-state problem (one bit) with a reference problem - is the car pi-UP or pi-DOWN from your current position? For real systems, with only finite acceleration, it makes a real difference, which you decide it is.

Rob McEachern

Richard Gill

Alice chooses setting alpha, and Bob chooses setting beta, and they get to see a correlation rho(alpha, beta). It's not a curve, it's a surface. I am interested in just four points on that surface. Corresponding to two particular angles for Alice and two for Bob (I already told you which). If the experimenter can determine a whole lot more points of the surface as well, while he (or she) is at it, that's fine by me. But four my four points we have to follow a particular (randomised) procedure in order to rule out any conspiracy loophole.

Richard Gill

Tom says

"QRC assumes there is at least one variable being observed."

"QRC is the veriest nonsense. It assumes that the processing and recording of discrete information by discrete minds is identical to the state evolution of continuous functions in the objective world."

Tom is talking pure nonsense. QRC assumes nothing. It is a challenge to write some computer programs to do a particular job.

Tom is smart enough to realise that the job cannot be done. He is smart enough to understand Bell's theorem. It's a mathematical theorem that the job cannot be done. However most Bell-deniers somehow disbelieve the subtle though elementary mathematical proof and think that they know better...

The purpose of QRC is to force them to get to work and test their imagination to the limit. A win-win situation for everyone concerned.

Alan Lowey

John,

You say "At issue is that QM has always held that classical mechanics cannot identify all the conditions and probabilities as does QM" and I understand that but this also raises the issue of the validity of classical mechanics.

Thomas,

The last thing I expect is a compliant answer but I'd like to ask you the same question I asked John:

If in the near future it was discovered beyond doubt that tidal forcing increased when two planets cross on their planes of rotation, would Joy's topological model of reality be able to explain this apparent non-uniformity of gravity?

It is relevant to this discussion because there are two cases where this solution fits like a glove and solves many inconsistencies of current theories:

.............

(i) the 100ky ice age cycle

(ii) the millennial climate cycle (1,800yrs)

.............

If found to be true it would invalidate classical mechanics.

Alan

Joy Christian

"But for my four points we have to follow a particular (randomised) procedure in order to rule out any conspiracy loophole."

Sure. You are welcome to follow whatever randomised procedure you like.

The choice of settings you mentioned above is also fine by me. I have already shown those settings to work for me in this paper (see the top of page 8).

What is not fine is that so far we have absolutely no funding to do the experiment.

And we are not even on the "watch list" for the space station.

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