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PeterDonis said:That's not what you're doing in [1]. In [1] you are adopting an assumption that is contrary to [?], because it is more general and allows for possibilities that [?] does not. [?] is a restriction on the correlations, as compared with what the standard product rule for probabilities, which you wrote in [1], would give you. The whole point of this discussion is that the actual observed probabilities in QM experiments violate the condition [?], while they are of course consistent with the product rule for probabilities [1], which applies to any probabilities whatsoever.
Given that Bell writes the LHS of [?] under EPRB, which thus defines the consequent: I am writing RHS (1), the logical consequent of LHS [?] under EPRB.
If my (1) is too general under EPRB -- ie, if (1) may be restricted to [?] as Bell supposes -- then that restriction will be evident from experiments. But, at the time of writing (1) -- where I know (like Clauser) the experimental set-up and the correlated particles, but not the factual outcomes -- I cannot write anything other than (1).
Experiments then confirm the validity of my reasoning in (1) -- from elementary probability theory -- so I remain at a loss as to why Bell (or anyone else) should consider that his formulation [?] has any chance of success?
My writing of (1) is further justified by your own statement: "The whole point of this discussion is that the actual observed probabilities in QM experiments violate the condition [?]." Given the pairwise correlated particles in EPRB, experiments must violate such a false assumption as [?].
In other words: what is the motivation for writing [?] when it logically has no chance of success under EPRB due to the pairwise correlation of the particles?
EDIT: I agree with von Weizsäcker: "I propose the view that general or abstract quantum theory is a general theory of probabilities and nothing else," from Fröhner (1988)
http://zfn.mpdl.mpg.de/data/Reihe_A/53/ZNA-1998-53a-0637.pdf.
[PS: I have no wish to become involved in speculation. For I am no Feynman, nor am I a working physicist: but I understand that Feynman and many working physicists are similarly dismissive. Some believe that Bell was a Bohm fan and that Bell was attempting to justify his fandom by showing that any explanatory theory of EPRB must be like Bohm's. The point for me is: where do I find the motivation for anyone to follow Bell's restrictive [?], which must logically be false under EPRB?]
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