zero point field and unexplained phenomena?

[wipeout]

Tez,

Gell-Mann, Hartle, Griffiths, Omnes spend a lifetime in physics and award-winning fundamental physics at that (not to mention supporters of the work like Feynman and Penrose), and decades investigating this particular area, they don't understand it, but you do? And you can quickly say what is wrong with the theory?

You might be supremely confident but some caution still seems wise to me.

Reading what you've said, a point I'd make is the difference between nonlocality and nonseparability.

Roland Omnes defines separability this way in his section on Aspect's experiment in his Understanding Quantum Mechanics:

"When two objects (e.g., two particles) are far from each other, one can consider the properties of one of them without having to mention the other."

And nonseparability wins out: "...intermingled states of distant particles exist and this existence belongs to reality."

Roland Omnes in Quantum Philosophy:

"Some people find it hard to swallow that two particles seperated by such an enormous distance could be so strongly correlated, but this is a fact of life. It has been experimentally confirmed and we shall now see how."

Consistent/decoherent histories has distant entangled states but without nonlocal influences. Nonseparability without nonlocality.

It is this apparent point of quantum entanglement, quantum correlations but without direct influence which seems to be the crucial point here.

(Omnes uses a different defintion of nonseparability in an earlier book, by the way.)

In a consistent histories interpretation, after the game is played (and won!) one can say something like "you possessed the property of eating lemons while your friend possessed the proerty of eating oranges" and thus you managed to win the game. Fine - tell me how I can be so certain in advance, since I dont know what fruit I'm going to receive, that I can win the game every single time.

To answer that, Omnes in Understanding Quantum Mechanics:

Some authors keep seeing a mysterious instantaneous exchange of information at long distance when the two measurements I mention in the text are made along the same direction (n=n'). They seem not to appreciate the fact that two previous elements of information must be available for the realization of these conditions: (i) an initial state involving spin correlations; (ii) a prior decision or information ensuring that the two spin measurements will be performed along the same direction. When this is taken into account, there is never a transmission of information nor a real prediction but only a correlation in a pre-set experimental arrangement.

That the measurement is performed in the same direction seems to be the crucial point in this case.

Anything important here which is new? If so, perhaps my caution was justified.

I think the classical analogies (as in Gell-Mann's The Quark and the Jaguar) which have been used to explain the correlation can be somewhat misleading without these points.

 

[Tez]

Yes wipeout - I work in this area, and have talked with almost every major figure in consistent histories/decoherent histories (though not Omnes) -- and more recently the people working on the generalizations to quantum causal networks (applications to quantum gravity).

Try taking your Omnes quote and applying it to the apple orange game I mentioned above. He is saying that the two people - call them Alice and Bob - who chose whether to give you and your friend either the apple or the orange must -- somewhere in their minds -- have already been predestined to the particular choice they made. Clearly then there is nothing strange, since in principle the atoms in you and your friends heads could "know" this choice even if you are not consciously aware of it (the point being that you and your friend's atoms were in causal contact with the atoms that make up Alice and Bob sometime since the big bang!) Do you really find that explanation satisfactory? I sure as heck dont, and neither do the majority of people working on foundations of quantum mechanics. If we set up this game and played it (as we certainly could) I think you'd feel pretty puzzled - youd think that something funny was going on...

 

[wipeout]

Yes wipeout - I work in this area, and have talked with almost every major figure in consistent histories/decoherent histories (though not Omnes) -- and more recently the people working on the generalizations to quantum causal networks (applications to quantum gravity).

Interesting. On this subject? What did they say?

Try taking your Omnes quote and applying it to the apple orange game I mentioned above. He is saying that the two people - call them Alice and Bob - who chose whether to give you and your friend either the apple or the orange must -- somewhere in their minds -- have already been predestined to the particular choice they made. Clearly then there is nothing strange, since in principle the atoms in you and your friends heads could "know" this choice even if you are not consciously aware of it (the point being that you and your friend's atoms were in causal contact with the atoms that make up Alice and Bob sometime since the big bang!)

I don't think that is what Omnes is saying at all.

Perfect coincidence if you choose the same direction for the polarizers and a correlation function if you don't.

That is what I think he is saying.

I believe the choice to be free as any.

Do you really find that explanation satisfactory? I sure as heck dont, and neither do the majority of people working on foundations of quantum mechanics.

Then they will surely have written papers refering to it if it is an obvious flaw. I've seen some criticism but not of that.

 

[Tez]

Perfect coincidence if you choose the same direction for the polarizers and a correlation function if you don't.

Not - that wouldn't be puzzling at all! In a classical theory I can have that! The point is that the correlation that you get when they are not aligned, is not one that can be attributed to a local classical probability distribution. (I'm almost certain Omnes does understand this point - though given Gell-Mann's nonsense one must wonder - so I suspect you are misreading him...)

It is much easier to think about the sort of example I gave, wherein the correlation (or anticorrelation) must always be perfect - saves messing around with trying to define probability distributions for the most general local theories, then trying to make their marginals agree with those of QM etc etc.

You must realise that the proponenets do not see this as a flaw - they simply see it as necessary if one is going to talk about the physical properties of quantum systems between observations. It is people like me - who assert that we (i) have free will over a measurement setting (by which I mean only that a settingcan be uncorrelated with anything to do with the source of the systems - the simplest way is for me to choose it) and (ii) that a-posteriori reasoning is not satisfactory for a true understanding of physics, who see it as a flaw.

There is a different set of "flaws" due to Fay Dowker and Adrian Kent that are also very well known - they basically talk about how, if you do try and extend what you know about a consistent history into the future then you get "arbitrary" universes. The proponents do not deny this either...

 

[wipeout]

Not - that wouldn't be puzzling at all! In a classical theory I can have that! The point is that the correlation that you get when they are not aligned, is not one that can be attributed to a local classical probability distribution. (I'm almost certain Omnes does understand this point - though given Gell-Mann's nonsense one must wonder - so I suspect you are misreading him...)

Yes, yes, I know it's not a classical correlation function.

And yes, Omnes most certainly understands this point. He has the famous diagram in question in his Understanding Quantum Mechanics.

Omnes also thanks one of Aspect's collaborators, Philippe Grangier, in his notes for "useful comments on the experimental tests of interpretation".

So yet more evidence to suspect Omnes understands it just fine.

Gell-Mann, though? This is a man whose wife heard him shouting in the shower "I wish I were dead!" because he just remembered mispronouncing a word in French 20 years before.

Gell-Mann is as perfectionist as they come. And as smart. I'd be very, very cautious suggesting he was wrong about anything physics-related at all. Not to mention that he and Bohm were college-buddies and used to talk physics. Gell-Mann might well have known about Bohm's version of EPR before few or perhaps anyone else did.

No, unless you have some revealing quote, I'd take Gell-Mann's complete understanding as read as well.

You must realise that the proponenets do not see this as a flaw - they simply see it as necessary if one is going to talk about the physical properties of quantum systems between observations. It is people like me - who assert that we (i) have free will over a measurement setting (by which I mean only that a settingcan be uncorrelated with anything to do with the source of the systems - the simplest way is for me to choose it) and (ii) that a-posteriori reasoning is not satisfactory for a true understanding of physics, who see it as a flaw.

To sum it up, I believe they are saying... as far as I know... subject to change... that you have entanglement at long range and, the result of nonseparability, the famous diagram of the result of Aspect's experiment, and yet no nonlocal effects and no determinism.

These are questions I've been specifically looking to answering, that's how I'm firing off quotes so easily as I know exactly where they are.

There is a different set of "flaws" due to Fay Dowker and Adrian Kent that are also very well known - they basically talk about how, if you do try and extend what you know about a consistent history into the future then you get "arbitrary" universes. The proponents do not deny this either...

Yeah, I'm aware of the Dowker and Kent work as some criticism, and I'm also aware of others who give support like Isham and Penrose.

However, as I freely admit, I don't know enough yet and don't want to mislead, that's another reason why I'm asking those questions about nonlocality, nonseparability, etc. in the consistent histories literature.

Not sure where it actually went, but it's been an interesting discussion.

 

[sorgoth]

Take a piece of cardboard, cut two thin parallel slits in it. Turn off the lights, set a sheet a ways behind the cardboard, position a beam splitter in front of the sheet, and light it.

I get the feeling this is a stupid question, but what's a beam splitter?

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

A device that splits a beam of light into two equal beams.

 

[Tez]

Gell Mann I am sure doesnt understand it - well, he didnt as of a few years ago (post writing of his book). I tried to confront him about it back then, but he wouldnt listen to me (not surprising). So I asked Anton Zeilinger, with whom I was working at the time, to confront him. Anton is one of the best experimentalists around (in fact its his experiment that is the "best" on this stuff so far) and Anton gets listened to. The upshot is that Anton came away convinced Gell Mann doesnt get it, and I'll take Anton's word for it...

So what do you understand as the difference between non-separability and nonlocality?

To make it simpler, can you describe how one can explain our ability to win the apples/oranges game above shows non-separability but not nonlocality? Note - one musn't think of the apples oranges game as "allegorical" for some quantum game - I literally mean that we can play such a game, with real apples and oranges and human participants. In the case where they win for sure, each "consuming" party simply makes decision based on little lights that show up on their measurement devices, while Alice and Bob "freely" decide which piece of fruit to give you and so on. I'm genuinely curious to hear how you might understand it in such terms. You do not need to rely on what experts tell you - this scenario is simple enough that anyone can try and profer an explanation. I suspect most anyone who tries is not going to find a pleasant explanation, I sure never have.

[A caveat I'll point out is that for the perfect correlation/anticorrelation that I'm implying is required to win the fruity game, we actually need to go to a three player game. However this is a technical detail unrelated to the underlying issue of "nonlocality"...]

FWIW I know its not at all easy to understand this example in CH for the following reason. Chris Isham (who is at the same place I am) accepted a very good student for grad school. After a lecture on this stuff I'd given in January, this student came to question me for days, trying to defend what Isham and Halliwell etc were telling him. I kept taking him to go back to this simple example, and asking him to find a natural CH explanation of it. Eventually the student gave up and tried (unsuccessfully) to switch out of his program! I have a very pleasant relationship with Chris, and I am hoping this incident does not come back to bite me where the sun dont shine. The point is, even if you have access to the horses mouth, as this student did, you are not necessarily going to be happy with what you hear. On the surface things are rosy, underneath they're a little stinky.

 

[qII]

tez, i was reading some of your papers last night. too bad i don't understand most of it.

from one of your papers i gather that you do not believe in paranormal phenomena (the jandi paper). what about remote viewing as conducted by the US and soviet govt. from what little i read concerning the research by puthoff and targ the evidence seems compelling.

my guess is that randi accepts none of it but i think that is only because that is the reality that he lives in. as far as his prize to the person who can demonstrate remote viewing, i have not researched his procedure but i assume that he covers every angle possible to guard against any experiment being labeled a success.

 

[Tez]

tez, i was reading some of your papers last night. too bad i don't understand most of it.

from one of your papers i gather that you do not believe in paranormal phenomena (the jandi paper). what about remote viewing as conducted by the US and soviet govt. from what little i read concerning the research by puthoff and targ the evidence seems compelling.

my guess is that randi accepts none of it but i think that is only because that is the reality that he lives in. as far as his prize to the person who can demonstrate remote viewing, i have not researched his procedure but i assume that he covers every angle possible to guard against any experiment being labeled a success.

olaf, I am the wrong person to ask on these boards. Many of the people here have looked into the evidence (or lack thereof), have analysed the experimental procedures used and so on. For me personally, I don't believe remote viewing and other similar phenomena are possible as presently conceived. If I was a better skeptic I would say I havent seen evidence for it (which is true, I havent). The reason I say I dont believe in it is that I simply do not see it as a worthwhile use of my time to investigate what has and hasnt been tested etc., and so I have not done so. I make similar decisions about my research every single day. So I am not a "true" skeptic I guess. In effect my beliefs are somewhat based on my respect for the opinions of those folks I know personally who have investigated such claims and found them wanting. However they are also based on a sort of "credulity" -- my understanding of physics does not admit "physically reasonable" mechanisms for such phenomena. I would love it therefore if they were definitively shown to exist - it would mean new physics!

 

[wipeout]

So what do you understand as the difference between non-separability and nonlocality?

To make it simpler, can you describe how one can explain our ability to win the apples/oranges game above shows non-separability but not nonlocality?

I'm not going to make analogies or enumerate possibilities as it's far quicker and clearer in this case to just say the same thing in plain english.

The scientists behind consistent/decoherent histories have made statements which lead me to suspect that the differences between nonseparability and nonlocality result from the particles carrying all detectable influences of the other particle with them. I also believe that in consistent/decoherent histories, a detectable property like spin is decided at the moment of separation of the two particles, not by any wave-function collapse on later measurement.

The particles are nonseparable in that they retain the influence of the other and are entangled, but are not nonlocal in that no influence travels between them.

I could be wrong but that is what I suspect they mean. I'm still learning the subject but, even then, they could make it one hell of a lot clearer what they really mean. So could I but I'm not getting paid for it, so...

 

[RichardR]

The scientists behind consistent/decoherent histories have made statements which lead me to suspect that the differences between nonseparability and nonlocality result from the particles carrying all detectable influences of the other particle with them. I also believe that in consistent/decoherent histories, a detectable property like spin is decided at the moment of separation of the two particles, not by any wave-function collapse on later measurement.

The particles are nonseparable in that they retain the influence of the other and are entangled, but are not nonlocal in that no influence travels between them.

I don't know if this is what you mean, but the analogy I heard was of a TV station broadcasting a TV program. Two TV sets receive the same information at the same time (nonlocally). A person watching TV set A instantly (nonlocally) knows what the person watching TV set 2 knows, although there is no communication between the two TV sets.

I don't know if this is a valid analogy for any interpretation of quantum entanglement, and would be interested in Tez' or anyone else's views.

 

[wipeout]

I don't know if this is what you mean, but the analogy I heard was of a TV station broadcasting a TV program. Two TV sets receive the same information at the same time (nonlocally). A person watching TV set A instantly (nonlocally) knows what the person watching TV set 2 knows, although there is no communication between the two TV sets.

I don't know if this is a valid analogy for any interpretation of quantum entanglement, and would be interested in Tez' or anyone else's views.

Actually, an analogy based on TV signal waves carrying several kinds of information simultaneously and tuning into different channels would be easier to follow than the ones about socks, fruit and bits of coloured card I keep reading.

 

[Tez]

I don't know if this is what you mean, but the analogy I heard was of a TV station broadcasting a TV program. Two TV sets receive the same information at the same time (nonlocally). A person watching TV set A instantly (nonlocally) knows what the person watching TV set 2 knows, although there is no communication between the two TV sets.

I don't know if this is a valid analogy for any interpretation of quantum entanglement, and would be interested in Tez' or anyone else's views.

Richard, try applying that (or similar) thinking to the game I mentioned, and see what you come up with.

This subject is one that cannot fail to captivate, once you actually go beyond philosophical speculation and ask yorself what sort of explanation would make you happy. There is nothing more complicated than that game I mentioned - if you can describe a framework wherein the ability to complete the game sits fine with you, then you have taken a first step that people like me have not yet achieved. After that, of course, it reamins to be seen if your framework can be made rigorous. However one certainly does not need to understand any quantum mechanics whatsoever to begin the process. And if you have an interesting idea, I am very happy to entertain it and tell you the extent to which I think it can be taken further.

wipeout, it is certainly true that quantum nonlocality/nonseparability provably never allows for nonlocal signalling. However there is a huge class of nonlocal interactions for which this is true. With a few minutes thought, I am sure you can come up with a highly nonlocal game (a toy nonlocal theory) which doesnt allow for signalling. It is a powerful observation however. Whenever someone claims to have an understanding of Bell's theorem, I ask them if they have a natural way of explaining why a non-relativistic theory conspired so as to prevent signalling (something that one might reasonably only expect from a relativistic theory).

Re what you said about non-separability, I don't understand "retain the influence of the other and are entangled, but are not nonlocal in that no influence travels between them."
What picture are you carrying in mind of "retaining influence" that could allow you to win the game?

If, as you suggested, the particles detectable property like spin was defined before they separated, then we'd all be happy! However the whole purpose of the fruit game is to show you that such is not possible (unless, as in CH, one presumes that the knowledge as to which piece of fruit will be chosen by Alice and Bob is also available before they separated). I think you still think of the fruit game as an analogy - it is not, it is a performable experiment with real fruit and humans and a pair of photons on the side...

It seems that what is required there is for the particles to "know" something about Alice/Bob's choice of fruit to give you (or your friend) at the remote station. Lets take it as given that the particles cannot read the mind of Alice and Bob at any stage of the game (and lets call the one player wipeout, the other wipein). If we accept this, then the time at which the particle you are holding can reasonably be influenced by whichever piece of fruit was given to wipein, would seem to be when wipein decides to make one measurement - as opposed to another - based on the fruit she has been given. It is hard not to think of this as some sort of nonlocality.

My feeling is simply that one day we'll realise that space and time are much less relevant to quantum systems - and thus, for want of a better term the universe's ontology - than we, as creatures so inextricably entwined with it, can presently comprehend.

 

[wipeout]

Hmmm... after much X, Y, +1 and -1 shenanigans in both 2 and 3 particle examples -- but with the difference from the usual examples in that the particles agree in advance what they're going to do and not on measurement -- I've got to conclude that this part of what I thought the consistent historians were saying about entanglement can't be correct.

So what are they saying and what do I think about it? I'll tell you when I get there as, like I said repeatedly in this thread, I'm still learning it. Actually, that it's different to what I thought it was -- at least in part, as the "consistency" of "histories" does give a rather major hint it's not about prediction but looking backwards -- actually makes it more interesting to me.

 

[Tez]

Hmmm... after much X, Y, +1 and -1 shenanigans in both 2 and 3 particle examples -- but with the difference from the usual examples in that the particles agree in advance what they're going to do and not on measurement -- I've got to conclude that this part of what I thought the consistent historians were saying about entanglement can't be correct.

So what are they saying and what do I think about it? I'll tell you when I get there as, like I said repeatedly in this thread, I'm still learning it. Actually, that it's different to what I thought it was -- at least in part, as the "consistency" of "histories" does give a rather major hint it's not about prediction but looking backwards -- actually makes it more interesting to me.

Hearing you say that makes the time I spent writing responses in this thread very worthwhile.

If you want to understand how CH describes such an experiment, this is (roughly) how it goes.

You start off by describing all possibilities - including settings on detectors/preparation devices etc. You can do it formally (necessary in complicated examples) or in words. An example would be (a little hurried, so probably not rigorous):


Particle 1 is prepared with X=1, particle 2 with X=-1 at t=0. The setting of measurement devices A and B is initially "neutral". At time T, when the two particles have entered the separated labs, measurement device A is set to "apples" by wipeout, while device B is also set to "apples" by wipein. At this point the particles and devices are combined, and device 1 evolves at T' to "X=+1" while device 2 evolves to "X=-1"

There you go - theres one history for you. Now you go off and evaluate all possible histories --H1,H2,H3...

Now - and this is the kicker - lets say I tell you that in the real universe a it so happens you measure "apples" and wipein measures "apples" also and you each get blah blah ... What CH does is tell you how to pick out all those H1, H3 etc etc which are consistent with these observations. "Consistency" here is more than simply the colloquial usage - it basically means you pick all of the H's which allow one to assign physical properties (between the observations) that are logical. Logical here basically means "boolean" - which implies they obey classical physics.

Well - people like me respond with a technical: "Lahdee-freakin-dah".

Fine - if youre into quantum cosmology and think telling the story of the universe and being able to assign it physical properties from t=0 to now is necessary, then CH does something useful. But it doesnt help me understand QM one bit.

 

[wipeout]

Thanks for your time. You prompted me to ask and answer important questions I hadn't looked at yet.

Yes, your brief account of consistent/decoherent histories sounds like the rough ideas I've got from nontechnical accounts and skimming ahead in the technical accounts.

Some histories are declared consistent and others are declared inconsistent, some histories interfere and can't be assigned probabilities (like the two-slits experiments).

I have the impression that looking forward in time, the consistent histories perspective views the future as an interfering mish-mash of future events which can only be made sense of looking backwards after the events.

By the way, I noticed that in The Quark and the Jaguar, Gell-Mann always refers to "branches of histories" in his writings on EPR. I think what Griffiths is talking about now in a book like Consistent Quantum Theory is what Gell-Mann was talking about then.

I'm sure Gell-Mann said exactly what he wanted to say in that book, as he agonized over every word so much, took so long and put his editors through so much grief with his writer's block and perfectionism that the book got unoffically retitled "The Jerk and the Quagmire" in publishing circles.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

So.................

We can demonstrate what appears to be a confirmation of the concept of quantum entanglement exists in reality with certain predictable results. Some of the observations involve Quantum non-locality.
We are left with four options, if I'm counting correctly
1 Einstein was right , there are hidden local variables
2 There is what appears to be super-luminal information sharing which violates causality
3 The process of experimental setting and observation, "determinism", invariably corrupts any outcome of the phenomenon.
4 That we are observing a false picture or offer inaccurate analysis of this phenomenon because of an epistemological breakdown.

The first and second conclusions would necessarily include Einstein's proclamation that "QM is incomplete", which does not seem all too unreasonable.

The fourth is seemingly addressed by Stapp Et.Al. in the use of counterfactuals in contrast to logical formalism

In response to Rex B.H. Kwok's critique ( there were others as well..Tomasz Bigaj...) of Stapp's work.( in Re GHZ)

A letter by Stapp:"
The essential departure of QM from prior ontology-based-science is that it "cuts to the chase": It does not pass off to engineer's and doctor's the problems of "how to do it", and how to communicate to others "how to do it" Because of the breakdown at the atomic level of the whole idea of normal physical ontological reductionism, the physicists shifted their aim, and oriented their sights on effective action and communication."
Text here: http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/RBH.txt

Tez you must be in the middle of these arguments as that appears to be your area of expertize, what are your current view's?

 

[Tez]

So.................

We can demonstrate what appears to be a confirmation of the concept of quantum entanglement exists in reality with certain predictable results. Some of the observations involve Quantum non-locality.
We are left with four options, if I'm counting correctly
1 Einstein was right , there are hidden local variables
2 There is what appears to be super-luminal information sharing which violates causality
3 The process of experimental setting and observation, "determinism", invariably corrupts any outcome of the phenomenon.
4 That we are observing a false picture or offer inaccurate analysis of this phenomenon because of an epistemological breakdown.

The first and second conclusions would necessarily include Einstein's proclamation that "QM is incomplete", which does not seem all too unreasonable.

The fourth is seemingly addressed by Stapp Et.Al. in the use of counterfactuals in contrast to logical formalism

In response to Rex B.H. Kwok's critique ( there were others as well..Tomasz Bigaj...) of Stapp's work.( in Re GHZ)

A letter by Stapp:"
The essential departure of QM from prior ontology-based-science is that it "cuts to the chase": It does not pass off to engineer's and doctor's the problems of "how to do it", and how to communicate to others "how to do it" Because of the breakdown at the atomic level of the whole idea of normal physical ontological reductionism, the physicists shifted their aim, and oriented their sights on effective action and communication."
Text here: http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/RBH.txt

Tez you must be in the middle of these arguments as that appears to be your area of expertize, what are your current view's?

Till I would hate to present a false picture or offer inaccurate analysis of this phenomenon because of the epistemological breakdown in my mind....

I'm not quite sure I understand your option 3. Determinism certainly "saves" us from Bell's theorem - but only if we presume a massive conspiracy designed to fool us (much like young earth creationists will accept that God made the universe look old by creating starlight in situ.) I know of no natural use of determinism that will give us a natural explanation of these issues (a deterministic universe doesnt really bother me, a conniving b!tch of a deterministic universe does. But hey, maybe I'm predestined to such thoughts...)

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

What I meant was the observer as part of the process. If we cannot design an experiment that doesn't involve a strict observance of un-involvement of the agent ether by observation of by editorial design of the experiment , then the point of the experiment is moot. To further complicate matters if there is such a construct , how would we know if we were truly uninvolved.
How many layers of removal would provide complete insulation from determining the outcome?


I agree with your assessment of the universe, I believe it is stochastic.