Mermin on Spooky action at a distance

[Autochthon]

To me, contextual means: the nature of the observation shapes the reality and influences the results. A contextual interpretation (or hypothetical mechanism) does not assert that there are real answers to questions which cannot be measured. So that takes us to a point at which "the moon is not there when we are not looking at it". Which is what Einstein disliked.

Then I don't think that is what I mean. I'm using perspective in this case as a synonym for any set of measurements that appears to define a specific collapse of the wave function. Maybe an (admittedly poor) analogy of a room of elaborately arranged mirrors wherein shifts in orientation of "the viewer" results in changes in the image of "the object" viewed? Any mid fight setting change is just a change in orientation all possible outcomes are inherent to the (object-viewer). I suppose in this case the separation of "object" and "viewer" would in itself be problematic. Ah well.

 

[Bible Thumper]

Why is it that when the switch selector selected equal numbers for both detectors, both lights lit the same color?
In other words, if a 1 1 came up, both detectors would light the same color?
If a 2 and 2 came up, both detectors flashed the same color (either both Reds or both Greens)?
And if a 3 and 3 came up, both detectors again came up with the same colors?

Why do you guys suppose this is?

 

[RUTA]

I can picture another way out of things (this is merely speculation mind you!): relax the requirement that the past cannot be influenced by the future. If you drop that requirement, then it seems natural to me that a particle's history includes its future. There would be communication lines between entangled particles that way, and there would be the opportunity for all histories to potentially interfere with each other (as they appear to do). Not that this makes any more sense than any other explanation, but to me it is one more possibility to consider. So in this scenario, a measurement of Alice retro-influences Bob. This allows for the correct statistics, is fully contextual (and non-realistic) and is also local and time-symmetric. But you pay a strange price for it!

The only other thing that seems to make any consistent sense is simply the mathematical formalism, which is what seems so empty - at some level anyway - to many.

Sorry for the late reply to this thread, but I only came upon it today. Just wanted to mention that DrChinese's idea quoted supra is called "backwards causation quantum mechanics," and a special issue of Studies in History & Philosophy of Modern Physics (v39, No. 4, 2008) was recently dedicated to this interpretation.

 

[pellman]

You can hear Mermin giving a talk on Spooky Action here http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/ btw