Consensus about Non-Locality & Spacetime

[stglyde]

Here's the problem of normal matters using tachyons and sending them which not even be possible.. anyone know any workaround for it?

By PeterDonis:

the correct link... please comment on it guys.

http://www.desy.de/user/projects/Physics/ParticleAndNuclear/tachyons.html

 

[Ken G]

That's true if the mass of the particle is constant. But if mass can change, or more precisely if the sign of m^2 can change, then the particle can change its velocity from a subluminal to a superluminal one. See
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1006.1986

Fair enough, but what your paper essentially does is group together all the new physics that one would need to form a Bohmian view that is consistent with relativity. The new physics includes things like scalar potentials, absolute simultaneity, and superluminal communication. I don't dispute the value in being able to notice the possible self-consistent groupings, but I do question whether it can be claimed that a superior interpretation of existing physics appears by introducing new physics. To me, the value of an interpretation is twofold, but both are essentially subjective. First of all, an interpretation helps us understand the theories we have now, but different physicists may prefer to understand in different ways. Secondly, they can help lead to the discovery of new physics, and this is a fine thing to use BM for, but it is not a particularly strong argument for the value of BM in regard to the existing physics, as it is basically anybody's guess how the new physics will shake out (that's the subjective part-- where one wishes to devote their resources). I see all the new physics that BM needs as a problem for using it with current physics, but I also see it as a valuable contribution for getting a "heads up" toward possible new directions. These are two rather different uses for interpretations, and sometimes that landscape can get a bit confusing when various different threads overlap.

Quite the opposite, I think it is more than justified to introduce some new physics in order to explain what is happening behind the standard "shut up and calculate" rules of QM.

The problem with introducing new physics is that it steps on the distinctions between theories and interpretations of theories. BM seems to suffer from this a lot-- it cannot decide if it is just trying to be one valid way to frame existing QM, or if it is trying to assert the existence of new physics that we should be designing experiments to look for. Either is a valid course, but confusing the two isn't, because they must be judged in very different ways. Pure interpretations of QM must be judged on essentially philosophical grounds, like Occam's razor and connecting with what is already understood and so on (which can be very different for different people, who already understand different things). New theories must be judged in the time-honored way: by support from observational evidence.

 

[stglyde]

That's true if the mass of the particle is constant. But if mass can change, or more precisely if the sign of m^2 can change, then the particle can change its velocity from a subluminal to a superluminal one. See
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1006.1986


Quite the opposite, I think it is more than justified to introduce some new physics in order to explain what is happening behind the standard "shut up and calculate" rules of QM.

Towards the end of http://www.desy.de/user/projects/Physics/ParticleAndNuclear/tachyons.html it is mentioned:

"The bottom line is that you can't use tachyons to send information faster than the speed of light from one place to another. Doing so would require creating a message encoded some way in a localized tachyon field, and sending it off at superluminal speed toward the intended receiver. But as we have seen you can't have it both ways: localized tachyon disturbances are subluminal and superluminal disturbances are nonlocal."

Demystifier has *really* solved this problem as well?

 

[Demystifier]

"The bottom line is that you can't use tachyons to send information faster than the speed of light from one place to another. Doing so would require creating a message encoded some way in a localized tachyon field, and sending it off at superluminal speed toward the intended receiver. But as we have seen you can't have it both ways: localized tachyon disturbances are subluminal and superluminal disturbances are nonlocal."

This refers to classical tachyonic FIELDS (i.e., extended objects), while ...

Demystifier has *really* solved this problem as well?

... my tachyonic paper mentioned in #49 is about classical tachyonic PARTICLES (i.e., pointlike objects).

Note also that in the Bohmian case (Sec. 5 of that paper), a particle which may become tachyonic at some regions of spacetime is guided by a non-tachyonic "field" (wave function).

 

[stglyde]

Perhaps it is, but probably not in such a simple (whatever that means) way.

How many are working on relativistic BM without making space and time equal and how are they progressing now? If absolutely no progress (except yours). Why do many physicists give high hope to BM when it can't be made relativistic. And what are the exact arguments why they have difficulty making it relativistic (that is, by making time as coordinate and not parameter as in Newtonian). Here let's mention standard BM versions that doesn't include yours for sake of discussions.

 

[Demystifier]

How many are working on relativistic BM without making space and time equal ...

A few.

... and how are they progressing now?

There is some progress proportional to the number of people doing it. Since that number is not big, the progress is also not very spectacular.

 

[stglyde]

Fair enough, but what your paper essentially does is group together all the new physics that one would need to form a Bohmian view that is consistent with relativity. The new physics includes things like scalar potentials, absolute simultaneity, and superluminal communication. I don't dispute the value in being able to notice the possible self-consistent groupings, but I do question whether it can be claimed that a superior interpretation of existing physics appears by introducing new physics. To me, the value of an interpretation is twofold, but both are essentially subjective. First of all, an interpretation helps us understand the theories we have now, but different physicists may prefer to understand in different ways. Secondly, they can help lead to the discovery of new physics, and this is a fine thing to use BM for, but it is not a particularly strong argument for the value of BM in regard to the existing physics, as it is basically anybody's guess how the new physics will shake out (that's the subjective part-- where one wishes to devote their resources). I see all the new physics that BM needs as a problem for using it with current physics, but I also see it as a valuable contribution for getting a "heads up" toward possible new directions. These are two rather different uses for interpretations, and sometimes that landscape can get a bit confusing when various different threads overlap.
The problem with introducing new physics is that it steps on the distinctions between theories and interpretations of theories. BM seems to suffer from this a lot-- it cannot decide if it is just trying to be one valid way to frame existing QM, or if it is trying to assert the existence of new physics that we should be designing experiments to look for. Either is a valid course, but confusing the two isn't, because they must be judged in very different ways. Pure interpretations of QM must be judged on essentially philosophical grounds, like Occam's razor and connecting with what is already understood and so on (which can be very different for different people, who already understand different things). New theories must be judged in the time-honored way: by support from observational evidence.

People have different temperaments. Some are introvert, extrovert, artistic, thinker (logic or left brained), feeler (or right brain), and I guess this has to do with their choosing different interpretations. The thinker choosing Copenhagen because they simply want to think in terms of equations. The extrovert choosing Bohmian because it is like arts, you can imagine things and the maybe the introvert Many Worlds.

About support from observational evidence. Yes what can set them apart or nail the right one is a unique prediction that only one of them can make. Is this possible? Yes.

But then physics is also about belief and holding on to current consensus. In the 15th century. Discussion of anything physics can get one burnt at stake. So deep is the damage that it has affected us profoundly in an unconscious way, because now centuries later we have to to do the opposite, accept wholly that everything is explainable by physics and anything outside it doesn't exist.

I'll give a clue what it is. If I mention the name. It can trigger primal unconscious chord and cause some sort of uncomfortableness in physicists. I'll mention the word now anyway. It's "consciousness". Due to the deep pain suffered in the 15th century. Physicists avoid it like plague. But another reason is that they think consciousness function in the levels of cells and neurons and nothing below. And it is a good deduction to make.

What we have is some kind of catch 99. We don't know the new physics below. We use that fact to argue consciousness work in the level of neurons and cells because there is no new physics below (except by those who consider something akin to Penrose-Hameroff Microtubules and Objective Collapse).

Is there none? We can't discount anything yet. But physicists are more comfortable thinking of billions and billions galaxies were once the size of a hydrogen proton than thinking about consciousness and what form and level it may take below the metric (of the mind).

In addition to consciousness. There is something else. But mere mentioning the other word can make it banned and message deleted so I'll not mention the word. A century ago, any discussion about Many Worlds can make one be put in mental institutions, now it's a bit more humane, one is simply isolated.

You may not have a clue what I'm talking about Ken. Because the word is censored.. in spite of it having evidence and can make one nail the right interpretation or rather new physics. Also if you continue to discuss on this level. This thread would even be locked so let's not talk about it and just put it under the rag.

At this point in time. Officially we can't distinguish what is the right interpretation or rather new physics because of this lack of deeper and multi disciplinary explorations.

 

[bohm2]

I'll mention the word now anyway. It's "consciousness". Due to the deep pain suffered in the 15th century. Physicists avoid it like plague. But another reason is that they think consciousness function in the levels of cells and neurons and nothing below. And it is a good deduction to make.

I'm not sure I agree about that. The problem is that many scientists argue that there's no hint of how one can get subjectivity/qualia/consciousness out a complex network of neural connections, etc. The gap between mind (the 'mental') and neurons (the 'material') (as presently understood) seems immense. They just don't seem to mesh. Consciousness seems to "provide us with a kind of ‘window’ on to our brain, making possible a transparent grasp of a tiny corner of a materiality that is in general opaque to us" but we haven't the slightest clue of how to mesh it together with what we presently call "matter". I found this Lockwood passage interesting:

Do we therefore have no genuine knowledge of the intrinsic character of the physical world? So it might seem. But, according to the line of thought I am now pursuing, we do, in a very limited way, have access to content in the material world as opposed merely to abstract casual structure, since there is a corner of the physical world that we know, not merely by inference from the deliverances of our five sense, but because we are that corner. It is the bit within our skulls, which we know by introspection. In being aware, for example, of the qualia that seemed so troublesome for the materialist, we glimpse the intrinsic nature of what, concretely, realizes the formal structure that a correct physics would attribute to the matter of our brains. In awareness, we are, so to speak, getting an insider's look at our own brain activity.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neutral-monism/#7.2

Others argue that it's quite possible that our current "core" notions of "matter" (physics) may require revision to allow unification of the mental with the physical. Others argue that the problem may be intractable because of our own cognitive limitations. Maybe the problem of consciousness has its source as some special feature of consciousness, itself. By having this special access (inner experience) to it that we have to nothing else (and nothing else to us), this may not allow us to see the connection?

 

[stglyde]

The problem is that many sciemtists argue that there's no hint of how one can get subjectivity/qualia/consciousness out a complex network of neural connections, etc. The gap between mind (the 'mental') and neurons (the 'material') (as presently understood) seems immense. They just don't seem to mesh. Consciousness seems to "provide us with a kind of ‘window’ on to our brain, making possible a transparent grasp of a tiny corner of a materiality that is in general opaque to us" but we haven't the slightest clue of how to mesh it together with what we presently call "matter".

But unfortunately. Only 1% of physicists are aware of the above. Those who are not aware just censor anything that mentions that it thinking "how medieval!".

And that is the problem we are having now. Those who have access to high tech instruments like particle accelerators or SQUID or other million dollar equipment are of the 99% variety. For example Lisa Randall and Stephen Hawking are sure the mind works in the levels of cells and neurons and nothing more.

In the mind lies the key to the next physics. But I can't continue more lest this thread be locked.

 

[Ken G]

Not to get too far off track, but I would say that the "problem of consciousness" is that we don't have a scientifically framed hypothesis about what the problem of consciousness actually is. One might argue that there is a hypothesis that consciousness can be reduced entirely to the physical action of the brain tissue, but this isn't a scientific hypothesis, because it doesn't suggest an experiment that comes out A if the hypothesis is true, or B if it isn't. What does an experiment look like that refutes the claim that consciousness can be reduced entirely to the physical action of brain tissue? We need a better question than that, something that actually tells us something about consciousness.

 

[Demystifier]

The extrovert choosing Bohmian

I am an introvert personality, and yet I choose Bohmian.

http://changingminds.org/explanations/preferences/extravert_introvert.htm