Does Santa Claus travel faster than speed of light ?

[Cosmin Visan]

Given that Santa Claus can bring presents to all the children in the world in 1 night, does he travel faster than speed of light ?

[Brent Meeker]

No, this was a conundrum of classical physics which was solved when Heisenberg showed that on Christmas eve Santa Claus was in a superposition of being down every chimney at once.

Brent

On 10/4/2024 6:32 AM, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List wrote:

Given that Santa Claus can bring presents to all the children in the world in 1 night, does he travel faster than speed of light ? --
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[Alan Grayson]

On Friday, October 4, 2024 at 5:48:31 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

No, this was a conundrum of classical physics which was solved when Heisenberg showed that on Christmas eve Santa Claus was in a superposition of being down every chimney at once.

Brent

Superposition just means we are ignorant of which state a system is in, not that it is in all states simultaneously. This is the meaning of Schrodinger's cat. AG 

[Brent Meeker]

On 10/4/2024 7:31 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Friday, October 4, 2024 at 5:48:31 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

No, this was a conundrum of classical physics which was solved when Heisenberg showed that on Christmas eve Santa Claus was in a superposition of being down every chimney at once.

Brent

Superposition just means we are ignorant of which state a system is in, not that it is in all states simultaneously. This is the meaning of Schrodinger's cat. AG

Exactly wrong.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

We know what ignorance is. We don't know what simultaneous in all states means, except maybe Bohr. How about a few explanatory words? AG 

[Alan Grayson]

Superposition could mean the system is not in any state defined by the superposition, and measurement determines what will be that state, BUT it doesn't mean the system is in all states simultaneously. AG 

[Alan Grayson]

What I wrote above is consistent with a postulate of QM, that what will be measured, is an eigenvalue of some eigenfunction of the relevant operator, and that the system's state will be that eigenfunction after the measurement. So, when we write a superposition, there's nothing to suggest the system before measurement is in all possible states simultaneously. AG

[Cosmin Visan]

@Brent. Good explanation. I never thought about it.

[Alan Grayson]

IIUC, Bell experiments falsify Einstein Realism, that systems are in states being measured, BEFORE they're measured. Now it's claimed that when a system is in a superposition of states, it is actually in all the states defining the superposition simultaneously. That sounds to me like Einstein Realism on steroids. From what principle of QM does this view have its origin and justification? TY, AG 

[Alan Grayson]

Remember what Carl Sagan said; "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." In this case, with your strong confidence, you can surely point to the postulates in QM that imply your claim about superposition. Schrodinger thought otherwise and his position should not be taken lightly. AG 

[Cosmin Visan]

@Alan. You didn't understand anything from the Bell's inequalities. Bell's inequalities say that is impossible for the system to have any definite state before measurement. The system is in some immaterial state with contradictory properties existing all at the same time, and only the measurement actualizes one outcome.

[Alan Grayson]

On Sunday, October 6, 2024 at 1:39:12 PM UTC-6 Cosmin Visan wrote:

@Alan. You didn't understand anything from the Bell's inequalities. Bell's inequalities say that is impossible for the system to have any definite state before measurement.

If you had stopped here, above, you would have stated the situation accurately. Bell experiments falsified Einstein Realism, that a measurement reveals some pre-existing observable. What you write below is speculative nonsense. AG

[Cosmin Visan]

The world exists as possibilities in God's mind. And then God chooses some outcome. Is similar for precognitions. You might have the precognition of getting hit by a car, but if you learn to recognize when a precognition takes place, then you can take action and select another outcome. Being hit by a car is probably the most likely effect, and if you don't have experience with precognitions you will get hit by a car, but if you have experience you might learn to recognize them and produce another outcome.

[Alan Grayson]

On Monday, October 7, 2024 at 12:30:23 AM UTC-6 Cosmin Visan wrote:

The world exists as possibilities in God's mind. And then God chooses some outcome.

This is an illusory solution to the measurement problem in QM. Whereas QM tells us what His choices are, it doesn't tell us what He will choose, and why. And you have no clue either. Does this God have any rules for choosing some outcome? If not, then we're back to Irreducible Randomness, which IMO, means reality is Unintelligible. Some very bright people on this MB would argue against my conclusion,  but they're wrong! AG  

This similar for precognitions. You might have the precognition of getting hit by a car, but if you learn to recognize when a precognition takes place, then you can take action and select another outcome. Being hit by a car is probably the most likely effect, and if you don't have experience with precognitions you will get hit by a car, but if you have experience you might learn to recognize them and produce another outcome.

I've had a few experiences with precognitions. In one case it was like reading some tea leaves and recognizing the clue. That when my father's passed away. I saw the "angel of death" in the vibes from his eyes. He died about two weeks later. In another case it was telepathic, like when my mother passed away. Her last thought was an important message to me, while sleeping. The next morning I got an email that she passed away. At the time I was in Ukraine, she was in Florida. The sceptics will say it was accidental, or just a dream. But they don't have a clue. AG 

[Cosmin Visan]

Yes, precognitions usually happen in cases when loved ones are in danger or are dying.

The collapse of the wavefunction is not random. See this research of Dean Radin that showed that through focused attention you can influence the result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRSBaq3vAeY

[John Clark]

On Sun, Oct 6, 2024 at 8:51 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> IIUC, Bell experiments falsify Einstein Realism, that systems are in states being measured, BEFORE they're measured. Now it's claimed that when a system is in a superposition of states, it is actually in all the states defining the superposition simultaneously. That sounds to me like Einstein Realism on steroids.

In physics "realism" means something is in one and only one definite state even if it has not been measured. The fact that Bell's Inequality has been experimentally found to be falsified means that physics cannot be realistic IF it is deterministic and it is local, that is to say if a changing force is always weakened by distance and cannot operate faster than the speed of light. Many Worlds is not realistic but it is deterministic and local so it is compatible with the falsification of Bell's Inequality. Pilot wave theory is realistic and deterministic but not local so it is also compatible with Bell. Objective collapse theories are realistic and local but not deterministic thus they too are compatible with Bell. So no fundamental theory of reality that agrees with experimental results can be realistic and local and deterministic, it must give up at least one of those three things. 

As for Copenhagen, it's not deterministic that much at least is clear, but even the believers in it can't agree among themselves if it's local or realistic or both or neither because few seem to know exactly what the Copenhagen interpretation is, but I think I do. The Copenhagen interpretation is bad philosophy.

 

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

cbp

[Alan Grayson]

I have to study your comments above. Tell me this, if you can; do any of the postulates of QM imply that a system in a superposition of states, is in all states defining the superposition, simultaneously? Second; do the postulates of QM falsify the ignorance interpretation of a superposition; namely, that the system is in one of the states of the superposition, but we don't know which one? TY, AG

[John Clark]

On Mon, Oct 7, 2024 at 3:54 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> do any of the postulates of QM imply that a system in a superposition of states, is in all states defining the superposition, simultaneously?

If the system is in a superposition of states then it must be in many states at the same time because that's what superposition means.

 

>Second; do the postulates of QM falsify the ignorance interpretation of a superposition; namely, that the system is in one of the states of the superposition, but we don't know which one? TY, AG

If it's in one and only one definite state but we just don't know which one then that situation is by definition "realistic", and the falsification of Bell's Inequality cannot rule that out, BUT if it is realistic then locality or determinism or both must be false. Whatever turns out to be correct there is one thing we can be certain of, Quantum Mechanics is weird. 

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis  

lgr

[Alan Grayson]

On Monday, October 7, 2024 at 2:17:53 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Oct 7, 2024 at 3:54 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> do any of the postulates of QM imply that a system in a superposition of states, is in all states defining the superposition, simultaneously?

If the system is in a superposition of states then it must be in many states at the same time because that's what superposition means.

Apparently you've never heard of Schrodinger's cat. AG 

[John Clark]

On Mon, Oct 7, 2024 at 6:17 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> do any of the postulates of QM imply that a system in a superposition of states, is in all states defining the superposition, simultaneously?

If the system is in a superposition of states then it must be in many states at the same time because that's what superposition means.

> Apparently you've never heard of Schrodinger's cat. AG 

Actually I believe I have heard of Schrodinger's cat.  

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis  

1bs

 

 

>Second; do the postulates of QM falsify the ignorance interpretation of a superposition; namely, that the system is in one of the states of the superposition, but we don't know which one? TY, AG

If it's in one and only one definite state but we just don't know which one then that situation is by definition "realistic", and the falsification of Bell's Inequality cannot rule that out, BUT if it is realistic then locality or determinism or both must be false. Whatever turns out to be correct there is one thing we can be certain of, Quantum Mechanics is weird. 

lgr

 

In physics "realism" means something is in one and only one definite state even if it has not been measured. The fact that Bell's Inequality has been experimentally found to be falsified means that physics cannot be realistic IF it is deterministic and it is local, that is to say if a changing force is always weakened by distance and cannot operate faster than the speed of light. Many Worlds is not realistic but it is deterministic and local so it is compatible with the falsification of Bell's Inequality. Pilot wave theory is realistic and deterministic but not local so it is also compatible with Bell. Objective collapse theories are realistic and local but not deterministic thus they too are compatible with Bell. So no fundamental theory of reality that agrees with experimental results can be realistic and local and deterministic, it must give up at least one of those three things. 

As for Copenhagen, it's not deterministic that much at least is clear, but even the believers in it can't agree among themselves if it's local or realistic or both or neither because few seem to know exactly what the Copenhagen interpretation is, but I think I do. The Copenhagen interpretation is bad philosophy. 

--

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[Alan Grayson]

On Monday, October 7, 2024 at 4:31:55 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Oct 7, 2024 at 6:17 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> do any of the postulates of QM imply that a system in a superposition of states, is in all states defining the superposition, simultaneously?

If the system is in a superposition of states then it must be in many states at the same time because that's what superposition means.

> Apparently you've never heard of Schrodinger's cat. AG 

Actually I believe I have heard of Schrodinger's cat.  

And what did you hear? AG 

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis   

 

>Second; do the postulates of QM falsify the ignorance interpretation of a superposition; namely, that the system is in one of the states of the superposition, but we don't know which one? TY, AG

If it's in one and only one definite state but we just don't know which one then that situation is by definition "realistic", and the falsification of Bell's Inequality cannot rule that out, BUT if it is realistic then locality or determinism or both must be false. Whatever turns out to be correct there is one thing we can be certain of, Quantum Mechanics is weird. 

In physics "realism" means something is in one and only one definite state even if it has not been measured. The fact that Bell's Inequality has been experimentally found to be falsified means that physics cannot be realistic IF it is deterministic and it is local, that is to say if a changing force is always weakened by distance and cannot operate faster than the speed of light. Many Worlds is not realistic but it is deterministic and local so it is compatible with the falsification of Bell's Inequality. Pilot wave theory is realistic and deterministic but not local so it is also compatible with Bell. Objective collapse theories are realistic and local but not deterministic thus they too are compatible with Bell. So no fundamental theory of reality that agrees with experimental results can be realistic and local and deterministic, it must give up at least one of those three things. 

As for Copenhagen, it's not deterministic that much at least is clear, but even the believers in it can't agree among themselves if it's local or realistic or both or neither because few seem to know exactly what the Copenhagen interpretation is, but I think I do. The Copenhagen interpretation is bad philosophy. 

[Alan Grayson]

On Monday, October 7, 2024 at 5:18:01 PM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:

On Monday, October 7, 2024 at 4:31:55 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Oct 7, 2024 at 6:17 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> do any of the postulates of QM imply that a system in a superposition of states, is in all states defining the superposition, simultaneously?

If the system is in a superposition of states then it must be in many states at the same time because that's what superposition means.

> Apparently you've never heard of Schrodinger's cat. AG 

Actually I believe I have heard of Schrodinger's cat.  

And what did you hear? AG 

I think I get it. If you admit that Schrodinger was correct that superposition does NOT mean a system is in all states of its superposition state before measurement, then the Many-Worlds interpretation is also falsified (exercise for reader)  But you're not alone in denying reality. Brent accused me of "bullshit" when I stated, accurately, that the visible universe is spatially finite. Pretty sad when you think about it, since it's well known that the visible universe has a known distance to its horizon of 46 BLY. AG

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 5:55 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I get it.

I think you don't.  

> If you admit that Schrodinger was correct that superposition does NOT mean a system is in all states of its superposition state before measurement, then the Many-Worlds interpretation is also falsified.

But if  "a system is in a superposition of states" does NOT mean when"all states" occur "simultaneously" then what the hell does it mean? Even Newton, even Aristotle, even Og the caveman,  had no problem with an object being in 2 different places AT 2 DIFFERENT TIMES, what made Quantum Mechanics so revolutionary is that it seem to say that one thing could be at two different places AT THE SAME TIME.

When Schrodinger came up with his cat thought experiment he did it to prove that Quantum Mechanics must be wrong, or at least incomplete. But he forgot that when you're making a Reductio Ad Absurdum proof it's important that the results be logically paradoxical and not just very strange. What he really proved is that Quantum Mechanics is weird. 

 

> But you're not alone in denying reality.

Yes,  besides me Hugh Everett and Sean Carroll and Max Tegmark and a majority, or at least a very significant minority, of quantum physicists believe that realism is probably untrue.  It looks like you believe in realism, therefore unless you abandon the scientific method you must conclude that locality or determinism or both are untrue. 

 > Pretty sad when you think about it

That sounds like something Donald Trump would say, and in fact he does, very often.  

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis   

tst

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 5:14:56 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 5:55 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I get it.

I think you don't.  

> If you admit that Schrodinger was correct that superposition does NOT mean a system is in all states of its superposition state before measurement, then the Many-Worlds interpretation is also falsified.

But if  "a system is in a superposition of states" does NOT mean when"all states" occur "simultaneously" then what the hell does it mean? Even Newton, even Aristotle, even Og the caveman,  had no problem with an object being in 2 different places AT 2 DIFFERENT TIMES, what made Quantum Mechanics so revolutionary is that it seem to say that one thing could be at two different places AT THE SAME TIME.

Firstly, where in the postulates of QM is the latter affirmed? No one can answer that question! ISTM, when we use a superposition, we get good results about probabilities. So, it's as if we stumbled across a useful mathematical formulation, but I wouldn't go beyond that to affirm unintelligible absurdities which are beyond the pale. AG 

When Schrodinger came up with his cat thought experiment he did it to prove that Quantum Mechanics must be wrong, or at least incomplete. But he forgot that when you're making a Reductio Ad Absurdum proof it's important that the results be logically paradoxical and not just very strange. What he really proved is that Quantum Mechanics is weird. 

I strongly disagree. He proved that the interpretation of superposition is false, not that QM is wrong. AG 

 

> But you're not alone in denying reality.

Yes,  besides me Hugh Everett and Sean Carroll and Max Tegmark and a majority, or at least a very significant minority, of quantum physicists believe that realism is probably untrue. 

Realism might be untrue, but that doesn't mean superposition implies unintelligible interpretations. For example, in the Stern-Gerlach experiment, the systems being measured have no preexisting spins. And the primary axis can be oriented in many different directions to get spins in different directions, yet the same superposition applies IIUC. AG 

It looks like you believe in realism, therefore unless you abandon the scientific method you must conclude that locality or determinism or both are untrue. 

Did Schrodinger abandon the scientific method in his thought experiment? AG

 > Pretty sad when you think about it

That sounds like something Donald Trump would say, and in fact he does, very often.  

Obviously a false equivalence. AG

[Alan Grayson]

On Monday, October 7, 2024 at 2:17:53 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Oct 7, 2024 at 3:54 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> do any of the postulates of QM imply that a system in a superposition of states, is in all states defining the superposition, simultaneously?

If the system is in a superposition of states then it must be in many states at the same time because that's what superposition means.

It could mean the system is in one of the states of the superposition, but we don't know which one; OR, as in the Stern-Gerlach experiment, it's not in any of the states of the superposition before measurement! Brent says I am "exactly wrong" but won't say exactly why. Maybe he's referring to results of Bell experiments, which ostensibly deny realism. But since he refuses to explain his truly huge confidence, it's not possible to understand what he believes and why. AG

 

>Second; do the postulates of QM falsify the ignorance interpretation of a superposition; namely, that the system is in one of the states of the superposition, but we don't know which one? TY, AG

If it's in one and only one definite state but we just don't know which one then that situation is by definition "realistic", and the falsification of Bell's Inequality cannot rule that out, BUT if it is realistic then locality or determinism or both must be false. Whatever turns out to be correct there is one thing we can be certain of, Quantum Mechanics is weird.

In physics "realism" means something is in one and only one definite state even if it has not been measured. The fact that Bell's Inequality has been experimentally found to be falsified means that physics cannot be realistic IF it is deterministic and it is local, that is to say if a changing force is always weakened by distance and cannot operate faster than the speed of light. Many Worlds is not realistic but it is deterministic and local so it is compatible with the falsification of Bell's Inequality. Pilot wave theory is realistic and deterministic but not local so it is also compatible with Bell. Objective collapse theories are realistic and local but not deterministic thus they too are compatible with Bell. So no fundamental theory of reality that agrees with experimental results can be realistic and local and deterministic, it must give up at least one of those three things. 

 

As for Copenhagen, it's not deterministic that much at least is clear, but even the believers in it can't agree among themselves if it's local or realistic or both or neither because few seem to know exactly what the Copenhagen interpretation is, but I think I do. The Copenhagen interpretation is bad philosophy. 

Copenhagen doesn't explain the collapse of the wf as a dynamical event. I view it as a bookkeeping device to "explain" the results of an experiment. But, as you know, I don't accept MW. I view it as rococo on steroids -- the alleged cure being worse than the disease. AG 

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 10:12 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It could mean the system is in one of the states of the superposition, but we don't know which one;

Yes, it could be that the electron was in one and only one state before the measurement was made and we just don't know which one. If  that is the case then realism is correct and, to be consistent with experimental results, either determinism or locality or both must be wrong.  You just can't have realism and localityand determinism, you've got to abandon at least one of those three things.

>OR, as in the Stern-Gerlach experiment, it's not in any of the states of the superposition before measurement!

Yes It could be that it was not in any one particular state before a measurement in which case realism would be wrong, or it could be that it was in all possible states before a measurement in which case realism is also wrong.  For realism to be correct it would have to be in one and only one definite state before a measurement was made.

 > he's referring to results of Bell experiments, which ostensibly deny realism.

The falsification of Bell's Inequality does not mean realism must be wrong, it means that realism might be wrong, and if it's right then determinism or locality or both must be wrong.  

 

> Copenhagen doesn't explain the collapse of the wf as a dynamical event. I view it as a bookkeeping device

Yes, and some people, perhaps even most people, don't even try to explain the ambiguities in Quantum Mechanics and are content with the "Shut Up And Calculate" philosophy (a.k.a. the Copenhagen interpretation) ; and that's fine if you're an engineer and are only interested in making sure you get the right reading on your voltmeter. Personally I'd like a little more but there is no disputing matters of taste.  

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis 

dts  

 

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 10:30:43 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 10:12 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It could mean the system is in one of the states of the superposition, but we don't know which one;

Yes, it could be that the electron was in one and only one state before the measurement was made and we just don't know which one. If  that is the case then realism is correct and, to be consistent with experimental results, either determinism or locality or both must be wrong.  You just can't have realism and localityand determinism, you've got to abandon at least one of those three things.

Could you explain why this is the case, if it is? TY, AG 

>OR, as in the Stern-Gerlach experiment, it's not in any of the states of the superposition before measurement!

Yes It could be that it was not in any one particular state before a measurement in which case realism would be wrong, or it could be that it was in all possible states before a measurement in which case realism is also wrong.  For realism to be correct it would have to be in one and only one definite state before a measurement was made.

In SG. the electron is an undetermined state before the measurement, and the measurement might force it into UP or DN spin, or reveal its state before measurement. We just don't know, and more important IMO, we can't know. All we can do is measure and acknowledge the result. This is what Schrodinger established with his cat experiment, EXCEPT that he went further -- in establishing we know the state before opening the box is not alive and dead simultaneously while the box is closed. So, in general, it's impossible to say anything about a superposition EXCEPT that we know nothing about the state of the system before measuring it. So, there's really no possible test for realism or its denial. In the case of MW, you're assuming a great deal about a system's state before measurement, but you (and the other "experts" you've referenced) have no logical basis for that assumption. AG

 > he's referring to results of Bell experiments, which ostensibly deny realism.

The falsification of Bell's Inequality does not mean realism must be wrong, it means that realism might be wrong, and if it's right then determinism or locality or both must be wrong.  

But, as I stated above, IMO we can't know if realism is false. I thought Bell experiments falsified realism, but you say otherwise. Now I am not sure if you are correct, but you might be. AG 

 

> Copenhagen doesn't explain the collapse of the wf as a dynamical event. I view it as a bookkeeping device

Yes, and some people, perhaps even most people, don't even try to explain the ambiguities in Quantum Mechanics and are content with the "Shut Up And Calculate" philosophy (a.k.a. the Copenhagen interpretation) ; and that's fine if you're an engineer and are only interested in making sure you get the right reading on your voltmeter. Personally I'd like a little more but there is no disputing matters of taste.  

I do not embrace that philosophy. Definitely not. I think we should keep thinking about the problem, and perhaps, some day, a solution will be found. But since that day isn't today, it's foolish for those who assume the solution has been found - namely, that superposition implies a system is in all states simultaneously before the measurement -- to go off assuming MW or whatever, based on a presently, and possibly undecidable proposition. AG 

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 12:27:19 PM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 10:30:43 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 10:12 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It could mean the system is in one of the states of the superposition, but we don't know which one;

Yes, it could be that the electron was in one and only one state before the measurement was made and we just don't know which one. If  that is the case then realism is correct and, to be consistent with experimental results, either determinism or locality or both must be wrong.  You just can't have realism and localityand determinism, you've got to abandon at least one of those three things.

Could you explain why this is the case, if it is? TY, AG 

>OR, as in the Stern-Gerlach experiment, it's not in any of the states of the superposition before measurement!

Yes It could be that it was not in any one particular state before a measurement in which case realism would be wrong, or it could be that it was in all possible states before a measurement in which case realism is also wrong.  For realism to be correct it would have to be in one and only one definite state before a measurement was made.

In SG. the electron is an undetermined state before the measurement, and the measurement might force it into UP or DN spin, or reveal its state before measurement. We just don't know, and more important IMO, we can't know. All we can do is measure and acknowledge the result. This is what Schrodinger established with his cat experiment, EXCEPT that he went further -- in establishing we know the state before opening the box is not alive and dead simultaneously while the box is closed. So, in general, it's impossible to say anything about a superposition EXCEPT that we know nothing about the state of the system before measuring it. So, there's really no possible test for realism or its denial. In the case of MW, you're assuming a great deal about a system's state before measurement, but you (and the other "experts" you've referenced) have no logical basis for that assumption. AG

Let me clarify my above comment. What Schrodinger established, is that we know that a system in a superposition cannot be assumed to be in all states of that superposition simultaneously before the measurement.  He constructed a counter-example to that assumption. That is, the assumption is not guaranteed to be true. All we really know, via the postulates of QM, is that the superposition states are possible states of the system after measuring it. AG

 > he's referring to results of Bell experiments, which ostensibly deny realism.

The falsification of Bell's Inequality does not mean realism must be wrong, it means that realism might be wrong, and if it's right then determinism or locality or both must be wrong.  

But, as I stated above, IMO we can't know if realism is false. I thought Bell experiments falsified realism, but you say otherwise. Now I am not sure if you are correct, but you might be. AG  

 

> Copenhagen doesn't explain the collapse of the wf as a dynamical event. I view it as a bookkeeping device

Yes, and some people, perhaps even most people, don't even try to explain the ambiguities in Quantum Mechanics and are content with the "Shut Up And Calculate" philosophy (a.k.a. the Copenhagen interpretation) ; and that's fine if you're an engineer and are only interested in making sure you get the right reading on your voltmeter. Personally I'd like a little more but there is no disputing matters of taste.  

I do not embrace that philosophy. Definitely not. I think we should keep thinking about the problem, and perhaps, some day, a solution will be found. But since that day isn't today, it's foolish for those who assume the solution has been found - namely, that superposition implies a system is in all states simultaneously before (underline added) the measurement -- to go off assuming MW or whatever, based on a presently, and possibly forever undecidable proposition. AG 

[Cosmin Visan]

@Alan. How do you think God gets to live all the possible lives at the same time if not being in superposition of all these lives ?

[Brent Meeker]

On 10/8/2024 4:14 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 5:55 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I get it.

I think you don't.  

> If you admit that Schrodinger was correct that superposition does NOT mean a system is in all states of its superposition state before measurement, then the Many-Worlds interpretation is also falsified.

But if  "a system is in a superposition of states" does NOT mean when"all states" occur "simultaneously" then what the hell does it mean? Even Newton, even Aristotle, even Og the caveman,  had no problem with an object being in 2 different places AT 2 DIFFERENT TIMES, what made Quantum Mechanics so revolutionary is that it seem to say that one thing could be at two different places AT THE SAME TIME.

Here's how I present it in my popular lectures.  There is a range of states in a subspace "ALIVE" and another range of states in a subspace "DEAD".  The cat starts out in one of the alive states and moves thru series of superpositions from ALIVE to DEAD, the dark red dotted line.  These are not different simple conditions of the cat; they are different probability amplitudes corresponding to the cat's state.  The physical state of the cat is a vector in this Hilbert space, but it is very much more complicated, and I've collected all that complication into "OTHER VARIABLES".  So the state of the cat evolves along the magenta dotted line, which projects onto the simpler dark red dotted line.



I often see it written that "Before measurement, the system is not in any definite state."  But I think this is misleading.  The system is in a definite  state, it's just not a state for which we have an operator that would return that state as an eigenstate.

Brent

When Schrodinger came up with his cat thought experiment he did it to prove that Quantum Mechanics must be wrong, or at least incomplete. But he forgot that when you're making a Reductio Ad Absurdum proof it's important that the results be logically paradoxical and not just very strange. What he really proved is that Quantum Mechanics is weird. 

 

> But you're not alone in denying reality.

Yes,  besides me Hugh Everett and Sean Carroll and Max Tegmark and a majority, or at least a very significant minority, of quantum physicists believe that realism is probably untrue.  It looks like you believe in realism, therefore unless you abandon the scientific method you must conclude that locality or determinism or both are untrue. 

 > Pretty sad when you think about it

That sounds like something Donald Trump would say, and in fact he does, very often.  

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis   

tst

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[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 2:57 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Yes, it could be that the electron was in one and only one state before the measurement was made and we just don't know which one. If  that is the case then realism is correct and, to be consistent with experimental results, either determinism or locality or both must be wrong.  You just can't have realism and locality and determinism, you've got to abandon at least one of those three things.

> Could you explain why this is the case, if it is? TY, AG 

I'll repeat a post I sent a couple of years ago when somebody asked me the same question.

==

If you want all the details this is going to be a long post, you asked for it. First I'm gonna have to show that any theory (except for superdeterminism which is idiotic) that is deterministic, local and realistic cannot possibly explain the violation of Bell's Inequality that we see in our experiments, and then show why a theory like Many Worlds witch is deterministic and local but NOT realistic can.

The hidden variable concept was Einstein's idea, he thought there was a local reason all events happened, even quantum mechanical events, but we just can't see what they are. It was a reasonable guess at the time but today experiments have shown that Einstein was wrong, to do that I'm gonna illustrate some of the details of Bell's inequality with an example.

When a photon of undetermined polarization hits a polarizing filter there is a 50% chance it will make it through. For many years physicists like Einstein who disliked the idea that God played dice with the universe figured there must be a hidden variable inside the photon that told it what to do. By "hidden variable" they meant something different about that particular photon that we just don't know about. They meant something equivalent to a look-up table inside the photon that for one reason or another we are unable to access but the photon can when it wants to know if it should go through a filter or be stopped by one. We now understand that is impossible. In 1964 (but not published until 1967) John Bell showed that correlations that work by hidden variables must be less than or equal to a certain value, this is called Bell's Inequality. In experiment it was found that some correlations are actually greater than that value. Quantum Mechanics can explain this, classical physics or even classical logic can not.

Even if Quantum Mechanics is someday proven to be untrue Bell's argument is still valid, in fact his original paper had no Quantum Mechanics in it and can be derived with high school algebra; his point was that any successful theory about how the world works must explain why his inequality is violated, and today we know for a fact from experiments that it is indeed violated. Nature just refuses to be sensible and doesn't work the way you'd think it should.            

I have a black box, it has a red light and a blue light on it, it also has a rotary switch with 6 connections at the 12,2,4,6,8 and 10 o'clock positions. The red and blue light blink in a manner that passes all known tests for being completely random, this is true regardless of what position the rotary switch is in. Such a box could be made and still be completely deterministic by just pre-computing 6 different random sequences and recording them as a look-up table in the box. Now the box would know which light to flash.

I have another black box. When both boxes have the same setting on their rotary switch they both produce the same random sequence of light flashes. This would also be easy to reproduce in a classical physics world, just record the same 6 random sequences in both boxes. 

The set of boxes has another property, if the switches on the 2 boxes are set to opposite positions, 12 and 6 o'clock for example, there is a total negative correlation; when one flashes red the other box flashes blue and when one box flashes blue the other flashes red. This just makes it all the easier to make the boxes because now you only need to pre-calculate 3 random sequences, then just change every 1 to 0 and every 0 to 1 to get the other 3 sequences and record all 6 in both boxes.

The boxes have one more feature that makes things very interesting, if the rotary switch on a box is one notch different from the setting on the other box then the sequence of light flashes will on average be different 1 time in 4. How on Earth could I make the boxes behave like that? Well, I could change on average one entry in 4 of the 12 o'clock look-up table (hidden variable) sequence and make that the 2 o'clock table. Then change 1 in 4 of the 2 o'clock and make that the 4 o'clock, and change 1 in 4 of the 4 o'clock and make that the 6 o'clock. So now the light flashes on the box set at 2 o'clock is different from the box set at 12 o'clock on average by 1 flash in 4. The box set at 4 o'clock differs from the one set at 12 by 2 flashes in 4, and the one set at 6 differs from the one set at 12 by 3 flashes in 4.

BUT I said before that boxes with opposite settings should have a 100% anti-correlation, the flashes on the box set at 12 o'clock should differ from the box set at 6 o'clock by 4 flashes in 4 NOT 3 flashes in 4. Thus if the boxes work by hidden variables then when one is set to 12 o'clock and the other to 2 there MUST be a 2/3 correlation, at 4 a 1/3 correlation, and of course at 6 no correlation at all.  A correlation greater than 2/3, such as 3/4, for adjacent settings produces paradoxes, at least it would if you expected everything to work mechanistically because of some local hidden variable involved.

Does this mean it's impossible to make two boxes that have those specifications? Nope, but it does mean hidden variables can not be involved and that means something very weird is going on. Actually it would be quite easy to make a couple of boxes that behave like that, it's just not easy to understand how that could be. 

Photons behave in just this spooky manner, so to make the boxes all you need it 4 things:

1) A glorified light bulb, something that will make two photons of unspecified but identical polarizations moving in opposite directions so you can send one to each box. An excited calcium atom would do the trick, or you could turn a green photon into two identical lower energy red photons with a crystal of potassium dihydrogen phosphate.

2) A light detector sensitive enough to observe just one photon. Incidentally the human eye is not quite good enough to do that but frogs can, for frogs when light gets very weak it must stop getting dimmer and appears to flash instead. 

3) A polarizing filter, we've had these for well over a century.

4) Some gears and pulleys so that each time the rotary switch is advanced one position the filter is advanced by 30 degrees. This is because it's been known for many years that the amount of light polarized at 0 degrees that will make it through a polarizing filter set at X is [COS (x)]^2; and if X = 30 DEGREES (π/6 radians) then the value is .75; if the light is so dim that only one photon is sent at a time then that translates to the probability that any individual photon will make it through the filter is 75%.

The bottom line of all this is that there can not be something special about a specific photon, some internal difference, some hidden local variable that determines if it makes it through a filter or not. Thus if we ignore a superdeterministic conspiracy, as we should, then one of two things MUST be true:

1) The universe is not realistic, that is, things do NOT exist in one and only one state both before and after they are observed. In the case of Many Worlds it means the very look up table as described in the above cannot be printed in indelible ink but, because Many Worlds assumes that Schrodinger's Equation means what it says, the look up table itself not only can but must exist in many different versions both before and after a measurement is made.

2) The universe is non-local, that is, everything influences everything else and does so without regard for the distances involved or amount of time involved or even if the events happen in the past or the future; the future could influence the past. But because Many Worlds is non-realistic, and thus doesn't have a static lookup table, it has no need to resort to any of these non-local influences to explain experimental results.

Einstein liked non-locality even less than nondeterminism, I'm not sure how he'd feel about non-realistic theories like Many Worlds, the idea wasn't discovered until about 10 years after his death. 

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

erx

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 2:14:32 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 2:57 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Yes, it could be that the electron was in one and only one state before the measurement was made and we just don't know which one. If  that is the case then realism is correct and, to be consistent with experimental results, either determinism or locality or both must be wrong.  You just can't have realism and locality and determinism, you've got to abandon at least one of those three things.

> Could you explain why this is the case, if it is? TY, AG 

I'll repeat a post I sent a couple of years ago when somebody asked me the same question.

==

If you want all the details this is going to be a long post, you asked for it. First I'm gonna have to show that any theory (except for superdeterminism which is idiotic) that is deterministic, local and realistic cannot possibly explain the violation of Bell's Inequality that we see in our experiments, and then show why a theory like Many Worlds witch is deterministic and local but NOT realistic can.

The hidden variable concept was Einstein's idea, he thought there was a local reason all events happened, even quantum mechanical events, but we just can't see what they are. It was a reasonable guess at the time but today experiments have shown that Einstein was wrong, to do that I'm gonna illustrate some of the details of Bell's inequality with an example.

When a photon of undetermined polarization hits a polarizing filter there is a 50% chance it will make it through. For many years physicists like Einstein who disliked the idea that God played dice with the universe figured there must be a hidden variable inside the photon that told it what to do. By "hidden variable" they meant something different about that particular photon that we just don't know about. They meant something equivalent to a look-up table inside the photon that for one reason or another we are unable to access but the photon can when it wants to know if it should go through a filter or be stopped by one. We now understand that is impossible. In 1964 (but not published until 1967) John Bell showed that correlations that work by hidden variables must be less than or equal to a certain value, this is called Bell's Inequality. In experiment it was found that some correlations are actually greater than that value. Quantum Mechanics can explain this, classical physics or even classical logic can not.

Even if Quantum Mechanics is someday proven to be untrue Bell's argument is still valid, in fact his original paper had no Quantum Mechanics in it and can be derived with high school algebra; his point was that any successful theory about how the world works must explain why his inequality is violated, and today we know for a fact from experiments that it is indeed violated. Nature just refuses to be sensible and doesn't work the way you'd think it should.   

IIUC, Bell experiments demonstrate that hidden variables don't exist. Does this mean realism has been falsified. In an earlier post, IIRC, you stated that realism might be falsified. Which is it and why? AG         

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 4:58 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Bell experiments demonstrate that hidden variables don't exist.

No, it demonstrates local hidden variables can't exist in a deterministic world.  

 > In an earlier post, IIRC, you stated that realism might be falsified. Which is it 

Might.

> and why?

Read my damn post!  

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

rdp

       

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 4:14:52 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 4:58 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Bell experiments demonstrate that hidden variables don't exist.

No, it demonstrates local hidden variables can't exist in a deterministic world.  

 > In an earlier post, IIRC, you stated that realism might be falsified. Which is it 

Might.

> and why?

Read my damn post!  

FU, I am definitely planning to. It's a lot to digest in one reading. In the final analysis, you always turn out to be a rude a'hole, and that's why you embrace an a'hole theory, MW, which you never use a real wf for your analysis, not valid for Relativity.  So FU in spades. AG    

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 1:35:01 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/8/2024 4:14 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 5:55 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I get it.

I think you don't.  

> If you admit that Schrodinger was correct that superposition does NOT mean a system is in all states of its superposition state before measurement, then the Many-Worlds interpretation is also falsified.

But if  "a system is in a superposition of states" does NOT mean when"all states" occur "simultaneously" then what the hell does it mean? Even Newton, even Aristotle, even Og the caveman,  had no problem with an object being in 2 different places AT 2 DIFFERENT TIMES, what made Quantum Mechanics so revolutionary is that it seem to say that one thing could be at two different places AT THE SAME TIME.

Here's how I present it in my popular lectures.  There is a range of states in a subspace "ALIVE" and another range of states in a subspace "DEAD".  The cat starts out in one of the alive states and moves thru series of superpositions from ALIVE to DEAD, the dark red dotted line.  These are not different simple conditions of the cat; they are different probability amplitudes corresponding to the cat's state.  The physical state of the cat is a vector in this Hilbert space, but it is very much more complicated, and I've collected all that complication into "OTHER VARIABLES".  So the state of the cat evolves along the magenta dotted line, which projects onto the simpler dark red dotted line.

But since Schrodinger idealizes a physical reality, where there is no continuous evolution of the Cat from Alive to Dead, I don't see this as an explanation or refutation of the lesson Schrodinger tried to offer about superposition. AG  

I often see it written that "Before measurement, the system is not in any definite state."  But I think this is misleading.  The system is in a definite  state, it's just not a state for which we have an operator that would return that state as an eigenstate.

Brent

Without an eigenstate for the Cat's state, it's dubious whether Schrodinger's thought experiment is valid within the context of QM, and moreover, whether QM can be applied to macro objects which also have no obvious eigenstates. But the SG experiment does seem to indicate, along with Bell experiments, that it's possible for a superposition to be valid where its constituents are all NOT pre-existing states. Do you agree with this latter conclusion, and if not, why? AG 

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 8:23:43 PM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 1:35:01 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/8/2024 4:14 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 5:55 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I get it.

I think you don't.  

> If you admit that Schrodinger was correct that superposition does NOT mean a system is in all states of its superposition state before measurement, then the Many-Worlds interpretation is also falsified.

But if  "a system is in a superposition of states" does NOT mean when"all states" occur "simultaneously" then what the hell does it mean? Even Newton, even Aristotle, even Og the caveman,  had no problem with an object being in 2 different places AT 2 DIFFERENT TIMES, what made Quantum Mechanics so revolutionary is that it seem to say that one thing could be at two different places AT THE SAME TIME.

Here's how I present it in my popular lectures.  There is a range of states in a subspace "ALIVE" and another range of states in a subspace "DEAD".  The cat starts out in one of the alive states and moves thru series of superpositions from ALIVE to DEAD, the dark red dotted line.  These are not different simple conditions of the cat; they are different probability amplitudes corresponding to the cat's state.  The physical state of the cat is a vector in this Hilbert space, but it is very much more complicated, and I've collected all that complication into "OTHER VARIABLES".  So the state of the cat evolves along the magenta dotted line, which projects onto the simpler dark red dotted line.

But since Schrodinger idealizes a physical reality, where there is no continuous evolution of the Cat from Alive to Dead, I don't see this as an explanation or refutation of the lesson Schrodinger tried to offer about superposition. AG  

I often see it written that "Before measurement, the system is not in any definite state."  But I think this is misleading.  The system is in a definite  state, it's just not a state for which we have an operator that would return that state as an eigenstate.

Brent

Without an eigenstate for the Cat's state, it's dubious whether Schrodinger's thought experiment is valid within the context of QM, and moreover, whether QM can be applied to macro objects which also have no obvious eigenstates. But the SG experiment does seem to indicate, along with Bell experiments, that it's possible for a superposition to be valid where its constituents are all NOT pre-existing states. Do you agree with this latter conclusion, and if not, why? AG 

I meant we don't have an operator that returns Alive and Dead as eigenstates. AG 

[Brent Meeker]

On 10/8/2024 7:23 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 1:35:01 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/8/2024 4:14 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 5:55 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I get it.

I think you don't.  

> If you admit that Schrodinger was correct that superposition does NOT mean a system is in all states of its superposition state before measurement, then the Many-Worlds interpretation is also falsified.

But if  "a system is in a superposition of states" does NOT mean when"all states" occur "simultaneously" then what the hell does it mean? Even Newton, even Aristotle, even Og the caveman,  had no problem with an object being in 2 different places AT 2 DIFFERENT TIMES, what made Quantum Mechanics so revolutionary is that it seem to say that one thing could be at two different places AT THE SAME TIME.

Here's how I present it in my popular lectures.  There is a range of states in a subspace "ALIVE" and another range of states in a subspace "DEAD".  The cat starts out in one of the alive states and moves thru series of superpositions from ALIVE to DEAD, the dark red dotted line.  These are not different simple conditions of the cat; they are different probability amplitudes corresponding to the cat's state.  The physical state of the cat is a vector in this Hilbert space, but it is very much more complicated, and I've collected all that complication into "OTHER VARIABLES".  So the state of the cat evolves along the magenta dotted line, which projects onto the simpler dark red dotted line.

But since Schrodinger idealizes a physical reality, where there is no continuous evolution of the Cat from Alive to Dead, I don't see this as an explanation or refutation of the lesson Schrodinger tried to offer about superposition. AG  

I often see it written that "Before measurement, the system is not in any definite state."  But I think this is misleading.  The system is in a definite  state, it's just not a state for which we have an operator that would return that state as an eigenstate.

Brent

Without an eigenstate for the Cat's state, it's dubious whether Schrodinger's thought experiment is valid within the context of QM, and moreover, whether QM can be applied to macro objects which also have no obvious eigenstates.

Some completely isolate object may be quantum mechanical and macro...but that's essentially impossible to arrange.

But the SG experiment does seem to indicate, along with Bell experiments, that it's possible for a superposition to be valid where its constituents are all NOT pre-existing states. Do you agree with this latter conclusion,

What is it a superposition OF, if not pre-existing states?  The formulation I object to is saying that "It's not in any definite state, not even in a superposition of states".  To say a superposition be "valid" is strange terminology.  I don't know what it could mean except that the object was in a coherent mixture of two different states. i.e. a superposition.

Brent

and if not, why? AG 

When Schrodinger came up with his cat thought experiment he did it to prove that Quantum Mechanics must be wrong, or at least incomplete. But he forgot that when you're making a Reductio Ad Absurdum proof it's important that the results be logically paradoxical and not just very strange. What he really proved is that Quantum Mechanics is weird. 

 

> But you're not alone in denying reality.

Yes,  besides me Hugh Everett and Sean Carroll and Max Tegmark and a majority, or at least a very significant minority, of quantum physicists believe that realism is probably untrue.  It looks like you believe in realism, therefore unless you abandon the scientific method you must conclude that locality or determinism or both are untrue. 

 > Pretty sad when you think about it

That sounds like something Donald Trump would say, and in fact he does, very often.  

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis   

tst

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[Brent Meeker]

On 10/8/2024 7:29 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 8:23:43 PM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 1:35:01 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/8/2024 4:14 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 5:55 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I get it.

I think you don't.  

> If you admit that Schrodinger was correct that superposition does NOT mean a system is in all states of its superposition state before measurement, then the Many-Worlds interpretation is also falsified.

But if  "a system is in a superposition of states" does NOT mean when"all states" occur "simultaneously" then what the hell does it mean? Even Newton, even Aristotle, even Og the caveman,  had no problem with an object being in 2 different places AT 2 DIFFERENT TIMES, what made Quantum Mechanics so revolutionary is that it seem to say that one thing could be at two different places AT THE SAME TIME.

Here's how I present it in my popular lectures.  There is a range of states in a subspace "ALIVE" and another range of states in a subspace "DEAD".  The cat starts out in one of the alive states and moves thru series of superpositions from ALIVE to DEAD, the dark red dotted line.  These are not different simple conditions of the cat; they are different probability amplitudes corresponding to the cat's state.  The physical state of the cat is a vector in this Hilbert space, but it is very much more complicated, and I've collected all that complication into "OTHER VARIABLES".  So the state of the cat evolves along the magenta dotted line, which projects onto the simpler dark red dotted line.

But since Schrodinger idealizes a physical reality, where there is no continuous evolution of the Cat from Alive to Dead,

Sure there is.  Evolution of a pure state is unitary (length 1.0) so the state vector can only rotate, hence it's tip marks out some high-dimensional path from one state to another.

I don't see this as an explanation or refutation of the lesson Schrodinger tried to offer about superposition.

He was mocking the idea that there can be a state that's a superposition of alive & dead because those are classical states.  I'm saying he's was wrong in his idealization; but he was right in reality.  In his idealization the box is imagined as isolating the cat and it's state evolution is unitary, which means the state evolves without changing length and so must trace out intermediate states.  In reality a cat, a box, even a Geiger counter, cannot be isolated and so it is the wave-function of universe that evolves unitarily.

The question in my mind is, "Does it matter whether or not there is a possible operator that has HALF-ALIVE-&-HALF-DEAD as an eigenket.  In some cases, like spin, we know the intermediate state exists and we could even measure it if we wanted.  But in cases like Schroedinger's cat it's not clear that any such operator exists.  Maybe it doesn't matter because of the Other Variable dimensions in the Hilbert space.

Brent

AG  

I often see it written that "Before measurement, the system is not in any definite state."  But I think this is misleading.  The system is in a definite  state, it's just not a state for which we have an operator that would return that state as an eigenstate.

Brent

Without an eigenstate for the Cat's state, it's dubious whether Schrodinger's thought experiment is valid within the context of QM, and moreover, whether QM can be applied to macro objects which also have no obvious eigenstates. But the SG experiment does seem to indicate, along with Bell experiments, that it's possible for a superposition to be valid where its constituents are all NOT pre-existing states. Do you agree with this latter conclusion, and if not, why? AG 

I meant we don't have an operator that returns Alive and Dead as eigenstates. AG 

When Schrodinger came up with his cat thought experiment he did it to prove that Quantum Mechanics must be wrong, or at least incomplete. But he forgot that when you're making a Reductio Ad Absurdum proof it's important that the results be logically paradoxical and not just very strange. What he really proved is that Quantum Mechanics is weird. 

 

> But you're not alone in denying reality.

Yes,  besides me Hugh Everett and Sean Carroll and Max Tegmark and a majority, or at least a very significant minority, of quantum physicists believe that realism is probably untrue.  It looks like you believe in realism, therefore unless you abandon the scientific method you must conclude that locality or determinism or both are untrue. 

 > Pretty sad when you think about it

That sounds like something Donald Trump would say, and in fact he does, very often.  

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis   

tst

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[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 8:59:41 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/8/2024 7:23 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 1:35:01 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/8/2024 4:14 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 5:55 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I get it.

I think you don't.  

> If you admit that Schrodinger was correct that superposition does NOT mean a system is in all states of its superposition state before measurement, then the Many-Worlds interpretation is also falsified.

But if  "a system is in a superposition of states" does NOT mean when"all states" occur "simultaneously" then what the hell does it mean? Even Newton, even Aristotle, even Og the caveman,  had no problem with an object being in 2 different places AT 2 DIFFERENT TIMES, what made Quantum Mechanics so revolutionary is that it seem to say that one thing could be at two different places AT THE SAME TIME.

Here's how I present it in my popular lectures.  There is a range of states in a subspace "ALIVE" and another range of states in a subspace "DEAD".  The cat starts out in one of the alive states and moves thru series of superpositions from ALIVE to DEAD, the dark red dotted line.  These are not different simple conditions of the cat; they are different probability amplitudes corresponding to the cat's state.  The physical state of the cat is a vector in this Hilbert space, but it is very much more complicated, and I've collected all that complication into "OTHER VARIABLES".  So the state of the cat evolves along the magenta dotted line, which projects onto the simpler dark red dotted line.

But since Schrodinger idealizes a physical reality, where there is no continuous evolution of the Cat from Alive to Dead, I don't see this as an explanation or refutation of the lesson Schrodinger tried to offer about superposition. AG  

I often see it written that "Before measurement, the system is not in any definite state."  But I think this is misleading.  The system is in a definite  state, it's just not a state for which we have an operator that would return that state as an eigenstate.

Brent

Without an eigenstate for the Cat's state, it's dubious whether Schrodinger's thought experiment is valid within the context of QM, and moreover, whether QM can be applied to macro objects which also have no obvious eigenstates.

Some completely isolate object may be quantum mechanical and macro...but that's essentially impossible to arrange.

But the SG experiment does seem to indicate, along with Bell experiments, that it's possible for a superposition to be valid where its constituents are all NOT pre-existing states. Do you agree with this latter conclusion,

What is it a superposition OF, if not pre-existing states? 

It could just be a summed list of possible outcomes, a pure vanilla interpretation using a postulate of QM, and called "the state of the system", with the measurement determining/forcing a particular outcome. Isn't this a legitimate interpretation of the superposition of spin states for the SG experiment? TY, AG

[Alan Grayson]

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 11:21:37 PM UTC-6 Alan Grayson wrote:

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 8:59:41 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/8/2024 7:23 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

On Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 1:35:01 PM UTC-6 Brent Meeker wrote:

On 10/8/2024 4:14 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 5:55 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think I get it.

I think you don't.  

> If you admit that Schrodinger was correct that superposition does NOT mean a system is in all states of its superposition state before measurement, then the Many-Worlds interpretation is also falsified.

But if  "a system is in a superposition of states" does NOT mean when"all states" occur "simultaneously" then what the hell does it mean? Even Newton, even Aristotle, even Og the caveman,  had no problem with an object being in 2 different places AT 2 DIFFERENT TIMES, what made Quantum Mechanics so revolutionary is that it seem to say that one thing could be at two different places AT THE SAME TIME.

Here's how I present it in my popular lectures.  There is a range of states in a subspace "ALIVE" and another range of states in a subspace "DEAD".  The cat starts out in one of the alive states and moves thru series of superpositions from ALIVE to DEAD, the dark red dotted line.  These are not different simple conditions of the cat; they are different probability amplitudes corresponding to the cat's state.  The physical state of the cat is a vector in this Hilbert space, but it is very much more complicated, and I've collected all that complication into "OTHER VARIABLES".  So the state of the cat evolves along the magenta dotted line, which projects onto the simpler dark red dotted line.

But since Schrodinger idealizes a physical reality, where there is no continuous evolution of the Cat from Alive to Dead, I don't see this as an explanation or refutation of the lesson Schrodinger tried to offer about superposition. AG  

I often see it written that "Before measurement, the system is not in any definite state."  But I think this is misleading.  The system is in a definite  state, it's just not a state for which we have an operator that would return that state as an eigenstate.

Brent

Without an eigenstate for the Cat's state, it's dubious whether Schrodinger's thought experiment is valid within the context of QM, and moreover, whether QM can be applied to macro objects which also have no obvious eigenstates.

Some completely isolate object may be quantum mechanical and macro...but that's essentially impossible to arrange.

But the SG experiment does seem to indicate, along with Bell experiments, that it's possible for a superposition to be valid where its constituents are all NOT pre-existing states. Do you agree with this latter conclusion,

What is it a superposition OF, if not pre-existing states? 

It could just be a summed list of possible outcomes, a pure vanilla interpretation using a postulate of QM, and called, confusingly, "the state of the system", with the measurement determining/forcing a particular outcome. Isn't this a legitimate interpretation of the superposition of spin states for the SG experiment? This seems reasonable since all wf has to do, is participate in the calculation of probabilities. TY, AG

 

The formulation I object to is saying that "It's not in any definite state, not even in a superposition of states".  To say a superposition be "valid" is strange terminology.  I don't know what it could mean except that the object was in a coherent mixture of two different states. i.e. a superposition.

If you don't mind, could you please define "a coherent mixture of two different states."  TY, AG

Brent

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 8, 2024 at 10:07 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> Bell experiments demonstrate that hidden variables don't exist.

>>No, it demonstrates local hidden variables can't exist in a deterministic world.  

 >>>> In an earlier post, IIRC, you stated that realism might be falsified. Which is it 

>>Might.

>>> and why?

>Read my damn post!  

> FU, I am definitely planning to. It's a lot to digest in one reading.

So you've not read what I've already written and asked a question I've already answered. Do you see how somebody might find that just a trifle irritating?   

>  you always turn out to be a rude a'hole, and that's why you embrace an a'hole theory, So FU in spades. AG 

I'm sorry if I sounded rude because you're always so so polite! 

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

00p

 

[Alan Grayson]

I read some of your analysis but not all (and planned to return to it today). But I was puzzled by your conclusion when you state that one of two conclusions MUST be true. The first is that realism is false. CMIIAW, but didn't Bell experiments establish this, when it was concluded that local hidden variables do not exist? Couldn't both conclusions be true, denial of realism and denial of locality? AG 

 

[Alan Grayson]

At the end you infer a distinction between non-realism and non-local. It's a subtle distinction, and I realize I don't really get it. AG

[Alan Grayson]

ISTM, that non-realism implies non-local. Do you agree? AG 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Oct 9, 2024 at 11:03 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> ISTM, that non-realism implies non-local. Do you agree? AG 

No.

 John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

on0

[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, October 9, 2024 at 9:17:14 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Oct 9, 2024 at 11:03 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

> ISTM, that non-realism implies non-local. Do you agree? AG 

No.

That seems to be what's happening in Bell experiments. The two concepts seem associated. AG 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Oct 9, 2024 at 11:22 AM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> ISTM, that non-realism implies non-local. Do you agree? AG 

>>No.

> That seems to be what's happening in Bell experiments. The two concepts seem associated. AG 

IF many worlds is correct then the cat was not in one and only one definite state before the box was opened, instead the cat was in every possible state, therefore Many Worlds IS  NOT REALISTIC . AND IF Many Worlds is correct and you assume that no signal or effect can move faster than the speed of light then you will never run into any conflicts with experimental results, therefore Many Worlds IS LOCAL.  Locality and realism are two independent properties.  

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

f9b

[Brent Meeker]

On 10/8/2024 10:40 PM, Alan Grayson wrote:

The formulation I object to is saying that "It's not in any definite state, not even in a superposition of states".  To say a superposition be "valid" is strange terminology.  I don't know what it could mean except that the object was in a coherent mixture of two different states. i.e. a superposition.

If you don't mind, could you please define "a coherent mixture of two different states."  TY, AG

In terms of wave functions it means the two have a definite, fixed phase relation.  Operationally it means they can produce an interference pattern.

Brent

[Alan Grayson]

But that's assumes MW is correct, a special case I reject. IIUC, Bell experiments establish that local hidden variables don't exist, so non-realism is established. Although it's controversial, the correlations strongly suggest non-locality as well. This is why I stopped reading your long post, to first resolve this issue before going returning to it. So, as I see it, the two concepts might be related. AG 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Oct 9, 2024 at 6:05 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> IF many worlds is correct then the cat was not in one and only one definite state before the box was opened, instead the cat was in every possible state, therefore Many Worlds IS  NOT REALISTIC . AND IF Many Worlds is correct and you assume that no signal or effect can move faster than the speed of light then you will never run into any conflicts with experimental results, therefore Many Worlds IS LOCAL.  Locality and realism are two independent properties.  

> But that's assumes MW is correct,

That's why I use the word "IF", I even underlined and capitalized it.  

 

> a special case I reject. IIUC,

I know, you've made it very clear you reject it, but don't you think it might be wise to know what Many Worlds is saying before you reject it?  

 

> Bell experiments establish that local hidden variables don't exist,

NO! As I've said before, Bell experiments establish that LOCAL hidden variables don't exist IN A WORLD THAT IS REALISTIC AND DETERMINISTIC!   Many Worlds is NOT REALISTIC  so it is compatible with Bell experiments. Pilot Wave theory is NOT LOCAL so it is compatible with Bell experiments. Objective Collapse theories are NOT DETERMINISTIC so they are compatible with Bell experiments. As for Copenhagen .... I think of it as "shut up and calculate" so it can't win or lose because it's simply not playing the game. 

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

jam

[Alan Grayson]

On Wednesday, October 9, 2024 at 4:39:22 PM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Oct 9, 2024 at 6:05 PM Alan Grayson <agrays...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> IF many worlds is correct then the cat was not in one and only one definite state before the box was opened, instead the cat was in every possible state, therefore Many Worlds IS  NOT REALISTIC . AND IF Many Worlds is correct and you assume that no signal or effect can move faster than the speed of light then you will never run into any conflicts with experimental results, therefore Many Worlds IS LOCAL.  Locality and realism are two independent properties.  

> But that's assumes MW is correct,

That's why I use the word "IF", I even underlined and capitalized it.  

I didn't miss your IF. AG

 

> a special case I reject. IIUC,a 

I know, you've made it very clear you reject it, but don't you think it might be wise to know what Many Worlds is saying before you reject it?  

 

> Bell experiments establish that local hidden variables don't exist,

NO! As I've said before, Bell experiments establish that LOCAL hidden variables don't exist IN A WORLD THAT IS REALISTIC AND DETERMINISTIC! 

If the world is realistic, that means a measured entity has the quantity being measured, before the measurement. But why would that preclude local hidden variables? Did you prove this in your long post? AG

Note for Brent; I don't take the Planck measurements of curvature lightly. Ostensibly, they support your origin claim. The difference between our pov's about the origin of the universe, is that you believe it starts with a singularity, whereas I do not. AG

[Alan Grayson]

If it's true, as I recall, that one cannot solve for the phase angle using Schrodinger's equation, how is it possible to determine a wf solution for a system being studied? TY, AG