Unconscious Quantum 11
Jack Sarfatti
It is true that a lot of flakes do use the quantum metaphor to justify
“cargo cult” pseudoscience, but that fact should not be used to smear
valid work. Stenger writes: “The cosmic mind, viewed from the paranormal
perspective, is some sort of invisible field that pervades the
universe.” From the perspective of Bohm’s theory, the cosmic mind is the
super-implicate order. Our more localized minds are the coherent quantum
potentials attached to our material bodies. The coordinated activity of
the living body is direct evidence for the coherent robustness of such a
quantum potential which is more than an emergent classical phenomenon
from local interactions of material parts that are outside of each
other. Bohm explains this in great detail.
Stenger makes a major technical error of standard physics which
completely misses the point of Bell’s theorem when he misleadingly
suggests to the lay-reader that classical physics is able to explain the
nonlocal quantum correlations of orthodox quantum mechanics. Thus,
Stenger writes:
“It is not commonly appreciated that instantaneous correlations between
separated events were already present in prerelativistic, prequantum
physics ... As a radio wave propagates outward, all the information
carried by the waveform spreads through space. At any given time, two
separated receivers on the wavefront obtain that identical information;
they simultaneously hear the same program. The two receivers can be said
to be correlated...”
Yes, but that kind of classical correlation is qualitatively different
from the nonlocal quantum correlations that Bell dealt with. Bell knew
all of the aovbe and would not have bothered if it were as simple as
Stenger pictures it to be above.
“... but that relationship is not a causal one in which an action at the
place of one receiver generates a result at the place of the other
receiver.”
This is the significant difference between the classical correlation and
the quantum correlation. In Bohm’s theory the quantum potential does act
at a distance to generate a result at the place of the other receiver.
Murray Gell-Mann tries to replace this with a many-worlds ontology which
E. J. Squires says is mathematically inconsistent. Even if Gell-Mann’s
idea is consistent, it seems that there is a lot less “excess
metaphysical baggage” (Wheeler’s phrase) in Bohm’s quantum potential
than in Gell-Mann’s many-worlds.
Now for a subtle point that is crucial: Eberhard’s theorem shows that
Bohm’s quantum potential cannot be used for nonlocal communication
faster-than-light. This is essentially because the quantum potential in
the absence of stabilizing backactivity is not robust against the
disruptions associated with decoherence which leave the system of
interest open to a random tangle of nonlocal connections that make the
message impossible to locally decode. It is possible to decode the
message nonlocally by comparing data from both the sender and the
receiver, but that is not possible to do faster-than-light. This also
happens in quantum teleportation in which part of the information is
transmitted faster than light, but the key to unlock it must be
transmitted by a classical signal that cannot exceed light speed.
However, when the quantum potential is shielded from decoherence, it’s a
new ballgame, and nonlocal communication with local decoding is possible
because the two-way feedback control loop between the quantum potential
and its attached material “beable” stabilizes it. This is the
post-quantum regime accessible only by living matter. Nobel Prize
physicist, Brian Josephson was the first to suggest that living matter
has a new post-quantum way to utilize nonlocality as an effective
communication channel connecting spatiotemporally separated parts of the
organism in a non-classical way beyond the emergence out of local
interactions.
So Stenger is wrong to equate the inability to communicate faster than
light in quantum mechanics with the inability to communicate faster than
light in classical field theory. These seemingly similar effects have
profoundly different causes. Classical correlations are not the same as
quantum correlations as Stenger suggests. This pulls the rug out from
under his main thesis and invalidates the essential point of his book.
Therefore, Stenger’s statement:
“So, independent of quantum mechanics, observations at separated points
in space can still be correlated. This correlation, however, does not
imply superluminal signalling nor any other miracle; no physical law is
violated. Two points in space can receive the same information when that
information originates from the same point.” p. 38
I should also add that Bohm, Josephson or I never claim that physical
laws are violated. Our claim is that the laws of physics are wider than
Stenger’s et-al conception of these laws.
Stenger continues: “As we shall see in the following chapters, the
consequences of nonlocal communication are so profound as to turn our
concepts of space and time on their heads. Indeed, the realization by
Einstein that motions at infinite speed made it impossible to assign
points in space and time a unique reality led him to assert that a
maximum speed, the speed of light exists.”
This is also technically not quite correct. First of all, the quantum
potential is in the implicate order and it does not at all require
motions at infinite speed in the explicate order of Einstein’s
spacetime. Second of, it is possible to preserve the Lorentz-invariance
of special relativity with tachyon motions that are outside the light
cone i.e., faster than light. The principle of retarded causality that
effects are after causes in all frames is violated. Although there is no
evidence for tachyons, discovery of such evidence would have no effect
on the spacetime geometry of Einstein’s theory that is operationally
defined with light signals. Third, third general relativity does permit
globally faster than light warp drives which are locally timelike
geodesic inside the local light cones. It also permits closed timelike
world lines for time travel to the past. General relativity restores the
idea of operationally global absolute rest within the expanding
spacetime of the standard model of cosmology. The temperature of the
cosmic blackbody photons provides an objective measure of the time from
the initial singularity and the “Hubble flow” in which the blackbody
photons are isotropic with no redshifts and blue shifts to a few parts
in 105 provides the global frame of absolute rest. These two features
are of great importance for interstellar and inter-galactic navigators.
They are like the lines of longitude and latitude and the atomic clocks
at Greenwich Observatory. Fourth, although the exotic matter of negative
energy density are sufficient to generate warp drive and time travel to
the pasr, it may not be necessary. We are only at the beginning in our
understanding of these issues. I am confident that the application of
Bohm’s idea of the super-quantum potential to the combined
Einstein-Maxwell classical field will suggest practical warp drives and
traversible wormhole stargates and time tunnels that are not as obvious
using traditional quantum gravity formalism. It is certainly worth a
try.
--
The Bohm Institute at The Presidio in San Francisco is coming.
http://www.stardrive.org/
http://www.hia.com/hia/pcr/
“You will begin to meet the others in twenty years.” 1952