Bell Correlations

[Edward Green]

Robert R. Tucci <tu...@ar-tiste.com> wrote:

> I'm not a professional physicist anymore, THANK GOD. I'm a
> programmer now.

Ah well, we must keep some of the habits of our first profession.

> I haven't defined the term "LR" precisely. The
> sad part is that most physicists use the term just as vaguely.

You gain in my respect. Not to dis physicists per se -- all I know is
what I read in the newsgroups -- but there is a tendency to bandy this
and other terms around as if we all knew precisely and unambiguously
what was meant. I am usually careful to start with 'classical topology
of influence'; at least I know what I mean, and anybody interested can
ask me.

> Let's just say that I will use certain rules to
> analyze an experiment and predict its outcome. LR is any theory
> for which those rules make sense and are satisfied.

I suspect this amounts to my phrase above, except you may be
unconsciously saddling LR with restrictions from QM, as Michael Weiss
now grasps, bless his soul; the light bulb of the central claim of
the counter argument has gone off in at least one other head.

>> Ok... Either all +, or two - and one + in any order. Is that a correct
>> decoding? (I assume you have encrypted the spin measurements as '+,-').
>
> Yes, that is a correct decoding.

> You could redefine + by -, and - by +. But once you
> marry a particular identification, you have to stick with it.
> With my identification, ++- never occurs, because its product is -,
> and Eqs.(1) say that there is zero probability of
> getting a - product if you measure one particle along X and
> two along Y.

Ok... then the state is indeed asymmetrical w.r.t. + and - . I am
surprised by this, but at least I read the notation correctly.

>> Now we are getting somewhere! I knew there had to be some hidden
>> variables -- maybe not the best choice of words... 'obscured'
>> variables. We can only see three out of six in a given trial. Okey
>> doke. I'll take your word that equation (2) follows. We touch base.
>
> Calling them hidden variables is fine. I like to call them
> "canonical hidden variables" (my term). They were first used
> by Wigner and Belinfante. The point is that any other set of
> hidden variables for this experiment
> can be "reparametrized" into the canonical six.

I'll buy that -- sorta. We could have a more complete set of hidden
variables, whole measurable sets of which would translate into
particular spin measurements. So this equivalence of all other
possible sets is (expansive gesture here) 'for the purposes of these
measurements'. I still like 'obscured variables' in this context.

> (I'm not being too precise when I use the term "reparametrized". Sorry.)
> In QM, it is anathema to define a probability distribution of
> all 6 variables because all 6 cannot exist (they are not
> "elements of reality") at the same time.

Whoa... I feel a philosophical rant coming on... Ah, ah, ah...

> In QM, only 3 can exist
> (one for each particle) during any given iteration
> of the experiment. In QM, if a given particle has spin along X,
> its spin along Y does not exist. This is what Neils
> the Bore would have said.

You invoke multiple philosophical bogeymen. First of all, following
our nod to precision of language perhaps we should distance ourselves
from such phrases as 'in QM'? My experience is that all of the big
two letter jobies -- QM, SR, GR -- are indiscriminately applied to a
core mannequin of mathematical structure and to any drape of
intellectual fashion, confused with and defended alongside the
armature. On top of that I see a philosophical confusion in the
position attributed to Neils Bohr: A kind of mystical orgasm is
achieved in connection with the simple idea that which experiment is
not conducted has no outcome. No kidding. The key fantasy ingredient
lies in misunderstanding the idea that the 'outcome of measurement' may
have many antecedents, no one of which may necessarily dominate, with
the vague 'nothing is there until we measure it'.

I state quite bluntly that the score on this one is so far Me 1, Net
0: No one has correctly received this simple bone headed observation.
Oh Michael Weiss, my philosophically inclined friend, tell me
convincingly that you understand this simple point and we may
ceremonially transfer the Order of the Tin Ear that we have been
modestly passing between us ("No, _you_ wear it...". "I would not dream
of it, Ed, _you_ deserve the honor"). Prove to me you get this, and
I'll wear it. The first to comprehensibly read this idea back to me
gets to wear the Order of the Golden Ear. It's still waiting.

Let's just say the necessity of following from a single joint
distribution follows from the assumption of the classical topology of
influence (diagram) for this or any similar experiment (information of
some sort propagating from common source to distant and independent
nodes), and that this is what we are interested in testing -- leaving
the vague parlor topic 'QM' out of the conversation. We note that the
logic strictly only applies in a simple form to assumed repeated
independent trials (I use 'independent' in several vague and
undefined senses here; as long as we are playing semantic mea culpa,
but the sense is clear to the informed), and may be vitiated in
a real situation if we have to apply further assumptions to return to
this pre-lapsarian state -- similarly to Aspect. The logic is
restored if we are able to demonstrate an incompatible set of
observations in distant apparatus at the macroscopic level (another
vague phrase which I claim we could hash out).

> It's possible that the data for GHZ experiments
> will be afflicted by the same noise problems as the Aspect data,
> and will turn out to be just as inconclusive. I don't know
> enough to comment on this.

I don't either, but did it stop me? My point is mainly that the very
simplicity of the 'QM' and 'LR' predictions may lead us to believe we
have bypassed the kind of issue I have been palavering ("We don't
need any crummy Bell inequalities), when they are still right there,
because nothing has changed in the fundamental flow of logic. It may
be as you say however, that a stronger signal may produce a conclusive
result.

Thanks for your patience.

> However, it seems to me that the
> GHZ effect is larger and less prone to be hidden by noise.
> Recently, the experimentalists (Wineland et al at NIST,
> Kimble et al at CalTech, etc.) that are trying to build
> small quantum computers have learned a lot about
> how to make multi-fermion states with exotic
> correlations. So I predict that they will soon use
> those skills to make EPR and GHZ experiments with fermions.

Ed

[Michael Weiss]

First off, Ed, I confess that I have but a couple of paragraphs of
your doubtless brilliant essay; the remainder rests in a print-out,
to enliven my trip home on the T (subway to New Yorkers).

I suspect this amounts to my phrase above, except you may be
unconsciously saddling LR with restrictions from QM, as Michael Weiss
now grasps, bless his soul; the light bulb of the central claim of
the counter argument has gone off in at least one other head.

I feel like being petty. I was saying things in this vein from when I
first weighed in, parroting Kuhn (as I said). I had the impression
you believed something rather different. Admittedly I often get the
wrong impression from watching posts whiz by my window. Still,
weren't you arguing for some sort of absolute, decisive "experimentum
crucis", setting these t.o.i. issues once and for all? (An
asymmetrical settling, to be sure, since LR could be (supposedly)
killed dead with one swift blow of the axe, but QM could only suffer a
death of a thousand cuts, as experiment after experiment ended
inconclusively.)

In any event, I'm glad to see you've finally opened your eyes, and
have seen the light shining over my head.

On another topic: the Grand Significance of Aspect's Experiment (or
Lack Thereof):

a) You are quite right, they *have* been making a big to-do about this
for decades. I too have skimmed the pop-science shelves at my
local bookstore, and found dozens of treatises on the Significance
of QM, but nary a one on the Significance of Fluid Dynamics (for
example).

b) But I meant to make a different point. The QM argument runs thus:
we have scads of evidence from other quarters that the photon model
is correct. (By "photon model", I mean a whole bunch of stuff.)
Assuming the correctness of that model, the Aspect
experiment shows that the classical t.o.i. is wrong.

Now maybe the Aspect experiment is mildly scratched, or badly dented,
or deeply flawed. And maybe the "scads of evidence" admit an
alternate interpretation. Lots of photons and electrons have already
given their lives here in hashing over these questions.

But I maintain that to discuss the Aspect experiment in isolation, as
if *by itself* it was supposed to provide a *logically rigorous
refutation* of the classical t.o.i., is just nuts. (Or sloppy
pop-science journalism, but what else is new?)

But of course, you were surely saying this from the beginning, though
I was too blind to notice :%^)

[Michael Weiss]

Dear Ed,

We seem to be shadow-boxing. (Must be all those bright lights
over our heads.) And then there's the hearing-aid problems--- where
did you ever get the notion that I "hear [you] saying 'this is too
weird to be true'"?

Well, just to be disagreeable, let me try to disentangle some areas of
disagreement.

All I asserted though was that an experiment which could _in
principle_ kill of LR essential dead, finis, and beyond hope of a
resurrection in this life, was practically possible. [...]
I contend we could nail this down enough to exclude quibbles

where of course what's a quibble and what's a genuine flaw in the
experimental design is in the eye of the beholder.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Look at your responses on the GHZ thread. Let
us hypothetically imagine that the experiment is performed, and we get
an unending stream of -1's, ---oh, maybe a 1 once every 10,000 bits or
so. And no "subtraction of accidentals". Did you say, "yes, if that
happens I believe that Caroline Thompson and Paul Budnik and everyone
else here on s.p. will immediately declare that local realism is dead
as moon dirt"?

How do they know the detectors are accurately calibrated? How do they
know the source produces electron-triplets in the "special state"?
How do they know that detectors are really detecting anything to do
with the source? Maybe the correlations come from the ZPE background,
or very-long-wavelength EM waves, or something else. And what *about*
those occasional 1's?

It basically comes down to Cardinal Bellarmine's argument at the end
of Galileo's _Dialog on the Two Chief World Systems_. Maybe there's
another explanation. Here are a few ideas. Details at 11. Or maybe
midnight.

And the point is, he's right. There *could* be another explanation.
(In fact, in the Galileo affair, there *was*. Galileo was campaigning
full-tilt for his theory of the tides, a "sloshing" effect of the
Earth's motion, totally unconnected with any weirdo magical "occult
powers" of the moon. The Cardinal was sure the Earth *didn't*
move, so there *had* to be another explanation for the tides.)

(I like this story because it's so hard to draw a moral from it.)

The phrase "photon model is correct" is simply too broad.

First, I prefaced that with, "The QM argument runs:". A true-blue
Kuhnian, just like a Californian self-esteem instructor, would never
brand theories "correct" and "incorrect".

Next, let me narrow that phrase a bit. By "the photon model", I mean
the computational rules, accepted experimental procedures, stuff like
that. For example, the stuff Aspect used to calculate the number of
accidentals to subtract. The stuff behind Patrick's remark (I quote
from memory), "If you *know* your detector misses 1 photon out of 4,
you're not just going to ignore that fact, are you?"

(Note incidentally that Aspect's experiment *already* satisfies your
demand to "look at the macroscopic data"--- we just have to rewrite

raw data - accidentals = QM prediction for ideal case

to

raw data = QM prediction for real system
= QM prediction for ideal case + QM prediction of accidentals

as Patrick suggests.)

OK, last topic. Embraceable Weirdness. You write:

oddness
becomes a virtue; it gives us a pleasant tang.

Despite all protestations to the contrary you often seem to
hear me saying 'this is too weird to be true'.

Ah yes. Quite right. As Niels the Bore said to the Sorrowing Young
Werner, "Yes, m'boy, I spent years trying to find some weirdness to
embrace. Every day I went down to Rutherford's lab, telling myself
that *today* I would perform the experiment that would kick local
realism in the ass! Finally Rutherford put his foot down and insisted
I actually explain some spectra or something, or I'd be out on my
golden ear. And so I never achieved my dream. But you--- I have
faith in you. Don't get distracted by that Zeeman effect problem
Sommerfeld is trying to saddle you with, or that math crap Born is
always trying to cram down your throat. Just come up with a weird
theory, with a pleasant effervescent tang! Here, have some beer with
an akavit chaser--- that's the flavor you're going for!"

My view?

See if you can guess. (Better keep some hedge-trimmers handy.)

[Dan M.]

e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
<snip>

>You invoke multiple philosophical bogeymen. First of all, following
>our nod to precision of language perhaps we should distance ourselves
>from such phrases as 'in QM'? My experience is that all of the big
>two letter jobies -- QM, SR, GR -- are indiscriminately applied to a
>core mannequin of mathematical structure and to any drape of
>intellectual fashion, confused with and defended alongside the
>armature. On top of that I see a philosophical confusion in the
>position attributed to Neils Bohr: A kind of mystical orgasm is
>achieved in connection with the simple idea that which experiment is
>not conducted has no outcome. No kidding. The key fantasy ingredient
>lies in misunderstanding the idea that the 'outcome of measurement' may
>have many antecedents, no one of which may necessarily dominate, with
>the vague 'nothing is there until we measure it'.

>I state quite bluntly that the score on this one is so far Me 1, Net
>0: No one has correctly received this simple bone headed observation.
>Oh Michael Weiss, my philosophically inclined friend, tell me
>convincingly that you understand this simple point and we may
>ceremonially transfer the Order of the Tin Ear that we have been
>modestly passing between us ("No, _you_ wear it...". "I would not dream
>of it, Ed, _you_ deserve the honor"). Prove to me you get this, and
>I'll wear it. The first to comprehensibly read this idea back to me
>gets to wear the Order of the Golden Ear. It's still waiting.

I honestly think that I understand your position. FWIW, I would maintain
that I am not totally ignorant of philosophical issues. You know Ed,
from previously discussions that I did get a BS degree in philosophy.
I've studied a number of realistic philosophers from Aristotle, to Marx,
to the British school, including logical positivism.

My opinion on the condition of local realism in light of the theory of QM
and the extent of experimental evidence for spacelike correlations is
that while local realism may not be dead at the moment, it is on the
critical list. You can, quite effectively, argue for a metaphysical
viewpoint that would allow for all effects to be local. However, I would
argue, paraphrasing a former senator from the state I live in "I know
realism, realism is a friend of mine, and that philosophy, sir, is not
realism."

I realize that's a strong statement, and it will take a lot of
justification to back it up. I do not expect to be able to do that in
one post, but I think that I can provide justification, if not proof of
that position. But first things first; I think that I would like to
demonstrate that I do know something about the statement that you made.
I think it may go like this.

You have no argument that the body of theoretical and experimental work
that comprises QM, RQM, QED, etc. actually does hold together, with
experiments done, for the most part, fairly carefully and the theory
doing a good job of matching and predicting experimental results.

However, you do take issue with the sweeping conclusions that we
physicists make about the results of experiments. Take for example the
Aspect experiment. It is true that the results are consistent with the
standard interpretation of QM. However, they are also consistent with
local realism. Any one of a number of possible explanations would be
sufficient to show that a local realistic interpretation can be
obtained. (BTW, I know you use "topology of influence", but I would
prefer to stick with the local realism understanding because it is really
what is at issue and because I'm fairly familiar with it.)

For a definition of local I would give: inside the light cone

For a definition of realism I would give: A philosophy that states that
the world/universe, and all the elements within it exist apart from our
observation and that our senses give us representations of that
independent existence. Further, by careful observation, we can gain
objective knowledge of that external world. As we progress in our
observations, we obtain an improved, a truer understanding of the
external world.

For a local realistic:
The view that, fundamentally, all physical processes that we observed
can be expressed in terms of processes that involve:

1) Variables that exist continuously, whether we observe or not
and
2) Signals that are sent at or slower than the speed of light.

and that a scientific theory with laws, etc. can be derived to
explain observations in terms of those variables and signals. The
fact that we, at the present time, cannot do that, is an indication of
our present limitations, and not a problem with locality or realism.

This seems fairly straightforward to me, but I will admit that the
definition of realism was a bit off the cuff. I'd be happy to accept
reasonable refinements. However, in my defense, I think that most of the
realistic philosophers I have studied have produced systems consistent
with that definition.

Now, it seems that my task is to address the possible explanations for
the observed body of experimental evidence in terms of local realism. I
have observed the following explanations on the web:

1) Strong determinism (predestination for those who prefer a religious
flavor).

2) Detector efficiency is a function of the hidden variables

3) Experimenters, in good faith, used assumptions from QM in evaluating
their data, thus biasing the results to the old paradigm. With a new
paradigm, the results will look rather different.

4) The experiments are not actually spacelike, they are still consistent
with local signals

5) There is a fundamental flaw in the logic of Bells inequality

If you know of additional explanations, I would be happy to address
them.

I would like to address these explanations for the viability of local
realism one/post if you don't mind. Before I do, however, I would think
it worthwhile to see if we agree on the list and on the grounds for the
discussion.

Dan M.

-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet

[Edward Green]

Michael Weiss <colu...@pleides.camb.opengroup.org> wrote:

> All I asserted though was that an experiment which could _in
> principle_ kill of LR essential dead, finis, and beyond hope of a
> resurrection in this life, was practically possible. [...]
> I contend we could nail this down enough to exclude quibbles
>
>where of course what's a quibble and what's a genuine flaw in the
>experimental design is in the eye of the beholder.

I should have written 'classical t.o.i.' for 'LR'. My mistake.

By the way... You altered the implied antecedent of 'this' by your
snip. It was in the [...]. I believe is was something like 'what is
macroscopic data'. How we read each other into standard positions!

>Sorry, I don't buy it. Look at your responses on the GHZ thread. Let
>us hypothetically imagine that the experiment is performed, and we get
>an unending stream of -1's, ---oh, maybe a 1 once every 10,000 bits or
>so. And no "subtraction of accidentals". Did you say, "yes, if that
>happens I believe that Caroline Thompson and Paul Budnik and everyone
>else here on s.p. will immediately declare that local realism is dead
>as moon dirt"?

First of all, I don't necessarily hold Thompson and Budnik to be the
coroners. I would sign the death certificate though; for the
classical t.o.i., that is (not LR). I hope you see why I am making
this distinction -- I am talking about the influence diagram for the
experiment. If we conducted a simulation where the 'spin detector'
boxes were wired to the 'source', which we periodically activated by
pushing a button, and the whole apparatus were sitting on our lab
bench, then we could still rule out the classical influence diagram for
this simulation by these results: In this case, this just means the
hypothesis that a signal goes out from source to detector, and no
further communication takes place. Ok?

This is why I don't like bandying about 'LR' as if we all knew what it
meant. In our lab bench simulation we hardly rule out 'LR', because
common sense about human reaction times vs. microprocessors and signal
propagation tells us that there was ample time for the boxes to
_negotiate_ an outcome. This negotiated outcome is of course
incompatible with the proposed central topology of influence.

Similarly in a real experiment we may rule out the source + detector
central topology of (classical) influence, but we cannot rule out by
these statistical methods the possibility of collusion (in effect, two
way communication). Of course by suitable attention to timing we may
hope to rule out the possibility of collusion by all but _superluminal_
signals, thus possibly bringing such a mechanism in conflict with
Lorentz invariance. Let's group the possibilities again:

Objection of the first kind:

We claim to have ruled out the classical topology of influence, but we
had to condition the data via some assumptions about photons to do so.
The unconditioned data does not support this conclusion. (Thompson)

Objection of the second kind:

Ok, maybe we accept that we killed of the classical t.o.i. for this
experiment, but slop in the timing still leaves open the possibility of
subluminal collusion. (Budnik)

Objection of the third kind:

What's so sacrosanct about Lorentz invariance, anyway? (Schmelzer)

My proposed killer result would only advance to the first step in this
progression, and knock off the classical t.o.i.. Since, except by
popular vote, we don't seem to have actually done what was believed to
have been done, I would focus on this question first.

>How do they know the detectors are accurately calibrated?

This falls under the heading of 'can we perform controlled experiments
with stable equipment'. This is a lab headache, but part of the
macroscopic world (we can tell when output is stable by looking at
pointers and counters, without any microscopic assumption). With
shuddering I might call this 'ordinary lab practice'. Of course that
is the nub of Patrick van Esch's counter-criticism; he feels all the
assumptions embodied in the experiments are 'ordinary lab practice',
without which 'we cannot do science'. Well, like a kid checking out
of the candy store with a Modern Slut in among the Popular Sciences
and Model Railroaders, I feel Patrick has slipped some assumptions
about the microworld into the middle of this innocent looking stack.

But the punchline is, calibration doesn't matter! Calibrated or
uncalibrated, we can only add noise. A macroscopic data set
incompatible with the classical t.o.i is equally potent either way.

It's important to understand this.

> How do they
>know the source produces electron-triplets in the "special state"?

Also irrelevant to the power of the results. All these questions are
about things that go on behind the scenes. On the macroscopic black
box level, we either get a violation or we don't. All the
experimental care goes into to rigging a situation where we _hope_ to
get a violation, given current micro-theory. We can use whatever
assumptions we want at this point; the proof of the pudding...etc.

>How do they know that detectors are really detecting anything to do
>with the source?

Irrelevant for stated reasons.

> Maybe the correlations come from the ZPE background,
>or very-long-wavelength EM waves, or something else.

Ditto. Maybe they come about by divine prearrangement. You notice I
didn't include that among my 'objections'? The point is, the
experimental set-up, along with our quotidian assumptions about the
macroscopic world, lead us to expect a certain influence diagram will
describe the causal relations of the experiment (stuff goes outta here,
and blips in here, and way over there...), and any output incompatible
with these hum-drum assumptions and expectations overturns them as a
set. No matter what the source of the detections, a violation of the
assumed topology of influence would require some sort of collusion or
pre-arrangement.

Ok... you may have an objection here. Maybe some attention to timing
is needed at this point; if one of the 'detectors' were really the
source of the signal, we might still have a violation, but it wouldn't
mean very much. You score half a point. It would be helpful if we
could demonstrate the ability to turn the source on and off, as seen
from the detectors. Ok... make that a whole point: My proposed
bullet-proof data set depends on the assumption that the source is the
source, and the detectors the detectors. In a way this echoes Daryl's
comments about running a certain scattering experiment backwards in
time, and getting the same statistics.

This doesn't defeat my assertion that we kill off the 'classical
t.o.i.' by a possible result; but is does call into question whether
this topology encompasses everything that might be reasonable in the
classical world view (turning on the source 'activates' the detectors,
a passing E/M wave then results in a detection at #1, and the altered
wave then results in detections at #2 and #3 which depend on the state
of the detector at #1). You are right. Oh fudge. My airtight
argument has sprung a leak -- you, _you_ have uncovered the next
loophole! Ironic. But proceeding...

> And what *about* those occasional 1's?

This is why we have to go just a tad beyond the 'all -1 is a violation
of the classical t.o.i' formulation that was offered to something that
looks like, yes, the crummy old Bell inequalities. I don't suppose a
few 1's are going to hurt anything, but we have to know what the
inequality is to be sure, don't we?

>It basically comes down to Cardinal Bellarmine's argument at the end
>of Galileo's _Dialog on the Two Chief World Systems_. Maybe there's
>another explanation. Here are a few ideas. Details at 11. Or maybe
>midnight.

This is, pray forgive me, the typical obfuscationist view. "Well,
there are always objections", said the judge to the condemned, in
denying his appeal. I have very patiently put forth my position, and
it is not 'well, maybe the detectors are all fubar'. As I explained,
this would not lessen the power of a positive violation (though _your_
loophole does). The power of the macroscopic viewpoint is that we have
the possibility that without adding any assumptions outside of itself
the classical macroscopic world view can be hoist by its own petard.
(Realizing now we will have to do some more dirty reasoning to
establish what is presumed to be influencing what, because of your
diabolical objection).

You have changed my mind a little. I still think it is possible to
clearly kill off the classical _central_ topology of influence by a
putative result, though it may not be possible to kill off a classical
topology where one of the detectors in effect becomes the source (you
may not recognize your objection in this form). You weaken my
position somewhat, but not fatally. I still contend we have yet to
kill off the central classical topology of influence for these
experiments, but that if quantum mechanics is what they say it is, we
should be able to do so. Your objection still gives fodder to the
contrarians (they thank you -- it's a new one), and contains elements
of my first and second styles of objection: It says in effect that we
haven't killed off LR, even if we have killed off the central
classical topology of influence, because maybe we simply have the
topology wrong! We would then have to argue in some way that we have
the topology right, which may involve timing or some other argument.

I bet you don't even recognize the progeny of your objection!

I hate to be all wiser than Solomon and such, but I do seem to have
enjoyed a small advantage here: While you and the rest of the crew
were out slogging your way through fields of advanced quantum
mechanics I have just wandered in and started poking about, and I
found a door leading behind the exhibit marked 'Aspect', and I opened
it and took a peek at the mechanism. Now this doesn't replace
whatever manly survival skills were acquired through those years of
field work, and I can't participate in your shop discussions about the
strange wave functions you have seen and the day you were almost
gored by a Hilbert vector; but somehow none of this overturns the fact
that I have seen the logical mechanism, damn it, and it's simple (at
least once you have gotten used to it... now that I recollect, the
door wasn't that easy to open). Unless you have seen the mechanism
too, we really can't discuss this without talking past each other.

I leave the rest for another day.

[Michael Weiss]

Ed Green:

This is, pray forgive me, the typical obfuscationist view.

Actually, it's the nub of my argument. There *are* always
objections. Some are serious, some debatable, some ridiculous.

Let's look at the sample-under-test. "I have very patiently put forth

my position, and it is not 'well, maybe the detectors are all fubar'."

Indeed, you have convinced me that a crisp and clean and
hospital-corners experiment could kill off a classical t.o.i. (if the
t.o.i. is so sharp it could draw blood splitting hairs), dead enough
so that only a miracle could resurrect it.

The power of the macroscopic viewpoint is that we have the
possibility that without adding any assumptions outside of itself
the classical macroscopic world view can be hoist by its own
petard.

Ah, what a gulf here yawns! "The classical macroscopic world view"---
not quite the same as that sharpened classical t.o.i., is it?

I would sign the death certificate though; for the
classical t.o.i., that is (not LR).

Now, did you say in one of your GHZ posts, words to this effect: yes,
the GHZ experiment, if ever performed, will no doubt stream out the
-1's with a boring uniformity matched only by typical TV fare, but
no, this does not mean that local realism is dead. Or causality.

Entirely consistent, yes? Good, I agree.

So stepping back, can we agree on the answers to this T/F test:

(a) T/F: 20th century physics has proven *to a mathematical certainty*
that local realism is false.

Ans: False.

(b) T/F: 20th century physics has proven *to a mathematical certainty*
that God *does* play dice with the universe.

Ans: False.

(c) T/F: However, experiments can be devised that would settle these
questions *to a mathematical certainty*.

Ans: False.

(d) T/F: OK, so mathematical certainty isn't in the dice. Therefore
the cockeyed notions of Quantum "Embrace the Weirdness"
Mechanics (TM) will certainly be tossed in the trash when the
next paradigm shift arrives on the 6:02. The quantitative
results will be preserved, but we can be damn sure that 21st
century physicists will shake their heads in wonder at
today's folly.

Ans: False.

(e) T/F: OK, so QM is the best-developed theory we have in the
micro-realm. Therefore anyone who doubts one iota of the
philosophical superstructure erected thereon, should be glued
to a stool at the front of the classroom, with a big red hat
on his/hers head labelled 'CRACKPOT'.

Ans: False.

(f) T/F: Even though the answer to (e) is 'false', any defender of QM
believes that the answer is 'true'. (Definition of 'defender
of QM': anyone who agrees with the statement, "QM is the
best-developed theory we have in the micro-realm.")

Ans: False.

(g) T/F: Regardless of one's beliefs about QM, or its interpretations,
these questions are infinitely more important and worthy of
study than such mundane boring stuff like the grungy details
of atomic spectra or representations of SU(3).

Ans: False.

(h) T/F: Same as (g), but with the fascinating details of SU(3) being
infinitely more worthy than the wooly-headed philosophical
questions.

Ans: False.

(i) T/F: Regardless of one's beliefs about QM, or its interpretations,
no one should even be allowed to think about these
philosophical issues, let alone post on them, until they have
received a grade of A-doubleplus supergood in Advanced
Quantum Field Theory. And *certainly* if they break this
rule, they should bow and scrape and apologize for their
termerity the second one of the Anointed Ones calls them on
it.

Ans: False.

(j) T/F: Every True Physicist believes the answer to (i) is 'true'.

Ans: False.

OK, Ed, how did you do?

[Edward Green]

Michael Weiss <colu...@pleides.camb.opengroup.org> wrote:

>Ed Green:

>
> This is, pray forgive me, the typical obfuscationist view.
>

>Actually, it's the nub of my argument. There *are* always
>objections. Some are serious, some debatable, some ridiculous.

Ok... then I would say that while there are always objections, there
are not always serious objections (you had to make it a trichotomy,
didn't you? Not a nice simple dichotomy, but a trichotomy.)

This of course begs the question: "But who determines if the
objections are serious or not"? Maybe by a sort of logical relativism
your objections are as valid as my objections, are as valid as...
well as Archimedes Plutonium's! I don't even want to go there. I
just claim that in most situations there is an underlying logic which,
if understood in common, will lead most rational parties to similar
estimates of the Bayesian probabilities, or at least clarify where the
assignments substantially differ. This is a primitive assumption.

>Let's look at the sample-under-test. "I have very patiently put forth

>my position, and it is not 'well, maybe the detectors are all fubar'."

>Indeed, you have convinced me that a crisp and clean and
>hospital-corners experiment could kill off a classical t.o.i. (if the
>t.o.i. is so sharp it could draw blood splitting hairs), dead enough
>so that only a miracle could resurrect it.

Superb.

> The power of the macroscopic viewpoint is that we have the
> possibility that without adding any assumptions outside of itself
> the classical macroscopic world view can be hoist by its own
> petard.
>

>Ah, what a gulf here yawns! "The classical macroscopic world view"---
>not quite the same as that sharpened classical t.o.i., is it?

No it is not, and I made a mistake to write that. One of the benefits
of critical discussion is that it forces us to clean up our own
language. I meant the classical t.o.i, and specifically the _central_
classical t.o.i., as clarified in response to one of your objections.

I'm not sure this is so hair splittingly sharp (not like the
conditions of Haag's theorem, for example, which are so refined as to
make the result almost incomprehensible). I merely assumed the source
is the source and the detectors are the detectors and never the
twain shall meet. I never should have equated this with the
'classical world view' though, whatever that is.

> I would sign the death certificate though; for the
> classical t.o.i., that is (not LR).
>

>Now, did you say in one of your GHZ posts, words to this effect: yes,
>the GHZ experiment, if ever performed, will no doubt stream out the
> -1's with a boring uniformity matched only by typical TV fare, but
>no, this does not mean that local realism is dead. Or causality.
>
>Entirely consistent, yes? Good, I agree.

Good.

>So stepping back, can we agree on the answers to this T/F test:

<Hilarious pop quiz snipped>

Very nice. I only mention from the standpoint of statistical
significance you may want to reword a random subset of the questions
so that the correct answer is "true", otherwise the disaffected student
running a thick #2 pencil line down the F column will score 100. ;)

I do keep forgetting that the most vocal subset of a population is not
necessarily the best informed.

[WAPPLER FRANK]

Edward Green wrote:
> Michael Weiss <colu...@pleides.camb.opengroup.org> wrote:

> > How do they know the source produces electron-triplets in the
> > "special state"?

> Also irrelevant to the power of the results. All these questions are
> about things that go on behind the scenes. On the macroscopic black
> box level, we either get a violation or we don't.

Here you missed a fine (maybe too technical?) point that MW was making,
as well as Daryl McCullough and myself, a little earlier:

On the macroscopic black box level we can
_prepare_ a state (a "quantum state") by separating those with
macroscopic properties we'd like to retain from "all others",
and we can _analyze_ a state in terms of its macroscopic properties.

Some initial analysis procedure _is already part_ of the preparation,
statistically, any preparation is _only as certain_ as that initial
analysis.

Now, trying to obtain the "GHZ-state": | + + + > - | - - - >,
suppose that by systematic trials there had been identified
a "magic preparation method" to obtain states which, when their
"z components" are analyzed, will always either yield + + + or - - - .

(I could say: let's simply throw all others away, "reverse" those
which pass and be done. For reasons which will become clear immediatly,
that'd be a "bad idea in QM", it would be insufficient. So - let's just
say that some macroscopic "magic procedure" and the described outcomes
were found consistently correlated; the "magic procedure" prepares an
"interesting state".)

_How do you know_ if that corresponds to
| + + + > - | - - - > or | + + + > + | - - - > ???
(that makes a crucial difference in the anticipated experiment).

By separating those prepared states with a (one) subsequent measurement
of three "x or y components", keeping some and throwing out others?

But guess what such a measurement "does" to the "GHZ-state",
and the correlations you were hoping to obtain from it!
(And maybe some more skilled people can confirm your guess.)

I'd really like to know how the GHZ experiment could be performed at all!

Now to the more fundamental remaining question:
_Why_ does a subsequent analysis _not_ characterize the prepared state
simply more specificly than the initial method and why does this
"QM kinda thinking" apparently work so well in "microscopic experiments"?

Obviously, any _one_ observer can carry out only _one_
analysis/observation at a time (o.k., this defines "elementary", rather
than "microscopic") and we are modelling what groups of observers can
conclude if they relate their observations to each other
by assuming specific "generalized synchronization procedures".

We are starting _from scratch_ whenever we're considering
"a new observer" or "a new measurement":
Which experiments can they _in principle_ perform and what can they
conclude from their results (under specified assumptions)?
This approach makes a lot of sense when considering "microscopic observers"
who "we don't know anything about initially".

Note that even "human/sentient experimenters at the end of that chain"
are captured in this formalism; they may be macroscopic but still consider
themselves as "one/elementary wrt. their one shared set of observations".

That's a "theory of measurements". ("Talking ears" ... nice idea, IMHO :)

However:
The "power of the results" is limited by the "weakness of the assumptions".

Regards, Frank W ~@) R

p.s.
> I have just wandered in and started poking about [...]

"The sum of the difficulties is a constant." (Dr. Klaus Bernert)

[Michael Weiss]

Ed Green:

(you had to make it a trichotomy,
didn't you? Not a nice simple dichotomy, but a trichotomy.)

Actually I meant to imply a continuous spectrum--- and yes, of course
the dial carries a big red label, "Subjective Judgement!"

Eddington has a line somewhere that if Harry and Tom set off at right
angles, they are probably headed for different cities; but if they
diverge by 5 degrees, you might suspect that one has mistaken his way.
You and I may be diverging at right angles.

I am interested in a historical perspective. QM right now is the
reigning paradigm; Kuhn's scissors, "normal science is
puzzle-solving", snips out the interpretation tango. What's left is
(terminology alert!) the *QM paradigm*: rules of normal lab practice,
a bunch of computational rules, and the knowledge of how to apply the
rules. By and large the computations match the observations
remarkably well. An occasional mole is not necessarily a fatal
disease--- usually it's just another puzzle to be solved.

Drawing philosophical conclusions from the QM paradigm is tricky at
best. Proof: Bohr/Heisenberg/vonNeumann/Everett/Bohm/...

Sure, people feel that the Aspect experiment tells us *something*
about the steps of the interpretation tango--- yes, that's why it gets
the column inches and the endless threads here. But judging whether
the Aspect results support the QM paradigm--- that's just a normal
science question, just like asking whether the solar neutrino data is
strong enough to imply physics beyond the Standard Model (TM).

Some folk feel that the QM paradigm is incompatible with core
philosophical "truths". (Ray and Caroline certainly aren't the only
ones.) So they conclude the QM paradigm will be overthrown. I say:
quite possibly, and quite possibly not. Fun to discuss, anyway.

The QM paradigm, and *my* core philosophical beliefs, get along just
fine, thank you. Anyway I think philosophy has a poor track record as
a litmus test of scientific theories. Please note that I am quite
comfortable with the notion that the QM paradigm will be replaced.
Also with the notion that it won't.

OTOH, scientific theories have a poor track record as a source of
eternal philosophical verities. When Gary Zukov and Fritzhof Capra
were at the zenith of their popularity, the Dalai Lama came to CERN,
and met J.S.Bell. Bell felt it would be foolish for a religion
thousands of years old to look for support from a theory five decades
old, and he got the impression the Dalai Lama agreed.

And Ed Green's position?

[Edward Green]

Dan M. <sh...@wt.net> wrote:

>I honestly think that I understand your position. FWIW, I would maintain
>that I am not totally ignorant of philosophical issues. You know Ed,
>from previously discussions that I did get a BS degree in philosophy.
>I've studied a number of realistic philosophers from Aristotle, to Marx,
>to the British school, including logical positivism.

Ok. I apologize sincerely if anything I have written seems to impugn
your knowledge of Philosophy.

I am something of a practical philosopher myself -- and I don't mean in
the sense that I think 'philosophically' about practical issues (What's
in a cigar, sez I, but a present pleasure statistically increasing the
incidence of future pain). No, I think about damn impractical issues
-- my fascination with Bell should tell you that -- but I hope I think
about them, well, practically! That is, I hope in some small measure I
obtain logical results, or at least build a logical framework upon
which I can hang so-called philosophical contention.

I'm a practical philosopher in the same sense a hobbyist building the
all electronic dog collar is a 'practical' electrical engineer.

I think you may agree philosophy is in the pre-paradigm stage, as
sciences go. It looks to me (you may dispute this) as if there is no
widely accepted idea of progress, or results, or a commonly accepted
framework to hang these things on. A key indicator of pre-paradigm-hood
-- and please don't take this as some kind of criticism -- is the
continued requirement that modern practitioners read original texts. A
physicist may happily get through an entire career without reading a
word of Maxwell unless he had an historical bent to do so, while a
philosopher is expected to read the greats. Why? Because we don't
know how to effectively summarize what they said! We can't separate
the ideas from the words because we have no common logical system to
express them in; so each generation is expected to read the old texts
anew, lest something valuable be lost. (Of course reading original
works in physics is still felt to enrich our understanding --
indicating something may after all have been lost -- but it is not a
professional requirement).

I am about to turn on my friend Michael Weiss, for perhaps the tenth
time, and complain that in his last post he used 'philosophy' as a
synonym for 'prejudice'. I think if we mean 'prejudice' we might just
say so. The issues that fall to 'philosophy', at least to the
philosophy of science, are logical issues, and are capable of logical
analysis and clarification. They are not in some free-fire zone where
my prejudice is as good as your prejudice (ok, so I'm posturing for
effect) and hey, we all got our opinions. I understand why _de facto_
the pejorative description seems to be a social reality, because de
facto we post the notice 'Philosophy' over the quarter where all the
logical questions we are incapable of dealing with go at the end of the
day. So I agree with the poor perception of scientific philosophy as a
social observation, but a self-fulfilling one (don't expect much, don't
get much).

I'm far afield... the connection is, while study of various
philosophical schools may be enriching I'm not sure it is necessary to
handle practical philosophical questions. Most of the enduring
insights relevant to the philosophy of science can probably be put on
the back of an index card. I could be wrong.

>My opinion on the condition of local realism in light of the theory of QM
>and the extent of experimental evidence for spacelike correlations is
>that while local realism may not be dead at the moment, it is on the
>critical list. You can, quite effectively, argue for a metaphysical
>viewpoint that would allow for all effects to be local. However, I would
>argue, paraphrasing a former senator from the state I live in "I know
>realism, realism is a friend of mine, and that philosophy, sir, is not
>realism."

Ah... life is short and fleeting, and as a cheerful Siberian I met
recently said, every second is ticking towards our death! While I
appreciate profoundly your offer to discuss these issues at great
length, I find it unlikely from our past discussion that either of us
is going to budge the other 1 cm from his prior view, and so perhaps we
should just cordially agree to disagree before much time is spilled?

That said, I hypocritically address a few of your points. Last first:

'Local' I notice is the subject of endless semantic debates. Local is
a powerful word, and everybody seems to want it as decoration for his
favorite theory, the way an ecclesiastic may want to call his doctrine
'pious'. "Your theory is non-local", says A. "No, it _is_ local,
because...". If you examine things you find that A and B simply have
assigned different meanings to 'local': A means that any theory which
behaves the way B's theory behaves is not something _he_ would call
local, while B has some plausible definition of local which his theory
satisfies. But it's not as if things are ever expressed this
way: There is a usually a deep conviction that God himself would have
wanted local defined in a particular sense! Why don't we just tease out
the various plausible meanings and invent a language to express them?

On a similar note, Michael Weiss and I just got through a rather
painful if sometimes spirited discussion, where I believe, Oh miracle
of miracles, we actually managed to clarify some semantic distinctions
(semantic distinctions are logical distinctions, and so failure to make
them visible guarantees poor logic, because at some point we will
unknowingly substitute 'A' for 'B'): In particular we hashed out a
distinction between 'local realism' and the cumbersome '(central)
classical topology of influence'. I think this is important; the
latter is not just a fancy substitute for the former, but a
sufficiently precise idea that _could_ be sharply ruled out by
experiment, inputing as assumption only 'the classical (macroscopic)
world'; which is to say effectively the set of assumptions relating
to the permanence and behavior of macroscopic objects.

Now I'm not sure how far Michael followed me, but I argued that so far
we had not even killed off the _classical influence diagram_ for any
experiment (the t.o.i.), and this in effect was logically prior to
worrying about local realism. So for the moment, for me, the second
issue is mute, moot, and what's more, just doesn't talk to me. I'm
quite comfortable here, and frankly I think it unlikely that we would
move one step forward in conflict resolution. Since we don't actually
wish to kill each other perhaps we can just leave it this way?

Thanks again... I mean that sincerely. One quibble:

I object to the phrase 'we physicists' that you allowed to creep into
your post. This both distances me as an outsider and presumably not
an equal player, and implies that physicists are of some monolithic
opinion about these questions. I don't think either implication is
quite accurate. `

[Ray Tomes]

In article <ys04t80...@pleides.camb.opengroup.org>, Michael Weiss
<colu...@pleides.camb.opengroup.org> wrote:

>So stepping back, can we agree on the answers to this T/F test:

Hey, quizes are fun! I did this one, but thought that all the answers
being the same was a bit boring. So here is another question...

(k) T/F: All the answers are really "false"?

Ans: False

My reason for this is question (d).

>(d) T/F: OK, so mathematical certainty isn't in the dice. Therefore
> the cockeyed notions of Quantum "Embrace the Weirdness"
> Mechanics (TM) will certainly be tossed in the trash when the
> next paradigm shift arrives on the 6:02. The quantitative
> results will be preserved, but we can be damn sure that 21st
> century physicists will shake their heads in wonder at
> today's folly.

> Ans: False.

I do think that they will "shake their heads in wonder" at several of
todays ideas. Most notable amoung these will be Bell correlations.

I predict a return to belief in continuous fields as a complete
description of light (and even matter) and to a reintroduction of an
aether, though probably under another name.

-- Ray Tomes -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/rt-home.htm --
Cycles email list -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/af/cyc.htm

[Dan M.]

e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
>
> Dan M. <sh...@wt.net> wrote:

>>FWIW, I would maintain that I am not totally ignorant of philosophical

>>issues....

>Ok. I apologize sincerely if anything I have written seems to impugn
>your knowledge of Philosophy.

No, I was not insulted by you. However, since you have repeatedly
questioned the understanding of metaphysical implications of other
posters, I thought that it would be worthwhile to mention that I
have some understanding of philosophy...especially since I was about
to make a strong claim.

>I am something of a practical philosopher myself... think about damn
>impractical issues -- but I hope I think about them, well, practically!

>That is, I hope in some small measure I obtain logical results, or at
least build a logical framework upon which I can hang so-called
philosophical contention.

Well, I think I have a much more restricted view of logic than you do.
Personally, I would restrict logic to the basic principals of logic
developed by Aristotle and perhaps some of the modern additions. I
think, perhaps, you are including what philosophers are more likely
to call using reason to build up a basis for exploring the validity of
generalizations from science. Studying the main works in the history of
philosophy helps one understand the magnitude of difficulty in doing
this, but more on that later.
<snip>

>I think you may agree philosophy is in the pre-paradigm stage, as
>sciences go.

I think that there are a few main paradigms of philosophy that have
had their supporters through the ages. With Kuhn's multiple use of
paradigm, one could argue for a number of smaller paradigms under these
big umbrellas (such as idealism and realism).

>It looks to me (you may dispute this) as if there is no widely >accepted

idea of progress, or results, or a commonly accepted >framework to hang
these things on.

One significant difficulty with philosophy is that it is so hard to find
a good experimental metaphysicist. Take for example the favorite whipping
boy of philosophy: solipsism. I don't believe in it, you don't believe
in it, just about no-one seriously expouses it. However, there is no
experimental test to disprove it. Old paradigms are not quickly dropped
when new ones come along because there is no commonly accepted set of
rules for judging the paradigms. These rules do exist in the sciences.
Take for example one of the paradigm shifts that you get steamed about:
the Copernican revolution. I will agree with you that in the 1500's, a
very reasonable person could believe in a geocentric universe. However,
in the 1700s, it would be a very different story.

FWIW, this touches on another criticism you have had of those of us in
the newsgroup who strongly question the neoclassicists such as Caroline
and Ray. You see us degrading yesterday's theory as nonsense and today's
as the absolute truth. I would argue it is more along the lines of "well
a reasonable person may very well have taken the earth as the center of
the universe back in 1558, but now in the modern times of 1720, with
Newton's theory and all, its time to let go."

<snip>

>I'm far afield... the connection is, while study of various
>philosophical schools may be enriching I'm not sure it is necessary to
>handle practical philosophical questions. Most of the enduring
>insights relevant to the philosophy of science can probably be put on
>the back of an index card. I could be wrong.

There are two arguments against this. First, one can look at the
background of the Bohr, Heisenburg, et. al. Many of the people in the
Copenhagen school were formally trained in philosophy. Reading their
"popular" works after having studied some of the same philosophies they
have studied leads me to believe that they used their philosophical
breadth to help them understand "how the universe could be so weird."

Second, I've read philosophy of science and philosophy. Kuhn's work is
fine, its straightforward reading, but it just is not the same weight as
Wittgenstein, or Kant, or several others I could name. Many of the
latter works of philosophy have great relevance to the question of how
we determine general laws for the world, for the universe.

>>My opinion on the condition of local realism in light of the theory >>of QM

and the extent of experimental evidence for spacelike >>correlations is
that while local realism may not be dead at the >>moment, it is on the

critical list...

>While I appreciate profoundly your offer to discuss these issues at

great length, I find it unlikely from our past discussion that either >of
us is going to budge the other 1 cm from his prior view, and so >perhaps
we should just cordially agree to disagree before much time

>is spilled?

Only part of my offer directly related to reviving our purely
philosophical discussion. Actually more of it related to what axioms
about what constitutes valid science by scientists would have to be
discarded to preserve locality (or even the classical topology of
influence). I believe that after the cutting is done, one will have a
greatly diminished ability to distinguish between valid and invalid
theories. The logic behind this would be, that a proponent of COT (like
you) would be willing to discard traditional axioms of science J-P. I
would then counter that, with those assumptions gone, there is no way to
reject theory X. Presumedly, we both agree that theory X is not a valid
scientific theory and then we would examine whether my claim was true,
etc.

So, I was more proposing an examination of what axioms are really a
necessary part of a scientist's tool bag, and which could be discarded as
paradigm specific.

>Local' I notice is the subject of endless semantic debates... Why
>don't we just tease out he various plausible meanings and invent
> language to express them?

Well, I thought local was very simple: a theory is local if there
are no spacelike signals. A signal exists between A and B if
I can tell with a measurement at A what happened at B. With
hidden variable theories, if the theories involve a FTL signal
sent from A to B in some reality we have yet to measure, they
are non-local because with advances in technology we could get
there. QM has defined a more general form of locality: spacelike
operators must commute, which definitely fulfills the "no spacelike
signal" requirement of special relativity. Yes, there are spacelike
correlations, but (in QM) there is no way to tell anything about what
was done at A by making a measurement at B if A and B are spacelike.

I went back through 20 of your posts and do not have nearly as clear a
picture of classical topology of influence as I have of locality. Without
making you go through a long definition, could you please just tell me if
there is a correlation between spacelike measurement that cannot be
resolved in terms of things that are not spacelike, timing problems,
mislabeling of accidentals, detector efficiencies, etc., will the
classical topology of influence then be seen to be invalid?

<snip>

>I object to the phrase 'we physicists' that you allowed to creep into
>your post. This both distances me as an outsider and presumably not
>an equal player, and implies that physicists are of some monolithic
>opinion about these questions. I don't think either implication is
>quite accurate.

Well, I was trying to paraphrase you, so you have every right to
question my word choice. However, I don't think it is petty for me
to provide both my full quote and the text I was trying to paraphrase.

I wrote:

"However, you do take issue with the sweeping conclusions that we
physicists make about the results of experiments."

at an attempt to paraphrase your:

" I hate to be all wiser than Solomon and such, but I do seem to have
enjoyed a small advantage here: While you and the rest of the crew were

out slogging your way through fields of advanced quantum mechanics I

have just wandered in and started poking about, and I found a door
leading behind the exhibit marked 'Aspect', and I opened it and took a
peek at the mechanism. Now this doesn't replace whatever manly survival
skills were acquired through those years of field work, and I can't
participate in your shop discussions about the strange wave functions
you have seen and the day you were almost gored by a Hilbert vector; but
somehow none of this overturns the fact that I have seen the logical
mechanism, damn it, and it's simple (at least once you have gotten used

to it... now that I recollect, the door wasn't that easy to open)..."

"we physicists" was a substitute for " you and the rest of the crew
(who) were out slogging your way through fields of advanced quantum
mechanics."

I think that quote indicates that the group you were referring too a
group of people who do quantum mechanics professionally missing
a logical mechanism. I tried to summarize that by talking about
sweeping conclusions..

Rereading, I still don't see how I was that far off from what was
written. Perhaps the person who writes it changes the perspective? I
know that you are as thrilled with the connotation that you are a
foolish outsider as I am thrilled with the connotation that physicist do
not know what they are doing.

I think your own writings identify you as outside the community of
physicists, while my and other people post from the experience of having
done our apprenticeships in physics. I would offer the position that,
when it comes to the commonly held practices of working scientists, you
come with a creative naivety. You have not learned the craft from those
who came before, which involves both advantages and disadvantages. The
advantage is that you can see the "elephant in the living room" that the
family of scientists have been ignoring (to borrow from family therapy).
The disadvantage is that you do not have the same understanding of what
experiments have been done to test the variety of assumptions that goes
into any theory. In other words, you can question an assumption in an
experiment without having a feel for whether that assumption is an a
priori assumption of the present paradigm or one that is made for this
experiment because it has been tested to death by thousands of others, or
it is an assumption that is inherent in the scientific method.

We are not all monolithic, and have a wide variety of metaphysical
viewpoints. You have, however, in suggesting that conclusions have been
reached by less than perfect reasoning, have suggested possibilities that
go against the assumptions of most of the experimentalists that I know.
When basic technique is questioned, the whole family does tend to get
together, even though there are major differences in religion, politics,
metaphysics , etc. I would suggest a discussion of what must get tossed
to preserve the classical topology of influence might be worthwhile.

[jmfb...@ma.ultranet.com]

In article <8737711...@dejanews.com>, sh...@wt.net (Dan M.) wrote:
> e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
>>
>> Dan M. <sh...@wt.net> wrote:
>
>>>FWIW, I would maintain that I am not totally ignorant of philosophical
>>>issues....
>
>>Ok. I apologize sincerely if anything I have written seems to impugn
>>your knowledge of Philosophy.
>
>No, I was not insulted by you. However, since you have repeatedly
>questioned the understanding of metaphysical implications of other
>posters, I thought that it would be worthwhile to mention that I
>have some understanding of philosophy...especially since I was about
>to make a strong claim.
>

<snip>
>
>>I think you may agree philosophy is in the pre-paradigm stage, as
>>sciences go.
>
>I think that there are a few main paradigms of philosophy that have
>had their supporters through the ages. With Kuhn's multiple use of
>paradigm, one could argue for a number of smaller paradigms under these
>big umbrellas (such as idealism and realism).
>
>>It looks to me (you may dispute this) as if there is no widely
>accepted
>
>idea of progress, or results, or a commonly accepted >framework to hang
>these things on.
>
>One significant difficulty with philosophy is that it is so hard to find
>a good experimental metaphysicist. Take for example the favorite whipping
>boy of philosophy: solipsism. I don't believe in it, you don't believe
>in it, just about no-one seriously expouses it. However, there is no

>experimental test to disprove it.....

<snip>

Wouldn't "Pinch me." be a good test?

/BAH - subtract twenty for e-mail -- this is _NOT_ a solicitation

[Dan M.]

jmfb...@ma.ultranet.com wrotem quoting me:

> >One significant difficulty with philosophy is that it is so hard to find
> >a good experimental metaphysicist. Take for example the favorite whipping
> >boy of philosophy: solipsism. I don't believe in it, you don't believe
> >in it, just about no-one seriously expouses it. However, there is no

> >experimental test to disprove it.....
>
> <snip>
>
> Wouldn't "Pinch me." be a good test?

Only if you presuppose that the senses have something to do with external
reality, which is the subject under question. Heck, that won't even work
against the "am I just dreaming this" arguement. I've experienced pain in
dreams.

[Hitech]

Fodder for the cannon:

Bell*s theorem theoretically proved that the prediction of conventional
quantum mechanics is different from the prediction of *any* theory that
assumes reality is local. Local means that a measurement performed at one
detector has no effect on a measurement performed at a remote detector.
Conversely, non-local means that a measurement performed at one detector
can have effect on a measurement performed at a remote detector regardless
of the spacetime interval separating the detectors.

Even without performing a single experiment, Bell*s proof that QM predicts
non-local effects is very significant. Physicists and mathematicians have
closely examined the proof for over 33 years in an attempt to uncover a
theoretical flaw. None has been found.

Bell*s theorem describes an experiment and derives (mathematically) the
outcome of the experiment. For any theory that assumes reality is local
the outcome of the experiment is a correlation of experimental results
that must produce a value between -2 and +2. The exact value is unknown
since the local-reality theory itself is unspecified, but the value must
lie within the range of -2 to +2. That is, regardless of what form any
local-reality theory takes, John Bell proved that all local-reality
theories must produce correlation values between -2 and +2. This
local-reality proof was derived *completely* independent of QM.

The local-reality proof is the first part of Bell*s theorem. The second
part of the theorem is a proof of what QM predicts for the same
experiment. Bell*s theorem proves that QM predicts a correlation value of
+2.83 for the same experiment. The QM prediction of +2.83 clearly exceeds
the upper limit of +2 for the local-reality case. Therefore, Bell*s
theorem proves that QM is not a local-reality theory even without
performing a single experiment. However, Nature may not agree with Bell*s
theorem so experiments are essential.

The genius of the experiment described in Bell*s theorem is that the
experiment forces Nature to reveal one of its most important secrets,
namely is a correct theory of the quantum world a local-reality theory or
a non-local reality theory. A correlation value outside the range of -2
to +2 would rule out any local theory as being a correct description of
the quantum world. A correlation value outside of the local-reality range
and significantly different from +2.83, say +3.5, would rule out both QM
and any local-reality theory as a correct description of the quantum
world.

Obviously, the results of experiments testing Bell*s theorem are extremely
important to the physics community. So far the experimental results are
showing values close to +2.83. If these results represent the true nature
of the quantum world (and obviously there are many posters in sci.physics
saying they do not believe the results), then not only is a correct theory
of the quantum world not local, but QM *may* be the correct theory. If QM
is not the correct theory, then any theory replacing QM must account for
these non-local effects.

In 1935 Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen wrote a paper *Can Quantum Mechanics
Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?* This paper
proposed a thought experiment, referred to as EPR paradox, that was
actually experimentally insufficient to resolve the proposed paradox. It
was not until 1964 that an experiment sufficient to resolve this paradox
was discovered. This is the brillance of John Bell.

So how would Einstein react to Bell*s theorem and the experimental results
if he were alive today? My speculation is that if Einstein were in his
prime, he would embrace these results as he embraced the MM experimental
results and create a new theory of gravity based upon non-local quantum
effects.

[LBsys]

Im Artikel <5vc9ah$c...@examiner.concentric.net>, Hit...@cris.com (Hitech)
schreibt:

>So how would Einstein react to Bell*s theorem and the experimental results
>if he were alive today?

Thank you, HiTech, for this paper, which in short is the best on the
Bell/EPR complex I have come across on usenet since I started reading about
Bell and EPR more than 12 months ago.

Mr. FAQ keeper: Care to take that text (save the last paragraph and
provided the other facts are as correct as they are put down precise and
clear) into the FAQ? I'm sure that would help any novice on that field.

Cheerio

All professions are conspiracies against laymen (G.B.S.)
______________________________________________
L. Borsche, http://members.aol.com/lbsys5

[jmfb...@ma.ultranet.com]

In article <8741022...@dejanews.com>, sh...@wt.net (Dan M.) wrote:
> jmfb...@ma.ultranet.com wrotem quoting me:

>
>> >One significant difficulty with philosophy is that it is so
>> >hard to find
>> >a good experimental metaphysicist. Take for example the favorite
>> >whipping boy of philosophy: solipsism. I don't believe in it, you
>> >don't believe in it, just about no-one seriously expouses it.

>> >However, there is no experimental test to disprove it.....

>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> Wouldn't "Pinch me." be a good test?
>
>Only if you presuppose that the senses have something to do with external
>reality, which is the subject under question. Heck, that won't even work
>against the "am I just dreaming this" arguement. I've experienced pain in
>dreams.

Experiencing pain in dreams show a feedback mechanism. Saying "pinch me"
to somebody can show a correlation between communication and this feedback
mechanism. Communication tied with the feedback mechanism shows the
existence of another reality. Feeling the pinch shows that the two
realities co-exist, can communicate with each other, and, therefore, can
establish axioms together.

/BAH

[sh...@wt.net]

> >> Wouldn't "Pinch me." be a good test?
> >
> >Only if you presuppose that the senses have something to do with external
> >reality, which is the subject under question. Heck, that won't even work

> >against the "am I just dreaming this" argument. I've experienced pain in

> >dreams.
>
> Experiencing pain in dreams show a feedback mechanism. Saying "pinch me"
> to somebody can show a correlation between communication and this feedback
> mechanism. Communication tied with the feedback mechanism shows the
> existence of another reality. Feeling the pinch shows that the two
> realities co-exist, can communicate with each other, and, therefore, can
> establish axioms together.
>
> /BAH

What if I dream that I am pinched after saying "pinch me"? If we can
establish that communication existed, then we show outside
existence. However, you presume outside existence when you call
it communication.

Now, please do not think that I believe that I exist by myself.
The fact that people do not walk in front of cars indicates that
most people do indeed believe that cars hitting them at least
corresponds to external existence. My philosophical leanings
are neo-Kantiant. IMHO, Kant did a passable job of trying to
unite empiricism and scholasticism; realism and idealism in
his work.

The most interesting aspect of the Bell inequality is the
inconsistency with local realism. My reply to Ed
was, basically, an invitation to explore whether the elimination
of assumptions inherent in the scientific method that would be
required to retain a local explanation would allow for the
explanation of Bell's inequality to still be considered
realistic. I'm referring to hidden detector efficiency
dependencies, erroneous results reported in multiple experiments,
etc. Ed and I (I think) agree on the potential to reinterpret
valid experiments (such as a no aether E&M) in science. He
puts forth that this may still be possible for QM and his
classical influence diagrams (I think that's the latest term).
I think not, but allow that I would need to prove this.

Finally, I firmly believe in the existance of others and our
ability to agree upon axioms. All I am stating is that neither
I nor you can prove this to someone who does not concur on
the axioms.

Dan M.

--

Posted using Reference.COM http://www.reference.com
Browse, Search and Post Usenet and Mailing list Archive and Catalog.

InReference, Inc. accepts no responsibility for the content of this posting.

[WAPPLER FRANK]

> Bell*s theorem theoretically proved that the prediction of
> conventional quantum mechanics is different from the prediction
> of *any* theory that assumes reality is local.

I find it more cautious to say:
"Bell's theorem is a theoretical proof of ..."

> Local means that a measurement performed at one detector has no
> effect on a measurement performed at a remote detector.
> Conversely, non-local means that a measurement performed at one
> detector can have effect on a measurement performed at a remote
> detector regardless of the spacetime interval separating the detectors.

> Bell*s theorem describes an experiment and derives (mathematically)

> the outcome of the experiment. For any theory that assumes reality is
> local the outcome of the experiment is a correlation of experimental
> results that must produce a value between -2 and +2.

Apparently you are referring to the so-called
"Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality".

> [...] Physicists and mathematicians have closely examined the proof

> for over 33 years in an attempt to uncover a theoretical flaw.
> None has been found.

Nothing is more convincing than trying/verifying that _yourself_,
taking _guidance_ from originators/whoever has done it before.

So, let's say we have four sets of trials where we've recorded
for each trial two (locally separated) outcomes/measurements and
the trial number (to track possible "hidden features" of each trial).
That's eight sets of numbers P( outcomes, trial# ):

P( a, u ), P( b, u ), P( c, v ), P( d, v ),
P( e, w ), P( f, w ), P( g, x ), and P( h, x ),

Where the assumed local independence is

The assumed local independence in each trial allows the following
expression for joint outcomes for each set of trials (1):

P( a, b ) = Sum{ u }_[ P( a, u ) P( b, u ) ]
P( c, d ) = Sum{ v }_[ P( c, v ) P( d, v ) ]
P( e, f ) = Sum{ w }_[ P( e, w ) P( f, w ) ]
P( g, h ) = Sum{ x }_[ P( g, x ) P( h, x ) ]

When analysing, we may want to correlate certain outcomes
in some sets of trial with certain outcomes in other sets;
let them be related through functions (of our choice) (2):
d( a ), e( b ), g( c ), h( f ).

Now let's follow what's suggested to "do with that"
(J.S. Bell, Speakable and unspeakable in QM, p.36 may be handy):

Form P( a, b ) - P( c, d( a ) ).

P( a, b ) - P( c, d( a ) ) =
Sum{ u }_[ P( a, u ) P( b, u ) ] - Sum{ v }_[ P( c, v ) P( d( a ), v ) ].

Since there is only _one_ integral/sum written, we should try the same,
choosing some match v( u ) between the trial numbers of the sets.

P( a, b ) - P( c, d( a ) ) =
Sum{ u }_[ P( a, u ) P( b, u ) - P( c, v( u ) ) P( d( a ), v( u ) ) ].

Now we add an "active zero" in the sum, matching trial numbers w( u ),
and x( u ) as we do that

+ P( a, u ) P( b, u ) P( g( c ), x( u ) ) P( h( f ), x( u ) )
- P( d( a ), v( u ) ) P( e( b ), w( u ) ) P( c, v( u ) ) P( f, w( u ) ).

Now the P( a, u ) P( b, u ) and the P( d( a ), v( u ) ) P( c, v( u ) )
are collected ... wait a minute:

Was that _really_ an "active zero"?
With so many functions in there which we "just chose" without much
worrying (especially those between the trial numbers)?

The text proceeds to drop certain terms ...
(let's try a different technique :)

(Based on A. Shimony, chpt. 15 in "The New Physics", p. 385)

Real numbers -1 =< A, B, C, F =< 1 satisfy
| AB - AC | + | BF + CF | =< 2.

If we let the P( a, u ), etc. be real numbers between -1 and 1 (3),
and then sum over trials u (and normalize) then ...

... we run into "the same problem":

P( a, u ) and P( d( a ), v( u ) ) are _not_ the same real number A
_unless_ a and d( a ) are carefully matched (can be done since they
come both from a know/predefined set of possible outcomes) and
u and v( u ), the individual trial numbers of the two sets,
are carefully matched ...
... but any match of trial numbers seems quite arbitrary to me.

If _you_ have verified the discussed expression (or related ones),
probably using (1), (2), and (3), I'd appreciate your guidance
(i.e. "food for thought" :)
and I could proceed by using them to analyze experiments and find
out if and how they differentiate various descriptions of nature.

Thanks, Frank W ~@) R

[Ray Tomes]

In article <5vc9ah$c...@examiner.concentric.net>, Hit...@cris.com
(Hitech) wrote:

>Even without performing a single experiment, Bell*s proof that QM predicts

>non-local effects is very significant. Physicists and mathematicians have

>closely examined the proof for over 33 years in an attempt to uncover a
>theoretical flaw. None has been found.

So was it in fact Bell's intention to say that QM was daft?

[KRamsay]

In article <5uhdal$n...@panix2.panix.com>, e...@panix.com

(Edward Green) writes:
|On top of that I see a philosophical confusion in the
|position attributed to Neils Bohr: A kind of mystical orgasm is
|achieved in connection with the simple idea that which experiment is
|not conducted has no outcome. No kidding. The key fantasy ingredient
|lies in misunderstanding the idea that the 'outcome of measurement' may
|have many antecedents, no one of which may necessarily dominate, with
|the vague 'nothing is there until we measure it'.
|
|I state quite bluntly that the score on this one is so far Me 1, Net
|0: No one has correctly received this simple bone headed observation.

Could you maybe elaborate a little? It seems you've read something
attributed to Neils Bohr which you think is confused, but I am not
finding it clear just what you think is confused.

Keith Ramsay There is nothing on this earth, and little beyond it,
kra...@aol.com that nobody ever denounces. -- Matt McIrvin

[Jacques M. Mallah]

Hitech (Hit...@cris.com) wrote:
> Bell*s theorem theoretically proved that the prediction of conventional
> quantum mechanics is different from the prediction of *any* theory that
> assumes reality is local.

Except for the many worlds interpretation, of course. (Or
strong determinism for that matter.) See my web page for details.

- - - - - - -
Jacques Mallah (jqm...@is2.nyu.edu)
Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
My URL: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/

[Hitech]

In article <342b61d2....@aklobs.org.nz>,

Ray Tomes <rto...@kcbbs.gen.nz> wrote:
>In article <5vc9ah$c...@examiner.concentric.net>, Hit...@cris.com
>(Hitech) wrote:
>
>>Even without performing a single experiment, Bell*s proof that QM predicts
>>non-local effects is very significant. Physicists and mathematicians have
>>closely examined the proof for over 33 years in an attempt to uncover a
>>theoretical flaw. None has been found.
>
>So was it in fact Bell's intention to say that QM was daft?

Why leave it up to Mother Nature? :-)

Maybe you would appreciate the following quote:

-------------------
What an abyss of uncertainty, whenever the mind feels overtaken by itself;

when it, the seeker, is at the same time the dark region through which it
must go seeking and where all its equipment will avail it nothing.

Seek?

More than that: create.

It is face to face with something which does not yet exist, to which it
alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the
light of day.

-- Marcel Proust
-------------------

BTW, much of what I posted can be found in much more detail in the
following book which was edited by John Bell:

Einstein*s Moon - Bell's Theorem and the Curious Quest for Quantum Reality
by David Peat.

[Dan M.]

In article <5vha47$5g$1...@news.nyu.edu>,

jqm...@is2.nyu.edu (Jacques M. Mallah) wrote:
>
> Hitech (Hit...@cris.com) wrote:
> > Bell*s theorem theoretically proved that the prediction of conventional
> > quantum mechanics is different from the prediction of *any* theory that
> > assumes reality is local.
>
> Except for the many worlds interpretation, of course. (Or
> strong determinism for that matter.) See my web page for details.
>

I've been told that most multi-worlders don't take it quite literally. If
one does, then when there is a measurement with a .00001 prob., there
will be 99999 worlds where it doesn't happen and 1 where it does. Good
grief, my tool alone, producing ~10^11 gammas/second all having probs of
scattering off various and sundry electrons, etc. While probably not
literally an infinity, the number of worlds that have sprung into
existence since my birth would be practically infinite.

Also, one would have to argue that there were, say 10^11 worlds in which
I did not kill my wife on June 5, 1981 at 12:01:01 AM, and 1 in which I
did, and the same at 12:01:02, and so on. I have a hard time accepting
that I did everything I possibly could have.

While I am not arguing that this is impossible because I can't prove it
wrong, I would argue it is not realism, because it contains a virtual
infinity of unseen, unseeable universes being created at every moment.

[Paul Budnik]

Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:
[...]
: Obviously, the results of experiments testing Bell*s theorem are extremely

: important to the physics community. So far the experimental results are
: showing values close to +2.83. If these results represent the true nature
: of the quantum world (and obviously there are many posters in sci.physics
: saying they do not believe the results), then not only is a correct theory
: of the quantum world not local, but QM *may* be the correct theory. If QM
: is not the correct theory, then any theory replacing QM must account for
: these non-local effects.

It is not a question of believing the results but understanding what
those results imply. They do not imply non local affects and they do
not imply that nature violates Bell's inequality. The existing experiments
have not ruled out local explanations. See:

Kwiat, P. G. and Eberhard, P. H. and Steinberg, A. M. and Chiao, R. Y.,
"Proposal for a Loophole-free Bell Inequality Experiment",
Physical Review A, V. 49, p 3209, 1994.

to understand why the existing experiments are inconclusive.

[...]

: So how would Einstein react to Bell*s theorem and the experimental results
: if he were alive today? My speculation is that if Einstein were in his

: prime, he would embrace these results as he embraced the MM experimental
: results and create a new theory of gravity based upon non-local quantum
: effects.

There is nothing in the existing experimental record that would
alter Einstein's expressed opinion of QM and locality:

However, Einstein never had a good word for the relativity version of
quantum mechanics known as quantum field theory. Its successes did not
impress him. Once, in 1912, he said of the quantum theory the more
successful it is the sillier it looks. When speaking of successful
physical theories, he would, in his later years, quote the example
of the old gravitational theory. Had newton not been successful for
more than two centuries? And had his theory not turned out to be
incomplete.
--_Subtle is the Lord_, Abraham Pais, page 24

If Einstein had lived to see Bell's result I think the issue would have
been settled long ago because he would have insisted on a truly effective
experiment and he would have had the authority to make certain that such
an experiment what have been conducted as soon as it was practical to do
so. I think this would have enormously advanced the progress of physics
because I think a truly effective experiment will open an experimental
window on a new level of physical reality that includes a physically
observable quantum collapse process.
--
Paul Budnik
pa...@mtnmath.com, http://www.mtnmath.com

[Hitech]

In article <5vefpt$5...@maenad.csc.albany.edu>,

WAPPLER FRANK <fw7...@csc.albany.edu> wrote:
>
>... but any match of trial numbers seems quite arbitrary to me.

I am not much of a believer in determinism, but hey, we each have our
cross to bear.

Good luck.

[Hitech]

In article <5vl44k$1h0$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
>[...]

>
>If Einstein had lived to see Bell's result I think the issue would have
>been settled long ago because he would have insisted on a truly effective
>experiment and he would have had the authority to make certain that such
>an experiment what have been conducted as soon as it was practical to do
>so.

Einstein had his chance to specify an experiment to resolve the EPR
paradox. He tried and failed.

> I think this would have enormously advanced the progress of physics
>because I think a truly effective experiment will open an experimental
>window on a new level of physical reality that includes a physically
>observable quantum collapse process.

Agreed, the collapse is observed each time that a photon is detected.
Non-local does not deny this observation. What is your point, that the
process is not instantaneous???

[WAPPLER FRANK]

Hitech wrote:
> Good luck.

Perhaps (not to push my luck too far :), two straightforward examples
are in order.

Let's again consider four sets of trials where we record eight
sets of ( outcome, trialnumber ):
( a, u ), ( b, u ), ( c, v ), ( d, v ),
( e, w ), ( f, w ), ( g, x ), and ( h, x ),

and let the sets of outcomes
{ a }, { d }, { f }, and { h } have elements 1+, and 1-,
{ b }, { c }, { e }, and { g } have elements 2+, and 2-
(modelling two possible outcomes at two detectors in each set of trials).

Finally assign the distribution
P( 1+, 2+, trialnumber) = P( 1-, 2-, trialnumber) = +1, and
P( 1+, 2-, trialnumber) = P( 1-, 2+, trialnumber) = -1

Example 1:
Assume all four sets measured "perfect correlation":
For all trials numbers u, v, w, and x, resp., we have
(a, b, u) == (1+, 2+, u) or (1-, 2-, u);
(c, d, v) == (1+, 2+, v) or (1-, 2-, v);
(e, f, w) == (1+, 2+, w) or (1-, 2-, w);
(g, h, x) == (1+, 2+, x) or (1-, 2-, x).

For the puropse of analysis, we chose the relation of individual
outcomes between the different sets of trials:

d( a ) == d( 1+ ) = 1-, and d( 1- ) = 1+;
e( b ) == e( 1+ ) = 1+, and e( 1- ) = 1-;
g( c ) == g( 1+ ) = 1+, and g( 1- ) = 1-;
h( f ) == h( 1+ ) = 1+, and h( 1- ) = 1-.

Now express:

P( a, b ) - P( d( a ), c ) + P( f, e( b ) ) + P( h( f ), g( c ) ) =

Sum{ u }_[ P( a, b, u ) - P( d( a ), c, v( u ) )
+ P( f, e( b ), w( u ) ) + P( h( f ), g( c ), x( u ) ) ]/
Sum{ u }_[ 1 ]

Sum{ u }_[ 1 - (-1) + 1 + 1 ]/Sum{ u }_[ 1 ] = 4

(regardless of the specific maps v( u ), w( u ), and x( u ) since between
trial numbers because the P() have the same value for all trial numbers
in the individual sets).

Example 2:
Assume the three sets measured "perfect correlation":
(a, b, u) == (1+, 2+, u) or (1-, 2-, u);
(e, f, w) == (1+, 2+, w) or (1-, 2-, w);
(g, h, x) == (1+, 2+, x) or (1-, 2-, x),

and one set measured "no correlation":
(c, d, v) has equally many correlated outcomes (1+, 2+, v) or (1-, 2-, v)
as it has anti-correlated outcomes (1+, 2-, v) or (1-, 2+, v).

For the puropse of analysis, we chose the relation of individual
outcomes between the different sets of trials:

d( a ) == d( 1+ ) = 1+, and d( 1- ) = 1-;
e( b ) == e( 1+ ) = 1+, and e( 1- ) = 1-;
g( c ) == g( 1+ ) = 1+, and g( 1- ) = 1-;
h( f ) == h( 1+ ) = 1+, and h( 1- ) = 1-.

Now express:

P( a, b ) - P( d( a ), c ) + P( f, e( b ) ) + P( h( f ), g( c ) ) =

Sum{ v }_[ P( a, b, u( v ) ) - P( d( a ), c, v )
+ P( f, e( b ), w( v ) ) + P( h( f ), g( c ), x( v ) ) ]/
Sum{ v }_[ 1 ]

where we sum over v such that the sum will be explicitly independent
from our choice of the maps between trial numbers u( v ), w( v ), and
x( v ), since all P( a, b, u ) have the same value, and
P( f, e( b ), w ) and P( h( f ), g( c ), x ) as well.

We obtain

(Sum{ v-correlated }_[ 1 - 1 + 1 + 1 ] +
Sum{ v-anti-correlated }_[ 1 - (-1) + 1 + 1 ])/Sum{ v }_[ 1 ] = 3

Note that the measurements in the trials of both examples
("perfect correlation" and "no correlation") are valid assumptions
for "local deterministic models" _as well as_ QM models (always assuming
perfect detector efficiency), yet the evaluated expressions _not only_
exceeded the "limit" 2 put by the "Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt ineqiality"
which means to apply for "local deterministic models" _but even_
the "limit" 2 sqrt( 2 ) put by (an instance of) the "Tsirelson inequality",
which means to apply for QM models.

That means that neither "inequality" holds for the considered
experimental case of four independent sets of trials.
Perhaps there's some interest in exploring to which experimental
situations they _actually apply_. In any case, their "violation" in
experiments with independent trials cannot surprise and doesn't
allow conclusions about "underlying models".

> I am not much of a believer in determinism, but hey, we each have our
> cross to bear.

Me neither, too.
Best regards, Frank W ~@) R

[Jacques M. Mallah]

Dan M. (sh...@wt.net) wrote:
> I've been told that most multi-worlders don't take it quite literally.

By who? Sure we do.

> grief, my tool alone, producing ~10^11 gammas/second all having probs of
> scattering off various and sundry electrons, etc. While probably not
> literally an infinity, the number of worlds that have sprung into

It would help if you looked at my home page. It is not accurate
to say that worlds spring into existance in the MWI. Rather, there is
always the wavefunction, obeying the wave equation. It does tend to
evolve into configurations with various areas of more activity, or
'branches'.

> Also, one would have to argue that there were, say 10^11 worlds in which
> I did not kill my wife on June 5, 1981 at 12:01:01 AM, and 1 in which I
> did, and the same at 12:01:02, and so on. I have a hard time accepting
> that I did everything I possibly could have.

You use the term 'I' improperly. It does not refer to people with
vastly different experiences from your own.
My home page explains the computationalist point of view, in which
observations - such as yours - are related to particular computations that
are implemented by the wavefunction. Yes, the MWI would then imply that
there exist implementations of computations, which are similar in many
ways to your own, which invole OJ-like experiences.
The number of implementations is infinite; the fraction of them
associated with each type of computation, is the 'effective probability'
that an experience will be of that type.

[Ray Tomes]

In article <5vl44k$1h0$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com>
wrote:

>There is nothing in the existing experimental record that would

>alter Einstein's expressed opinion of QM and locality:
>
> However, Einstein never had a good word for the relativity version of
> quantum mechanics known as quantum field theory. Its successes did not
> impress him. Once, in 1912, he said of the quantum theory the more
> successful it is the sillier it looks. When speaking of successful
> physical theories, he would, in his later years, quote the example
> of the old gravitational theory. Had newton not been successful for
> more than two centuries? And had his theory not turned out to be
> incomplete.
> --_Subtle is the Lord_, Abraham Pais, page 24

Hey Paul, I hope that we don't take over 200 years this time!

[Edward Green]

Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:

>Einstein had his chance to specify an experiment to resolve the EPR
>paradox. He tried and failed.

There is no 'EPR-paradox'.

If there were, one could hardly specify an experiment to resolve it.

A paradox is evidence of logical inconsistency.

Despite all the confusion, posturing, and dare I say outright
gibbering, Bell's work allows us in principle to rule out one very
narrow possibility: That the results of certain experiments are
consistent with a certain classical influence diagram.

I bluntly state that during the time I have been posting on this only
a few people have shown any inclination to stretch their understanding
beyond some level frozen into amber years ago.

I have not made personal progress myself in over a year, after I
painfully plucked one foot out of the hardening resin. At least I
know this.

[Edward Green]

Jacques M. Mallah <jqm...@is2.nyu.edu> wrote:

>Hitech (Hit...@cris.com) wrote:
>> Bell*s theorem theoretically proved that the prediction of conventional
>> quantum mechanics is different from the prediction of *any* theory that
>> assumes reality is local.
>
> Except for the many worlds interpretation, of course. (Or
>strong determinism for that matter.) See my web page for details.

Et tu? I thought you called it _over_ determinism. Oh well, my
mistake.

We risk non-communication through multiple extant senses of local.

[Edward Green]

KRamsay <kra...@aol.com> wrote:

>In article <5uhdal$n...@panix2.panix.com>, e...@panix.com
>(Edward Green) writes:
>|On top of that I see a philosophical confusion in the
>|position attributed to Neils Bohr: A kind of mystical orgasm is

N.B. "attributed to".

>|achieved in connection with the simple idea that which experiment is
>|not conducted has no outcome. No kidding. The key fantasy ingredient
>|lies in misunderstanding the idea that the 'outcome of measurement' may
>|have many antecedents, no one of which may necessarily dominate, with
>|the vague 'nothing is there until we measure it'.
>|
>|I state quite bluntly that the score on this one is so far Me 1, Net
>|0: No one has correctly received this simple bone headed observation.
>
>Could you maybe elaborate a little?

Yes, but experience teaches me the futility of this.

>It seems you've read something
>attributed to Neils Bohr which you think is confused,

This is a characteristic misreading of yours: Ed Green against the
wisdom of the ancients.

>but I am not
>finding it clear just what you think is confused.

Very well... hope triumphs over experience.

No... experience triumphs over hope.

[Edward Green]

Dan M. <sh...@wt.net> wrote:

>>That is, I hope in some small measure I obtain logical results, or at
>least build a logical framework upon which I can hang so-called
>philosophical contention.
>
>Well, I think I have a much more restricted view of logic than you do.
>Personally, I would restrict logic to the basic principals of logic
>developed by Aristotle and perhaps some of the modern additions. I
>think, perhaps, you are including what philosophers are more likely
>to call using reason

True. I'm not making a distinction. 'Logic-deaf' sounds so much more
incisive than 'reason-deaf'. Reason has extraneous connotations, as
in 'be reasonable'. I mean logic, but not necessarily formalized logic.

>to build up a basis for exploring the validity of
>generalizations from science. Studying the main works in the history of
>philosophy helps one understand the magnitude of difficulty in doing
>this, but more on that later.

I haven't seen any insurmountable problems, except that of
communication. This is indeed insurmountable, and so I pretty much
am ready to give up.

>Take for example one of the paradigm shifts that you get steamed about:

Am I an expresso maker now?

>the Copernican revolution. I will agree with you that in the 1500's, a
>very reasonable person could believe in a geocentric universe. However,
>in the 1700s, it would be a very different story.

A more reasonable person will conclude the question is ill-posed.

>FWIW, this touches on another criticism you have had of those of us in

Oooh... criticism! Not that!

>the newsgroup who strongly question the neoclassicists such as Caroline
>and Ray. You see us degrading yesterday's theory as nonsense and today's
>as the absolute truth. I would argue it is more along the lines of "well
>a reasonable person may very well have taken the earth as the center of
>the universe back in 1558, but now in the modern times of 1720, with
>Newton's theory and all, its time to let go."

So say you. I say maybe this is a fair analogy, and maybe it is not.
We are never, ever going to agree. I foresee this. This is futile.

>>I'm far afield... the connection is, while study of various
>>philosophical schools may be enriching I'm not sure it is necessary to
>>handle practical philosophical questions. Most of the enduring
>>insights relevant to the philosophy of science can probably be put on
>>the back of an index card. I could be wrong.
>
>There are two arguments against this. First, one can look at the
>background of the Bohr, Heisenburg, et. al. Many of the people in the
>Copenhagen school were formally trained in philosophy. Reading their
>"popular" works after having studied some of the same philosophies they
>have studied leads me to believe that they used their philosophical
>breadth to help them understand "how the universe could be so weird."

Jesus H. Christ. How I detest the word 'weird'. I use it ironically,
because it is always larded with the psycho-a-logical,
connotation that A won't accept B because it violates some 'cherished
metaphysical belief'. It is some people's favorite mental posture.
It is apparently part of the pre-posting course required of all new
posturers to sci.physics.

I'd say the Great Heavy Fathers didn't quite digest their
philosophical lessons well enough. Heisenberg for example seems to
have had some laughably naive pseudo-Skinnerian positivist postures.
I'm not really sure about Bohr. I know his thought mainly by
attribution, no doubt distorted. Maybe he didn't always know his own
thought himself. As I said to Keith R., a key idea attributed to
Bohr seems to be a confusion of a very simple idea. Whether Bohr was
confused or his conduits I don't know, nor do I much care.

>Second, I've read philosophy of science and philosophy. Kuhn's work is
>fine, its straightforward reading, but it just is not the same weight as
>Wittgenstein, or Kant, or several others I could name. Many of the
>latter works of philosophy have great relevance to the question of how
>we determine general laws for the world, for the universe.

We guess them by 'creative' processes, then check them out. After
achieving a tolerably wide area of fit, we misinterpret the
significance of this fit.

>Only part of my offer directly related to reviving our purely
>philosophical discussion. Actually more of it related to what axioms
>about what constitutes valid science by scientists would have to be
>discarded to preserve locality (or even the classical topology of
>influence).

I repeat: There is too much ground between us to have a profitable
discussion. What part of "no" don't you understand? No. Draw your
own conclusions. This is worse than futile.

[KRamsay]

In article <5vos33$n...@panix2.panix.com>,

e...@panix.com (Edward Green) writes:
|KRamsay <kra...@aol.com> wrote:
|
|>In article <5uhdal$n...@panix2.panix.com>, e...@panix.com
|>(Edward Green) writes:
|>|On top of that I see a philosophical confusion in the
|>|position attributed to Neils Bohr: A kind of mystical orgasm is
|
|N.B. "attributed to".

I did notice you wrote "attributed to". I assumed it was not you
but someone else doing the attributing, of course.

|>|achieved in connection with the simple idea that which experiment is
|>|not conducted has no outcome. No kidding. The key fantasy ingredient
|>|lies in misunderstanding the idea that the 'outcome of measurement' may
|>|have many antecedents, no one of which may necessarily dominate, with
|>|the vague 'nothing is there until we measure it'.
|>|
|>|I state quite bluntly that the score on this one is so far Me 1, Net
|>|0: No one has correctly received this simple bone headed observation.
|>
|>Could you maybe elaborate a little?
|
|Yes, but experience teaches me the futility of this.

You don't have enough experience, Ed; I doubt anybody does. I know
people who have spend decades, literally, trying to clarify issues
related to the one we're describing here. It's much too soon to
conclude the futility of trying to communicate.

There is a parallel issue in the philosophy of mathematics, in which
the position is attributed to some people, that the truth or falsity
of a mathematical proposition doesn't exist until it is proven or
disproven. It has taken me a dozen years or so to get around certain
mental blocks to my understanding what certain people mean to say
about the topic. You can see the long veil of misunderstanding
stretching clear from Kronecker in the 19th century, and his
detractors, through to today. Ordinarily people's objections to
others' points of view are expressed comparatively stupidly.

The important thing is to be patient and not give up. This idea of
there being multiple "antecents" sounded interesting, but I suppose
I won't now have the opportunity to tell what you were getting at.

|>It seems you've read something
|>attributed to Neils Bohr which you think is confused,
|
|This is a characteristic misreading of yours: Ed Green against the
|wisdom of the ancients.

I find it hard to believe that "I see a philosophical confusion in
the position attributed to Neils Bohr:" could mean something other
than that you've read (OK, it could also have been "heard") something
attributed to Neils Bohr, and that you find that thing confused, which
is just what I said. I was careful to say, "attributed to" just as
you did, especially because I figured that you would consider this an
important qualifier.

I think you keep bracing yourself for attacks, to such an extent that
you read things as attacks which aren't. I'm not the only person who
finds this to be so.

|>but I am not
|>finding it clear just what you think is confused.
|
|Very well... hope triumphs over experience.
|
|No... experience triumphs over hope.

When my ex-girlfriend was slowly dying of cancer, I discovered what
it was like to feel pessimistic all the time. Pessimism clearly has
something to do with why you are presently so easily discouraged, and
so difficult to un-discourage. Experience only seems to teach you the
futility of trying, because you keep misinterpreting experience, so
that it *appears* to be total failure.

Deal with that as you need to.

People who go beyond mere pessimism, and reach that point where it
starts to seem like dying in one's sleep would be somewhat convenient,
are well advised to seek help.

[Hitech]

In article <5vor1d$k...@panix2.panix.com>, Edward Green <e...@panix.com> wrote:
>Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:
>
>>Einstein had his chance to specify an experiment to resolve the EPR

>>paradox. ...

>
>There is no 'EPR-paradox'.
>
>If there were, one could hardly specify an experiment to resolve it.
>
>A paradox is evidence of logical inconsistency.
>

Actually there is/was an 'EPR-paradox'. The paper written by Einstein,
Podolsky and Rosen, 'Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical
Reality Be Considered Complete?', is/was commonly referred to as the
Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paradox (the EPR paradox).

The EPR paradox was quickly refuted by Neils Bohr and Leon Rosenfeld,
based upon their (the Copenhagen group) interpretation of QM, but not to
everyone's satisfaction. For more than 50 years physicists and
philosophers have debated whether QM really is a complete and accurate
description of reality. It was not until Bell's theorem that a brilliant
experiment was proposed to resolve the EPR paradox. (Note that the
Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paper did not propose a real experiment that
could be performed, only a thought experiment to point out the paradox.)

Now if one accepts the Copenhagen group's reply or accepts Bell's Theorem
and the experimental results based upon Bell's Theorem, then it would be
consistent to say that there is no longer an EPR paradox in QM as there
no longer is a travelling-twin paradox in GR.

Is this what you meant?

[Paul Budnik]

Edward Green <e...@panix.com> wrote:

: KRamsay <kra...@aol.com> wrote:
: >|achieved in connection with the simple idea that which experiment is

: >|not conducted has no outcome. No kidding. The key fantasy ingredient
: >|lies in misunderstanding the idea that the 'outcome of measurement' may
: >|have many antecedents, no one of which may necessarily dominate, with
: >|the vague 'nothing is there until we measure it'.
: >|
: >|I state quite bluntly that the score on this one is so far Me 1, Net
: >|0: No one has correctly received this simple bone headed observation.
: >
: >Could you maybe elaborate a little?

: Yes, but experience teaches me the futility of this.

The claim that an observation does not exist except as part
of a specific measurement is an old idea in QM. I am sure many
people on the net are familiar with this. The reasons for this are more
subtle than you suggest. In classical mechanics the observed values
are something that are assumed to exist independent of observations.
That assumption in QM *requires* something like Bohm's theory where
there are processes inconsistent with special relativity. You have
to assume that the observation is *created* by the measurement process
or something similar if you want to preserve special relativity
in the framework of QM.

I think observations are the `focal points' of chaotic like transformations.
Quantum uncertainty is a physical constraint on how narrow in state
space these focal points can be just as the wavelength of light is an
ultimate limit on how tightly light can be focused. As you suggest the
exact structure of that focal point has many chaotic like antecedent
causes and thus it is not defined independent of an immense
amount of detail about initial conditions.

If nature does violate Bell's inequality than either antecedent causes
of the sort I conjecture are impossible or they must violate special
relativity. Similarly your argument about the outcome having many
antecedent's is an inadequate explanation unless either QM or special
relativity is false.

[Paul Budnik]

Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:
: In article <5vor1d$k...@panix2.panix.com>, Edward Green <e...@panix.com> wrote:
[...]
: >A paradox is evidence of logical inconsistency.

In this context a paradox is usually something that seems to imply a
logical inconsistency but may be resolvable by a more complete
understanding.

: Actually there is/was an 'EPR-paradox'. The paper written by Einstein,

: Podolsky and Rosen, 'Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical
: Reality Be Considered Complete?', is/was commonly referred to as the
: Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paradox (the EPR paradox).

The paper does not present a paradox but argues that QM must be
incomplete if you assume a certain notion of objective reality.
No one seriously disputes the correctness of this argument although
many dispute the correctness of the assumption about objective reality.

: The EPR paradox was quickly refuted by Neils Bohr and Leon Rosenfeld,

: based upon their (the Copenhagen group) interpretation of QM, but not to
: everyone's satisfaction.

You really should not post on things about you have such a limited
understanding. There is no EPR paradox but the argument in EPR is
valid today and was a major motivator for Bell's work in the 60's.

Bohr did refute a series of thought experiments of Einstein's
related to EPR but not the argument of EPR itself.
[...]
: Now if one accepts the Copenhagen group's reply or accepts Bell's Theorem

: and the experimental results based upon Bell's Theorem, then it would be
: consistent to say that there is no longer an EPR paradox in QM as there
: no longer is a travelling-twin paradox in GR.

There is no Copenhagen reply to EPR other than to reject its assumptions
about objective reality.

Bell's theorem is a simple and elegant result in pure mathematics that
no competent person with knowledge of it questions.

The existing experiments are inconclusive. That is not my conclusion.
That is the what the existing literature says.

Kwiat, P. G. and Eberhard, P. H. and Steinberg, A. M. and Chiao, R. Y.,
"Proposal for a Loophole-free Bell Inequality Experiment",
Physical Review A, V. 49, p 3209, 1994.

[LBsys]

Im Artikel <5vor1d$k...@panix2.panix.com>, e...@panix.com (Edward Green)
schreibt:

>
>I have not made personal progress myself in over a year,

Me three

[Douglas G. Danforth]

Edward Green wrote:
>
> Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:
>
> >Einstein had his chance to specify an experiment to resolve the EPR

> >paradox. He tried and failed.

>
> There is no 'EPR-paradox'.
>
> If there were, one could hardly specify an experiment to resolve it.
>

> A paradox is evidence of logical inconsistency.
>

> Despite all the confusion, posturing, and dare I say outright
> gibbering, Bell's work allows us in principle to rule out one very
> narrow possibility: That the results of certain experiments are
> consistent with a certain classical influence diagram.
>
> I bluntly state that during the time I have been posting on this only
> a few people have shown any inclination to stretch their understanding
> beyond some level frozen into amber years ago.
>
> I have not made personal progress myself in over a year, after I
> painfully plucked one foot out of the hardening resin. At least I
> know this.

Edward,
The trouble is, no discussions on this net will sway anyone
without (1) an agreed upon a problem, (2) an experiment that
everyone agrees addresses the problem, (3) the results of the
experiment that definitely point in one direction.

None of (1), (2), or (3) have agreement.

-Doug

--
Douglas G. Danforth, Ph.D. danf...@csli.stanford.edu
Senior Research Engineer (650) 723-2487
Center for the Study of Language and Information
Stanford University

[Dan M.]

In article <5vml3n$m4u$1...@news.nyu.edu>,

jqm...@is2.nyu.edu (Jacques M. Mallah) wrote:
>
>

> Dan M. (sh...@wt.net) wrote:
> > I've been told that most multi-worlders don't take it quite literally.
>
> By who? Sure we do.
>
> > grief, my tool alone, producing ~10^11 gammas/second all having probs of
> > scattering off various and sundry electrons, etc. While probably not
> > literally an infinity, the number of worlds that have sprung into
>
> It would help if you looked at my home page. It is not accurate
> to say that worlds spring into existance in the MWI. Rather, there is
> always the wavefunction, obeying the wave equation. It does tend to
> evolve into configurations with various areas of more activity, or
> 'branches'.

> <snip me>

>It would help if you looked at my home page. It is not accurate

>to say that worlds spring into existence in the MWI. Rather, there is

>always the wavefunction, obeying the wave equation. It does tend to
>evolve into configurations with various areas of more activity, or
>'branches'.
>

I looked at your home page. I have no problem with your language
revision, but see very little difference in thought when one uses it.
Using your language, reality branches into a virtual infinity of
possibilities every picosecond. I will kill my wife in an infinity of
realities in one minute, two minutes, etc. Not only are our lives
predestined, we are predestined to split into people that do everything
possible. Further, only one of the infinity of realities will be known.
There will be no evidence of the others.

>My home page explains the computationalist point of view, in which
>observations - such as yours - are related to particular computations >that are

implemented by the wavefunction. Yes, the MWI would then >imply that
there exist implementations of computations, which are >similar in many

ways to your own, which involve OJ-like experiences.

>The number of implementations is infinite; the fraction of them
>associated with each type of computation, is the 'effective >probability that
an experience will be of that type.

As I stated earlier, there is no disproof of this infinite of hidden
worlds, but it seems to me to be an unnecessary overwhelming burden. Why
spend such energy discussing a manifold of reality with no apparent means
of checking for its existence? Is having a mechanistic world view that
important?

Personally, I think a neo-Kantiant philosophical outlook is very
consistent with QM. By any chance, have you studied classical philosophy
before selecting this philosophical outlook? I'd be more than happy to
discuss the relative merits of the two philosophical positions.

Dan M.

<snip>

[Hitech]

In article <5vu76h$2c7$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
>...

>The existing experiments are inconclusive. That is not my conclusion.
>That is the what the existing literature says.
>
>Kwiat, P. G. and Eberhard, P. H. and Steinberg, A. M. and Chiao, R. Y.,
>"Proposal for a Loophole-free Bell Inequality Experiment",
>Physical Review A, V. 49, p 3209, 1994.

The existing experiments are conclusive. Further experiments in this area
are not a good investment of time or money. The issue of QM locality has
been satisfactorily resolved both theoretically and experimentally. Each
and every experiment will always have its non-believers, but this is no
reason to keep funding experiment after experiment.

[Hitech]

[Edward Green]

Douglas G. Danforth <danf...@csli.stanford.edu> wrote:

> The trouble is, no discussions on this net will sway anyone
>without (1) an agreed upon a problem, (2) an experiment that
>everyone agrees addresses the problem, (3) the results of the
>experiment that definitely point in one direction.
>
> None of (1), (2), or (3) have agreement.

Or words to that effect. I didn't read the pained and no doubt
provoking replies to my tart dismissal, showing I am not altogether a
fool. If any were merely "I hear you", my regrets.

[KRamsay]

>The existing experiments are conclusive. Further experiments in this area
>are not a good investment of time or money.

I'm tempted to say that "conclusive" is a matter of degree, but
then again, it sure sounds like it should mean the END of the
issue, and it isn't quite. I do get a certain illicit pleasure from
seeing the occasional person who expresses a favorable opinion
about the value of what work has been done so far... but I think
Kwiat et al. do have a point.

It's usually difficult for me to reach a firm opinion on the amount
of time and money an experiment is worth. Personally, I would
have liked to have seen the SSC built; I think seeing the results
would be worth to me as much as my own share of the bill for it,
but I realize I'm not particularly average this way, and whether
it really would have been worth the price is not obvious.

Similarly, I would enjoy seeing this Bell inequality thing nailed
down really solidly. I see various other "tests" of quantum
mechanics reported in the media, as if to say, "well isn't it
interesting that this also turned out to be true". I get the naive
impression they are individually getting resources something
like what this, our nominee for the sci.physics favorite would-be
experiment, would require. Maybe I'm mistaken. Some of these
other experiments must have additional value for something or
other. But I still am left thinking, what the heck, let's splurge a
little just this once, eh?

It's a little bit of a pleasant surprise to see publicly expressed
interest in science for some reason other than to keep the U.S.
competitive. Even to hear TRIUMF praised for potential to keep
CANADA competitive, without knowing whether this was so,
was a refreshing change! One sees little moments, like during
the last mission to Saturn when some amateur astronomy group
suggested they spend more time looking at Triton, because they
were curious why it is retrograde, and I tend to think, hey,
somebody out there actually is our friend and wants something
more than spotlessly clean dishes.

Of course, this is more a gut response than anything.

[Paul Budnik]

The existing experiments are inconclusive. That is not my conclusion.

That is the what the existing literature says.

Kwiat, P. G. and Eberhard, P. H. and Steinberg, A. M. and Chiao, R. Y.,
"Proposal for a Loophole-free Bell Inequality Experiment",
Physical Review A, V. 49, p 3209, 1994.

[Paul Budnik]

Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:

: In article <5vu76h$2c7$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
: >...

: >The existing experiments are inconclusive. That is not my conclusion.

: >That is the what the existing literature says.
: >
: >Kwiat, P. G. and Eberhard, P. H. and Steinberg, A. M. and Chiao, R. Y.,
: >"Proposal for a Loophole-free Bell Inequality Experiment",
: >Physical Review A, V. 49, p 3209, 1994.

: The existing experiments are conclusive. Further experiments in this area
: are not a good investment of time or money. [...]

You are entitled to your opinion but it is foolish to post it without
justification. Frankly no one gives a damn.

With the exception of Aspect's (and perhaps very recent experiments)
none of the experiments even attempt to measure the time delay. In
Aspect's experiment those measurements were inadequate. In addition
the detection efficiencies were too low in Aspect's experiment for
the result to be conclusive.

[Jacques M. Mallah]

Dan M. (sh...@wt.net) wrote:
> jqm...@is2.nyu.edu (Jacques M. Mallah) wrote:
> >It would help if you looked at my home page. It is not accurate
> >to say that worlds spring into existence in the MWI. Rather, there is
> >always the wavefunction, obeying the wave equation. It does tend to
> >evolve into configurations with various areas of more activity, or
> >'branches'.
>
> I looked at your home page. I have no problem with your language
> revision, but see very little difference in thought when one uses it.
> Using your language, reality branches into a virtual infinity of
> possibilities every picosecond.

No, I would never say that, so at the very least you aren't using
my language! Or my ideas either. My language would be:
There is only one reality, which in the model under discussion
consists of the wavefunction. As I said, it evolves into branched
configurations, but that is just a convienient way to picture the dynamics
of a field obeying a certain partial differential equation.
Our observations result from computations implemented by the
wavefunction.

> Not only are our lives predestined,

In other words, the physics is deterministic.

> we are predestined to split into people that do everything possible.

I don't talk about 'splitting'. The concept of 'me' or 'you' is
useful from a practical point of view, but has no real significance in the
computationalist view.

> Further, only one of the infinity of realities will be known.
> There will be no evidence of the others.

The only evidence is the same kind of evidence that we have that
reality exists yesterday and tomorrow, not just now: Occam's razor type
simplicity arguments.

> As I stated earlier, there is no disproof of this infinite of hidden
> worlds, but it seems to me to be an unnecessary overwhelming burden. Why
> spend such energy discussing a manifold of reality with no apparent means
> of checking for its existence?
> Is having a mechanistic world view that important?

As I stated, the reason I favor it is because to me it seems
*simpler*. That is the only reason I favor the MWI; if I just wanted an
ontological view, I could pick the pilot wave. (I have no objection to it
on grounds of nonlocality.)
As for is an ontological view that important, yes. I have little
tolerance for a Copenhagen-like view that observations are everything.

> Personally, I think a neo-Kantiant philosophical outlook is very
> consistent with QM. By any chance, have you studied classical philosophy
> before selecting this philosophical outlook? I'd be more than happy to
> discuss the relative merits of the two philosophical positions.

No, I haven't studied classical philosophy; I am a physics
student. I have read some modern books on philosophy of mind, such as
Chalmers'.
As for that discussion, I wouldn't mind if you elaborated a bit on
what the neo-Kantian position is, but the fact is we both seem to have
already decided how we want to think about the issue.

[Dan M.]

In article <603oao$8pl$1...@news.nyu.edu>,

jqm...@is2.nyu.edu (Jacques M. Mallah) wrote:
>No, I would never say that, so at the very least you aren't using
>my language! Or my ideas either. My language would be:
>There is only one reality, which in the model under discussion
>consists of the wavefunction. As I said, it evolves into branched
>configurations, but that is just a convienient way to picture the >dynamics of
a field obeying a certain partial differential equation.
>Our observations result from computations implemented by the
>wavefunction.
>

O.K., I did not get the your particular understanding of the many worlds
interpretation of QM

> > we are predestined to split into people that do everything possible. O

>
>I don't talk about 'splitting'. The concept of 'me' or 'you' is
> useful from a practical point of view, but has no real significance in >the
computationalist view.

Well, I don't know about you, by "I perceive is the foundation of all
knowledge for me." A philosophy in which the philosopher himself has no
significance is probably unique in the history of philosophy.

>
> > Further, only one of the infinity of realities will be known.
> > There will be no evidence of the others.
>
>The only evidence is the same kind of evidence that we have that
>reality exists yesterday and tomorrow, not just now: Occam's razor type
>simplicity arguments.
>

That type of evidence does not exist. I have no memory of yesterday,
today, or tomorrow. QM does not require your viewpoint. It is a
metaphysical explanation, as is my own, of how it works. I know that
there is at least one other working physicist that sees Occam's razor
working the other way.

>>As I stated earlier, there is no disproof of this infinite of hidden
>>worlds, but it seems to me to be an unnecessary overwhelming burden. >>Why

spend such energy discussing a manifold of reality with no >>apparent
means

>> of checking for its existence?
>> Is having a mechanistic world view that important?
>
>As I stated, the reason I favor it is because to me it seems
>*simpler*. That is the only reason I favor the MWI; if I just wanted >an

ontological view, I could pick the pilot wave. (I have no objection >to
it on grounds of nonlocality.) As for is an ontological view that
>important, yes. I have little tolerance for a Copenhagen-like view
>that observations are everything.

>

That is not the Copenhagen view. The Copenhagen view is quite a bit
subtler than that. I would put forth the proposition that people who
start with a presupposition that a subset of realism is the only possible
valid philosophy might view things that way, but I read Copenhagen quite
differently than that.

>> Personally, I think a neo-Kantiant philosophical outlook is very
>> consistent with QM. By any chance, have you studied classical >>philosophy
before selecting this philosophical outlook? I'd be more >>than happy to
discuss the relative merits of the two philosophical >>positions.
>
> No, I haven't studied classical philosophy; I am a physics student.

The two are not mutually exclusive. While I'm not a physics student any
more, I did get dual undergraduate BAs in physics/philosophy before my
Phd in physics. I am not advocating that you must study classical
philosophy, I'm just suggesting that since you post a web page on a
metaphysical viewpoint, it might be worthwhile to understand the
significant alternative viewpoints.

> I have read some modern books on philosophy of mind, such as
> Chalmers'. As for that discussion, I wouldn't mind if you elaborated a >bit on

what the neo-Kantian position is, but the fact is we both seem >to have
already decided how we want to think about the issue.

>

I'm leaving the country, so I will postpone this discussion until I
return. I will post and email something to you on this when I return to
the states in about 2 weeks. It could very well be that neither one of
us will adopt the metaphysical view of the other. I am suggesting a less
ambitious goal. It is simply to explore the presuppositions inherent in
each metaphysical viewpoint and how each explains basic things such as
self awareness as well as provide a platform for understanding QM.

Dan M.

[Hitech]

In article <603edp$h0t$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
>Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:
>: In article <5vu76h$2c7$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
>: >...
>: >The existing experiments are inconclusive. That is not my conclusion.
>: >That is the what the existing literature says.
>: >
>: >Kwiat, P. G. and Eberhard, P. H. and Steinberg, A. M. and Chiao, R. Y.,
>: >"Proposal for a Loophole-free Bell Inequality Experiment",
>: >Physical Review A, V. 49, p 3209, 1994.
>
>: The existing experiments are conclusive. Further experiments in this area
>: are not a good investment of time or money. [...]
>
>You are entitled to your opinion but it is foolish to post it without
>justification. Frankly no one gives a damn.

The following extract is from 'Quantum Nonlocality in Two-Photon
Experiments at Berkeley' by Raymond Y.Chiao, Paul G. Kwiat, Aephraim M.
Steinberg:

'We review some of our experiments performed over the past few years on
two-photon interference. These include a test of Bell's inequalities, a
study of the complementarity principle, an application of EPR correlations
for dispersion-free time-measurements, and an experiment to demonstrate
the superluminal nature of the tunneling process. The nonlocal character
of the quantum world is brought out clearly by these experiments.'

These are the same authors as you quote. Reread the last sentence in case
you missed it.

[KRamsay]

In article <5vs020$j01$1...@mtnmath.com>,
Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> writes:
|KRamsay <kra...@aol.com"> wrote:
|I wrote:
|> |What do you think was inaccurate about my statement? I think your
|> |take on this is somewhat misleading. The formal proof von Neumann
|> |gave is correct. The philosophical claims the he made for that
|> |proof were wrong.
|>
|> I don't think I would have said anything if you had stated matters
|> this way from the beginning.
|
|That does not answer my question. What was inaccurate about my
|original post?

From the beginning, I said your saying that von Neumann had a "flawed
proof" seemed misleading to me, in that I think it is liable
to give the reader the impression that von Neumann's mistake was a
different kind of mistake from what it was.

I think an interest in accuracy leads one to do more than just avoid
saying "inaccurate" things. Being "fair" to someone means more than
just failing to ruin their reputation as a great scientist.

Since you insist on knowing, though, I think it's inaccurate to fail
to distinguish between a proof and an informal interpretation of the
proof, and call a proof "flawed" when the target of criticism is the
informal description of it.

|> |This had some practical affect on me personally. When
|> |I was exploring developing some of my ideas about QM for a Phd. thesis
|> |in the late 1960's von Neumann's *claims* about his proof of thirty
|> |years ago were still widely accepted and it was thought that what I
|> |was proposing was impossible by some physicists.
|>
|> Comparing this with what else I've read, I suggest your PhD
|> committee (or the "some physicists") may have been making you a
|> victim of a folklorization of the claims he made.
|
|What have you read?

I described elsewhere going hunting for *published* cases of people
taking the proof to mean something other than what it meant. Bell
points us to Jauch and Piron. The overall impression I get is that
this is one of those theorems which entered the "folklore" in a loose
form. If anybody has more of a "paper trail", certainly let us know,
but my hunch was that I was seeing only the published tip of the
largely informally transmitted iceberg.

It's not without reason that mathematicians urge their students
either to know the proof of a theorem, or to be able to quote it with
some precision. Rigor appears to be less of a mandate among
physicists, and I think sometimes this hurts them. Of course, one can
see why physicists would find this less pressing, since most of the
time they depend upon less than water-tight refutations of ideas when
they abandon them. But it's best not to quote these arguments as
"theorems", I think.

|I have a translation of von Neumann's book. I have not
|checked it lately but (as I recall) he explicitly claimed no more
|complete theory could be consistent with the predictions of QM.

I read that section of the translation a year or two ago, and I
remember his statement quoted by Bell, that quantum mechanics would
be "objectively wrong", but I don't remember his phrasing it in terms
of "predictions", let alone observable predictions.

|This claim is false.

And Bohm provided a counterexample. Of course, a lot of what people
say about quantum mechanics has to be reworded to apply to Bohm-
mechanics. Is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle "objectively valid"
according to Bohm mechanics? Well... yes and no.

|> Were you not, after all, looking
|> (eventually at least) for instances when quantum mechanics made
|> incorrect predictions? There's no ruling that out, nor did he say
|> there was.
|
|No I was not. I was only looking for a more complete theory. Bell's
|result came as I quite a shock to me since I knew no nonlocal theory
|could be consistent with what I was proposing and I did not think
|there was anything wrong about the predictions of QM.

OK. I'm not in any position to defend what physicists in the 60s may
have said and done, when I don't know what it is. It always seems a
pity that graduate students wind up having to argue with their
advisors about such points.

[Douglas G. Danforth]

Ilja Schmelzer wrote:

>
> Hit...@cris.com (Hitech) writes:
> > >The existing experiments are inconclusive. That is not my conclusion.
> > >That is the what the existing literature says.
> > >Kwiat, P. G. and Eberhard, P. H. and Steinberg, A. M. and Chiao, R. Y.,
> > >"Proposal for a Loophole-free Bell Inequality Experiment",
> > >Physical Review A, V. 49, p 3209, 1994.
> >
> > The existing experiments are conclusive. Further experiments in this area

> > are not a good investment of time or money. The issue of QM locality has
> > been satisfactorily resolved both theoretically and experimentally. Each
> > and every experiment will always have its non-believers, but this is no
> > reason to keep funding experiment after experiment.
>

> IMO the experiments are conclusive in the sense that there is no
> Einstein-local realistic competitor which is able to explain all
> existing experimental evidence.
>
> They may be inconclusive to exclude all possible Einstein-local
> realistic theories even in principle. For this purpose, high enough
> detection efficiency seems necessary. If this is correct, funding
> future experiments in this direction is not completely meaningless.
>
> But I don't believe they will change anything.
>
> Ilja

If a system (filter + detector) can be build with efficiency greater
than 82.8% AND the quantum correlations are still observed THEN
we can rule out the detector efficiency loop hole (but not
Franson type arguments).
If time passes and it is found that no system is able to be
as efficient as 82.8% then one must begin to ask whether
this is a fundamental physical limitation which is directly
coupled to the process of correlation.

In either case useful information can be gained by
continued experimental refinement.

[Ilja Schmelzer]

Hit...@cris.com (Hitech) writes:
> >The existing experiments are inconclusive. That is not my conclusion.
> >That is the what the existing literature says.
> >Kwiat, P. G. and Eberhard, P. H. and Steinberg, A. M. and Chiao, R. Y.,
> >"Proposal for a Loophole-free Bell Inequality Experiment",
> >Physical Review A, V. 49, p 3209, 1994.
>
> The existing experiments are conclusive. Further experiments in this area
> are not a good investment of time or money. The issue of QM locality has
> been satisfactorily resolved both theoretically and experimentally. Each
> and every experiment will always have its non-believers, but this is no
> reason to keep funding experiment after experiment.

IMO the experiments are conclusive in the sense that there is no
Einstein-local realistic competitor which is able to explain all
existing experimental evidence.

They may be inconclusive to exclude all possible Einstein-local
realistic theories even in principle. For this purpose, high enough
detection efficiency seems necessary. If this is correct, funding
future experiments in this direction is not completely meaningless.

But I don't believe they will change anything.

Ilja
--
I. Schmelzer, D-10178 Berlin, Keibelstr. 38, <schm...@wias-berlin.de>
http://www.cyberpass.net/~ilja

[Edward Green]

Douglas G. Danforth <danf...@csli.stanford.edu> wrote:

>> Hit...@cris.com (Hitech) writes:

>> > The existing experiments are conclusive. Further experiments in this area
>> > are not a good investment of time or money. The issue of QM locality has
>> > been satisfactorily resolved both theoretically and experimentally. Each
>> > and every experiment will always have its non-believers, but this is no
>> > reason to keep funding experiment after experiment.

Mr. Hitech has been drinking his certainty juice, that's sure.
Sodium dogmathol? What assininity! The grandeur of setting scientific
funding criteria for the entire planet while maintaining the
ability of composing no-sense sentences such as 'Einstein failed to
devise an experiment to resolve the EPR paradox', is just
staggering...

> If a system (filter + detector) can be build with efficiency greater
>than 82.8% AND the quantum correlations are still observed THEN
>we can rule out the detector efficiency loop hole (but not
>Franson type arguments).

I know you were asking for a seconding motion on the 82.8% figure a
while back. Did you receive one?

One thing I am uncertain of is whether fixing the sensitivity
loophole is equivalent to obtaining an unmassaged macroscopic
dataset incompatible with the assumed influence diagram. Do you have
any thoughts on this? Do you understand what I am asking?

What are 'Franson type arguments'?

> If time passes and it is found that no system is able to be
>as efficient as 82.8% then one must begin to ask whether
>this is a fundamental physical limitation which is directly
>coupled to the process of correlation.

This was precisely my point; if we continue to search explicitly for
an effect in precisely the realm where it should be found but cannot
find it, then eventually our suspicions are raised. Is the effect shy
or simply non-existent? (Of course net rhetoric is always read in the
extreme case, and I am sometimes guilty of this too, so somebody is
sure to accuse me of saying the effect is non-existent, when I merely
said we should become suspicious, as you implied).

> In either case useful information can be gained by
>continued experimental refinement.

I don't know... dogmatic pronouncement works pretty well for some.
Don't knock it unless you've tried it.

[Paul Budnik]

Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:

: In article <603edp$h0t$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
: >Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:
: >: In article <5vu76h$2c7$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
: >: >...

: >: >The existing experiments are inconclusive. That is not my conclusion.

: >: >That is the what the existing literature says.
: >: >
: >: >Kwiat, P. G. and Eberhard, P. H. and Steinberg, A. M. and Chiao, R. Y.,
: >: >"Proposal for a Loophole-free Bell Inequality Experiment",
: >: >Physical Review A, V. 49, p 3209, 1994.

: >
: >: The existing experiments are conclusive. Further experiments in this area
: >: are not a good investment of time or money. [...]

: >
: >You are entitled to your opinion but it is foolish to post it without
: >justification. Frankly no one gives a damn.

: The following extract is from 'Quantum Nonlocality in Two-Photon
: Experiments at Berkeley' by Raymond Y.Chiao, Paul G. Kwiat, Aephraim M.
: Steinberg:

: 'We review some of our experiments performed over the past few years on
: two-photon interference. These include a test of Bell's inequalities, a
: study of the complementarity principle, an application of EPR correlations
: for dispersion-free time-measurements, and an experiment to demonstrate
: the superluminal nature of the tunneling process. The nonlocal character
: of the quantum world is brought out clearly by these experiments.'

: These are the same authors as you quote. Reread the last sentence in case
: you missed it.

It is one thing to talk about `superluminal nature of the tunneling process'
and the `nonlocal nature of the quantum' world and quite another to talk
about *experimental proof* that classical locality is violated. Read
the article I cited and you will see that none of these experiments pass
this difficult hurdle. You are posting about stuff that is simple but subtle
and that you have a limited understanding of. You need to develop
better judgment about what you do and do not know.

[Paul Budnik]

KRamsay <kra...@aol.com> wrote:

: In article <5vs020$j01$1...@mtnmath.com>,
: Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> writes:
[...]
: From the beginning, I said your saying that von Neumann had a "flawed

: proof" seemed misleading to me, in that I think it is liable
: to give the reader the impression that von Neumann's mistake was a
: different kind of mistake from what it was.

What he claimed to have proved was not true. I consider that
a flawed proof. The flaw was not in the technical structure of the proof
but in translating the technical result of the proof into a broader
scientific claim.

: I think an interest in accuracy leads one to do more than just avoid

: saying "inaccurate" things. Being "fair" to someone means more than
: just failing to ruin their reputation as a great scientist.

Of course. Are you suggesting I would disagree with this?

: Since you insist on knowing, though, I think it's inaccurate to fail

: to distinguish between a proof and an informal interpretation of the
: proof, and call a proof "flawed" when the target of criticism is the
: informal description of it.

If you make a claim for your proof I consider that to be part of what
you have claimed to prove.

[...]

: |I have a translation of von Neumann's book. I have not

: |checked it lately but (as I recall) he explicitly claimed no more
: |complete theory could be consistent with the predictions of QM.

: I read that section of the translation a year or two ago, and I
: remember his statement quoted by Bell, that quantum mechanics would
: be "objectively wrong", but I don't remember his phrasing it in terms
: of "predictions", let alone observable predictions.

How else can QM be objectively wrong than by making false predictions?

: [...] Of course, a lot of what people

: say about quantum mechanics has to be reworded to apply to Bohm-
: mechanics. Is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle "objectively valid"
: according to Bohm mechanics? Well... yes and no.

I think in these discussions you have to focus entirely on experimental
predictions. In that sense the uncertainty principle holds in Bohm's
theory. If you go beyond experimental predictions you leave the domain
of science for philosophy. Of course there are a number of different
philosophies of QM and Bohm's approach represents a particular distinct
philosophy.

[Hitech]

In article <6073tq$1...@panix2.panix.com>, Edward Green <e...@panix.com> wrote:

> Hit...@cris.com (Hitech) writes:
>>
>> The existing experiments are conclusive. Further experiments in this area

>> are not a good investment of time or money. The issue of QM locality has
>> been satisfactorily resolved both theoretically and experimentally. Each
>> and every experiment will always have its non-believers, but this is no
>> reason to keep funding experiment after experiment.
>
>Mr. Hitech has been drinking his certainty juice, that's sure.
>Sodium dogmathol?

Yum, yum.

[Paul Budnik]

Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:
: In article <603edp$h0t$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
: >Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:

[Paul Budnik]

KRamsay <kra...@aol.com> wrote:

[...]

[Jacques M. Mallah]

Dan M. (sh...@wt.net) wrote:
> In article <603oao$8pl$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
> jqm...@is2.nyu.edu (Jacques M. Mallah) wrote:
> >I don't talk about 'splitting'. The concept of 'me' or 'you' is
useful from a practical point of view, but has no real significance
in the computationalist view.
>
> Well, I don't know about you, by "I perceive is the foundation of all
> knowledge for me." A philosophy in which the philosopher himself has no
> significance is probably unique in the history of philosophy.

I think you may misunderstand. Perceptions certainly have a place
in the computationalist view. But distinctions among individuals is only
a practical thing, not a basic thing. For example, I could say that I had
a certain perception yesterday, or that you have one today, or that some
'versions of you' have OJesque perceptions, etc.
But the basic thing is only that some set of observations exists,
and all those are just subsets of that. A *very* standard view,
ceertainly for computationalists.
It's like talking about 'my atoms' as opposed to 'your atoms'.
Physics makes no such distinction, and atoms could certainly fall in both
categories if we breathe the same air.

> > > Further, only one of the infinity of realities will be known.
> > > There will be no evidence of the others.
> >
> >The only evidence is the same kind of evidence that we have that
> >reality exists yesterday and tomorrow, not just now: Occam's razor type
> >simplicity arguments.
> >
>
> That type of evidence does not exist. I have no memory of yesterday,
> today, or tomorrow.

Are you suggesting that you don't believe that times other than
now have reality?
Of course the evidence exists: namely, that it's a simpler and
thus more plausible view. Certainly not a watertight proof, but certainly
better than nothing. What should memory have to do with it?

> QM does not require your viewpoint. It is a
> metaphysical explanation, as is my own, of how it works. I know that
> there is at least one other working physicist that sees Occam's razor
> working the other way.

Some people who think the MWI is complex base that on the myth
that it involves some extra physical process, called 'splitting',
instead of just the wave equation. (Some MWIers did once suggest such a
thing, but it was never part of either the original version, the version
supported by most MWIers, or any version I've ever supported. It now
lives on mainly as a straw man to be attacked by MWI opponents.)
On the other hand, there are a few people (such as Ed Green) who
think it's complex not because of that, but for some other reason I don't
understand. I suspect it's just that they can't get over the fact that
the MWI seems counterintuitive to them.
But most people should agree that simpler means more symettrical
and having fewer free parameters (e.g. hidden variable initial conditions):
the MWI.

> >As for is an ontological view that
> >important, yes. I have little tolerance for a Copenhagen-like view
> >that observations are everything.
>
> That is not the Copenhagen view. The Copenhagen view is quite a bit
> subtler than that. I would put forth the proposition that people who
> start with a presupposition that a subset of realism is the only possible
> valid philosophy might view things that way, but I read Copenhagen quite
> differently than that.

There is not really any one Copenhagen view. The interpretation
is defined by the writings of Bohr, which are more like an ink blot test
than a description. They are confusing and seem self contradictory to me,
so it's not surprising that several different versions of 'Copenhagen' go
under the same label.
The version I described is a sketch of what I see as the main
thrust of much of what is said under the label. I wouldn't mind if you
described the way you see the Copenhagen interpretation.
I certainly would say that some form of realism is the only
possible valid philosophy, but I surely would rather deal with the
actual rival than a straw man which I might have devised.

> I'm leaving the country, so I will postpone this discussion until I
> return. I will post and email something to you on this when I return to
> the states in about 2 weeks.

Ok. (This post will be forwarded to email.)

[Hitech]

In article <60bd17$74h$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
>
>... Read

>the article I cited and you will see that none of these experiments pass

>this difficult hurdle...

If the experiment you so often quote is performed and the results once
again demonstrate the non-local nature of the quantum world, it is obvious
that you and others will find new objections. I have never seen a single
poster in sci.physics that promotes their own personal theory abandon that
theory no matter what the argument or the evidence. You believe your
theory is right and QM is wrong. Nothing is going to convince you
otherwise even though you swear the next drink (experiment) will be your
last.

[Paul Budnik]

Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:

: In article <60bd17$74h$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
: >
: >... Read
: >the article I cited and you will see that none of these experiments pass
: >this difficult hurdle...

: If the experiment you so often quote is performed and the results once
: again demonstrate the non-local nature of the quantum world, it is obvious
: that you and others will find new objections.

The objections I mention are not mine. They are objections published
in the literature. They are not minor technical points. They go
to the core of the question. You cannot make claims about locality
violation without measuring time delays.

: I have never seen a single

: poster in sci.physics that promotes their own personal theory abandon that
: theory no matter what the argument or the evidence. You believe your
: theory is right and QM is wrong.

That is bullshit like everything else I have seen you post. I do not
have an alternative theory. I think it likely that the *class* of theories
that Einstein came to think may be necessary might provide a more
complete and correct model of physical reality.

I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the
field concept, i. e., on continuous structures. In that case
*nothing* remains of my entire castle in the air gravitation
theory included, [and of] the rest of modern physics.
-- Einstein in a 1954 letter to Besso, quoted from:
_Subtle is the Lord_, Abraham Pais, page 467

I certainly do not know that this is true.

: Nothing is going to convince you

: otherwise even though you swear the next drink (experiment) will be your
: last.

It seems to me that you are the one who is convinced of the truth and
does not want to let the facts get in the way of your preconceived ideas.

[Ray Tomes]

In article <5vu5oa$2a2$1...@mtnmath.com>, Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com>
wrote:
>The claim that an observation does not exist except as part
>of a specific measurement is an old idea in QM. I am sure many
>people on the net are familiar with this. The reasons for this are more
>subtle than you suggest. In classical mechanics the observed values
>are something that are assumed to exist independent of observations.
>That assumption in QM *requires* something like Bohm's theory where
>there are processes inconsistent with special relativity. You have
>to assume that the observation is *created* by the measurement process
>or something similar if you want to preserve special relativity
>in the framework of QM.

I think that the reasons are much more mundane than you think.
Here is an example from everyday classical physics.

Take one of those devices where the little balls fall down through an
array of steel pins so that they are forced to randomly bounce left or
right. Balls released from a single location at the top reach the
bottom where they have a particular distribution.

When the balls are halfway down they also have some particular
distribution, however if we sneak a look when a ball is halfway down
then this knowledge can be used to predict a different distribution for
the ball when it reaches the bottom. This act of observation clearly
does not alter the path of the ball. It does however alter the
conditional distribution.

My suggestion to you is that exactly the same process is happening in QM
and that the "collapse of the wavefunction" is nothing more than
incorporating present knowledge into making a new conditional
distribution.

This is closely related to an explanation given to me by Michael Weiss
which I hope he doesn't mind me sharing with you.

>We have the Born rules--- you will find them
>stated quite clearly near the beginning of Mallah's Web page:
>http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/cwia.htm

> - When no measurement is made, the wavefunction psi evolves according to
> the wave equation, which is a (generalized) Schroedinger equation.

> - When a measurement is made, the result is an eigenvalue A of the
> measurement operator appropriate to that kind of measurement, and each
> eigenvalue is reported in a fraction of such cases equal to
> |(A|psi)|^2. The system then appears to be in |A> at that time, as far
> as future measurements are concerned.

>Please note *appears to be*, and *as far as future measurements are
>concerned*. The "collapse" interpretations (they come in designer
>flavors and colors) say that this appearance is reality. But there
>are alternate interpretations, as noted. (At least three, I think.)

An understanding of the nature of conditional probabilities is all that
is required to understand what is going on.

-- Ray Tomes -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/rt-home.htm --
Cycles email list -- http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/af/cyc.htm

[Mountain Math Software]

Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:
: In article <603edp$h0t$1...@mtnmath.com>,

about *experimental proof* that classical locality is violated. Read

the article I cited and you will see that none of these experiments pass

this difficult hurdle. You are posting about stuff that is simple but subtle
and that you have a limited understanding of. You need to develop
better judgment about what you do and do not know.

[Mountain Math Software]

Hitech <Hit...@cris.com> wrote:
: In article <60bd17$74h$1...@mtnmath.com>,Paul Budnik <pa...@mtnmath.com> wrote:
: >
: >... Read

: >the article I cited and you will see that none of these experiments pass

: >this difficult hurdle...

: If the experiment you so often quote is performed and the results once
: again demonstrate the non-local nature of the quantum world, it is obvious
: that you and others will find new objections.

The objections I mention are not mine. They are objections published
in the literature. They are not minor technical points. They go
to the core of the question. You cannot make claims about locality
violation without measuring time delays.

: I have never seen a single
: poster in sci.physics that promotes their own personal theory abandon that
: theory no matter what the argument or the evidence. You believe your
: theory is right and QM is wrong.

That is nonsense like most of what I have seen you post. I do not

have an alternative theory. I think it likely that the *class* of theories
that Einstein came to think may be necessary might provide a more
complete and correct model of physical reality.

I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the
field concept, i. e., on continuous structures. In that case
*nothing* remains of my entire castle in the air gravitation
theory included, [and of] the rest of modern physics.
-- Einstein in a 1954 letter to Besso, quoted from:
_Subtle is the Lord_, Abraham Pais, page 467

I certainly do not know that this is true.

: Nothing is going to convince you
: otherwise even though you swear the next drink (experiment) will be your
: last.

It seems to me that you are the one who is convinced of the truth and
does not want to let the facts get in the way of your preconceived ideas.

[Mountain Math Software]

KRamsay <kra...@aol.com> wrote:

[...]

[Jacques M. Mallah]

Ray Tomes (rto...@kcbbs.gen.nz) wrote:
> distribution, however if we sneak a look when a ball is halfway down
> then this knowledge can be used to predict a different distribution for
> the ball when it reaches the bottom. This act of observation clearly
> does not alter the path of the ball. It does however alter the
> conditional distribution.
>
> My suggestion to you is that exactly the same process is happening in QM
> and that the "collapse of the wavefunction" is nothing more than
> incorporating present knowledge into making a new conditional
> distribution.

Treating the wavefunction that way would not allow interference,
so is obviously wrong. I suggest you learn some QM.
Also, in QM it is sometimes useful to use a probability
distribution of different wavefunctions, which is handled by the density
matrix. If what you were saying is true, there would be no need for that.
Not to mention the title of this thread.

> This is closely related to an explanation given to me by Michael Weiss
> which I hope he doesn't mind me sharing with you.

You seem to have misunderstood what he was saying.

> >We have the Born rules--- you will find them
> >stated quite clearly near the beginning of Mallah's Web page:
> >http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/cwia.htm
>
> > - When no measurement is made, the wavefunction psi evolves
according to
> > the wave equation, which is a (generalized) Schroedinger equation.
>
> > - When a measurement is made, the result is an eigenvalue A of the
> > measurement operator appropriate to that kind of measurement, and each
> > eigenvalue is reported in a fraction of such cases equal to
> > |(A|psi)|^2. The system then appears to be in |A> at that time, as far
> > as future measurements are concerned.
>
> >Please note *appears to be*, and *as far as future measurements are
> >concerned*. The "collapse" interpretations (they come in designer
> >flavors and colors) say that this appearance is reality. But there
> >are alternate interpretations, as noted. (At least three, I think.)
>
> An understanding of the nature of conditional probabilities is all that
> is required to understand what is going on.

The point I made on the page, and he made to you, was that the
Born rules are not inconsistent with the wavefunction never collapsing.
That is why it is emphasized that they are only rules about what
we *experience*, and that appearance must be explained by an interpretation.

[Edward Green]

Robert R. Tucci <tu...@ar-tiste.com> wrote:

> jqm...@is2.nyu.edu (Jacques M. Mallah) wrote:
>

>> Ray Tomes (rto...@kcbbs.gen.nz) wrote:
>> > distribution, however if we sneak a look when a ball is halfway down
>> > then this knowledge can be used to predict a different distribution for
>> > the ball when it reaches the bottom. This act of observation clearly
>> > does not alter the path of the ball. It does however alter the
>> > conditional distribution.
>> >
>> > My suggestion to you is that exactly the same process is happening in QM
>> > and that the "collapse of the wavefunction" is nothing more than
>> > incorporating present knowledge into making a new conditional
>> > distribution.
>>
>> Treating the wavefunction that way would not allow interference,
>> so is obviously wrong. I suggest you learn some QM.
>

>Classical waves for which the amplitude and or phase have a random
>component DO exhibit interference AND one can condition their probability
>distributions on an observer's knowledge, a la Bayes. Therefore, what Ray
>said is not obviously wrong, but what you said certainly is.

Well, he does seem to have a point with respect to the most obvious
interpretation of what Ray is saying, modulo the apparently
unnecessary snip about learning some quantum mechanics (thought I have
not been following the snippery quotient in the thread). If what Ray
intends is that the superposition of eigenstates of the observable
which we are about to observe represents our ignorance, which is
decreased by the measurement, it is indeed hard to see how these
eigenstates are to interfere before the measurement; i.e., how the
principle of linear superposition is incorporated.

This does not mean that Bayes principle may not apply in some way to
quantum mechanical measurement, and indeed it is one of my favorite
principles, and I would be sad to see it left outside glumly staring
through the window. But this does seem to be an obstacle to the most
obvious reading.

I have trouble understanding what you are stating on the other hand.
Suppose our knowledge of the state of a string is p = 1/2 (my favorite
finite probability) for two waves out of phase by pi. The sum of
these waves is therefore zero at every point of the string. Hmm... I
suppose the expectation value of the displacement of the string at
every point is indeed zero, curiously enough consistent with the
interference of these two waves, only one of which is presumably
extant. But apparently we would be in error if we concluded that the
expected energy were zero because the expected displacement is flat.
So, we must be wewy, wewy careful.

In other words, to put it in the clearest possible light, the entire
situation with respect to the interpretation of superpositions of
eigenwectors as occurring in probability is not obviously inconsistent
with being non-obvious.

A telling counter-argument seems to be that we _always_ find that his
system happened to be in one of the eigenstates of the measured
observable prior to observation, which is just barely conceivable for
one privileged observable, like the energy, but cannot have been true
for all possible observables simultaneously.

>By the way, not only can one use Bayes' rule for classical random waves.
>One can in fact use it within standard quantum mechanics, without the need
>to espouse a particular interpretation of QM. That is what Quantum
>Bayesian Nets are all about.

What are they all about?

[Robert R. Tucci]

In article <60p0v6$mua$1...@news.nyu.edu>, jqm...@is2.nyu.edu (Jacques M.
Mallah) wrote:

> Ray Tomes (rto...@kcbbs.gen.nz) wrote:
> > distribution, however if we sneak a look when a ball is halfway down
> > then this knowledge can be used to predict a different distribution for
> > the ball when it reaches the bottom. This act of observation clearly
> > does not alter the path of the ball. It does however alter the
> > conditional distribution.
> >
> > My suggestion to you is that exactly the same process is happening in QM
> > and that the "collapse of the wavefunction" is nothing more than
> > incorporating present knowledge into making a new conditional
> > distribution.
>
> Treating the wavefunction that way would not allow interference,
> so is obviously wrong. I suggest you learn some QM.

Classical waves for which the amplitude and or phase have a random
component DO exhibit interference AND one can condition their probability
distributions on an observer's knowledge, a la Bayes. Therefore, what Ray
said is not obviously wrong, but what you said certainly is.

By the way, not only can one use Bayes' rule for classical random waves.

One can in fact use it within standard quantum mechanics, without the need
to espouse a particular interpretation of QM. That is what Quantum
Bayesian Nets are all about.

Robert R. Tucci
www.ar-tiste.com

[Robert R. Tucci]

In article <616jak$i...@panix2.panix.com>, e...@panix.com (Edward Green) wrote:
snip

Hi Eddie,

I don't claim to understand these issues completely. However, here is my
opinion:

Ray said:
> >> > My suggestion to you is that exactly the same process is happening in QM
> >> > and that the "collapse of the wavefunction" is nothing more than
> >> > incorporating present knowledge into making a new conditional
> >> > distribution.

I'm not sure about the "is nothing more", but I agree with the rest.

In classical prob., the system is in an "actual state". An observer
pictures it in an "imagined state" which depends on his imperfect
knowledge about it. The imagined state is "fuzzy", but the actual state is
quite "unfuzzy". When the system is measured and the observer finds out
the results of the measurement, his imagined state "collapses" into
something less fuzzy. The actual state doesn't collapse; it is already as
unfuzzy as can be.

In QM without hidden variables, the actual state is fuzzy-wuzzy. When
measured, it collapses into something less fuzzy. As Ray said (sort of),
one can describe the collapse of the actual state as the act of
incorporating new knowledge acquired by an observer. But not just any
observer that might be asleep at the wheel. It has to be a maximally alert
observer. By asking for a maximally alert observer, we can avoid the ugly
implication that knowledge of the collapse might be different for
different observers, which would make the posterior actual state depend on
the observer.

Jacques said:
>> Treating the wavefunction that way would not allow interference,
>> so is obviously wrong. I suggest you learn some QM.

The sentence is not very clear. It seems to be saying that a theory cannot
encompass both conditional probabilities and iterference. If that is what
it means, then no way. Standard QM can do it. In Young's double slit
experiment with a single photon, if we don't (do) condition on a
measurement of which slit the photon went through, then QM predicts that
interference will (will not) occur downstream. Thus, standard QM
encompasses both conditional probabilities and iterference.

This all leads to what I mean by conditional probabilities in QM:

Standard QM predicts P(X=x|Y=y), the probability that a measurement of X
yields a value x, given that a measurement of Y on the same system gave a
value of y.

To me a measurement is something done by the detectors and other boundary
conditions inherent in the experimental setup. Measurements occur
regardless of whether a particular observer is aware or unaware of them.
Does this mean that in QM the conditioning Y=y is independent of the
knowledge of a particular observer? Not quite. Y=y represents the
knowledge of the maximally alert observer. It represents the maximum
knowledge one can glean about the state of the system prior to the
measurement of X.

How do we know what conditioning Y=y applies to a given experimental
situation? Well, suppose we compare our QM prediction of P(X=x|Y=y) with
our experimental result for the frequency with which we observe X=x. If
they don't agree it means that the experimental setup is doing a
measurement that we are unaware of. We figure what it is, say Y'=y', and
use QM to calculate P(X=x|Y=y, Y'=y'). We continue this process until our
calculation matches the experimental result. It's not a fudge if the
number of times you go back and revise your calculation is finite.

Ed said:
> If what Ray
> intends is that the superposition of eigenstates of the observable
> which we are about to observe represents our ignorance, which is
> decreased by the measurement, it is indeed hard to see how these
> eigenstates are to interfere before the measurement; i.e., how the
> principle of linear superposition is incorporated.

In a theory of classical random waves you have a set of eigenmodes.
You can superpose these eigenmodes and cause them to interfere. Each
eigenmode can be assigned a separate probability of occuring. (I don't
know much about hidden variable theories, but aren't they like this?) So I
don't see any a priori conflict between interference and assigning a
separate probability to each eigenmode. The eigenmodes of Ray's theory
wouldn't be the eigenmodes of QM though. They would depend on observables
and hidden variables.

Ed said:
> A telling counter-argument seems to be that we _always_ find that his
> system happened to be in one of the eigenstates of the measured
> observable prior to observation, which is just barely conceivable for
> one privileged observable, like the energy, but cannot have been true
> for all possible observables simultaneously.

Ray's theory would have to explain the experimental observation that the
value of all observables cannot be known precisely at the same time.
Again, don't hidden variables try to do this?

I think the problem is that you are unconsciously assuming that Ray wants
to ADD to the standard edifice of QM _theory_ a new room based on this
idea of assigning probabilities to each eigenstate of a superposition. I'm
certain this is impossible to do consistenly. But knowing Ray, I think
what he has in mind is rather to demolish most of the QM _theory_ edifice
first. (The _predictions_ of QM he obviously wants to keep, for the most
part, because he has no choice). If Ray owns a house, I'm sure he designed
it himself. Moving into a pre-built house would be a horror to him. :)

I said:
>That is what Quantum
>Bayesian Nets are all about.

Eddie said:
>What are they all about?

See http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9706039

Robert R. Tucci
www.ar-tiste.com

[Ray Tomes]

In article <60p0v6$mua$1...@news.nyu.edu>, jqm...@is2.nyu.edu (Jacques M.
Mallah) wrote:

>Ray Tomes (rto...@kcbbs.gen.nz) wrote:
>> distribution, however if we sneak a look when a ball is halfway down
>> then this knowledge can be used to predict a different distribution for
>> the ball when it reaches the bottom. This act of observation clearly
>> does not alter the path of the ball. It does however alter the
>> conditional distribution.

>> My suggestion to you is that exactly the same process is happening in QM

>> and that the "collapse of the wavefunction" is nothing more than
>> incorporating present knowledge into making a new conditional
>> distribution.

I should add that when I said "exactly the same process" I meant from
the statistical point of view. I did not mean to imply that everything
has only a particle nature which I do not believe.

> Treating the wavefunction that way would not allow interference,
>so is obviously wrong. I suggest you learn some QM.

I was not attempting to explain the wavefunction, just the nature of
conditional probability.

>> This is closely related to an explanation given to me by Michael Weiss
>> which I hope he doesn't mind me sharing with you.

> You seem to have misunderstood what he was saying.

I have continued this discussion by email with Michael and Jim and
hopefully will post a conclusion shortly.

> The point I made on the page, and he [Michael Weiss] made to you, was that the

>Born rules are not inconsistent with the wavefunction never collapsing.

That is exactly what I am saying, that there is no collapse needed (if I
read your triple negative correctly).