Understanding Barandes' microscopic theory of causality

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Discussion Overview

This thread explores Barandes' microscopic theory of causality as presented in his pre-print "New Prospects for a Causally Local Formulation of Quantum Theory." The discussion focuses on the implications of Barandes' claims regarding causal locality in quantum mechanics, particularly in relation to Bell's theorem, and seeks to understand the interpretation of entanglement within this framework.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express skepticism about Barandes' assertion that his theory deflates Bell's theorem, questioning how he can claim a causally local hidden-variables formulation of quantum theory.
  • Barandes distinguishes between causal locality and Bell's local causality, which raises concerns about whether he is merely restating the no-signaling theorem.
  • There is a suggestion that Barandes' interpretation could lead to a fundamentally different understanding of the universe compared to general relativity.
  • One participant notes that Barandes does not translate "entanglement" into his new framework, implying that it remains an unresolved aspect of his theory.
  • Another participant proposes that Barandes' hidden variables differ from those in Bell's theorem, suggesting a violation of the assumption of "divisibility" into an objective beable.
  • Concerns are raised about the difficulty of explaining causal locality through a Bayesian network analogy as attempted by Barandes.
  • Some participants emphasize the need for an open-minded approach to understanding Barandes' principles rather than dismissing them outright.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally do not reach consensus, with multiple competing views regarding the implications of Barandes' theory and its relationship to established concepts in quantum mechanics and relativity. The discussion remains unresolved on several key points, particularly concerning the interpretation of entanglement and the validity of Barandes' claims about causal locality.

Contextual Notes

Participants note limitations in understanding Barandes' framework, particularly regarding the translation of established quantum concepts into his proposed language. There are unresolved questions about the implications of his theory for existing interpretations of quantum mechanics and the foundational assumptions underlying Bell's theorem.

  • #331
pines-demon said:
Can you provide a simple example of what would that look like?
Some links that might be relevant.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16935
In section VIII the formalism is applied to a basic EPR scenario.

https://shared.jacobbarandes.com/documents/double-slit-interference-unistochastic-lecture-notes
Lecture notes on the double-slit experiment

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.18105
The most recent paper applying the formalism to the CHSH game.
 
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  • #332
It would be very instructive for everyone if Barandés took a paper by Zeilinger (a world-renowned authority on nonlocality) and translated it completely into his own terms.
 
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  • #333
javisot said:
It would be very instructive for everyone if Barandés took a paper by Zeilinger (a world-renowned authority on nonlocality) and translated it completely into his own terms.
which paper?
 
  • #334
Morbert said:
Some links that might be relevant.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16935
In section VIII the formalism is applied to a basic EPR scenario.

https://shared.jacobbarandes.com/documents/double-slit-interference-unistochastic-lecture-notes
Lecture notes on the double-slit experiment

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.18105
The most recent paper applying the formalism to the CHSH game.
I mean something more human level. Imagine that one tries to reproduce an entanglement experiment à la Mermin, you drop some assumption and you get an interpretation. Bohmians remove the idea that particles cannot communicate, superdeterminists remove the idea that detectors are not conspiring with the particles/experimenters, but what would be a good analogy for Barandes?
 
  • #336
javisot said:
translated into Barandés
Do you have a reason to put an accent in Barandes -> Barandés? It is not the first time I seen it here.
 
  • #337
pines-demon said:
Do you have a reason to put an accent in Barandes -> Barandés? It is not the first time I seen it here.
It must be my translator; I misspelled it once and now it always translate it that way by default. I don't know how to fix it...
 
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  • #338
pines-demon said:
I mean something more human level. Imagine that one tries to reproduce an entanglement experiment à la Mermin, you drop some assumption and you get an interpretation. Bohmians remove the idea that particles cannot communicate, superdeterminists remove the idea that detectors are not conspiring with the particles/experimenters, but what would be a good analogy for Barandes?
I would say... unlike bell HV, which correlates STATES via objective beables of which we are just ignorant; so we marginalize over them. Barandes constrains the stochastic behaviour (ie this is what replaces dynamical law in his view) of two entangled systems. Stochastic-quantum dictionary says this holds, but WHY this is, in some intuitive way, does not follow from correspondence. He just offers two views, and we can choose in which view, the open problems seems easier to solve. Trying to understand dynamical law and causation.

So I think any answer to your question, must add something that isn't in Barandes papers.

For me the real question here, is where is the physical support, ie what enforces, physical law? The normal system dynamics paradigm of hamiltionian flow certainly does NOT answer this either! Physical law is just assume to be a mathematical constraint that we think nature follows. It certainly raises questions on the nature of causality, even befor Barander paper.

In barandes view, instead of a hamiltonian flow in some statespace, we seen to have a collection of stochastic subsystems where the only "law" is constraints on the transitions. Here the question becomes, how can you enforce such transition probabilities, and have them correlated like in the entangled systems - without a bell type hidden variable? Barandes does not explain WHY. His correspondence just shows - this is true if QM is true.

It is a matter of ambigous interpretation and extrapolation to find the explicit analogy you seek. But what seems most natural to me at least is to think that the correlated stochastic behaviour is mediated with a common evolved history, that is preserved (ie entanglement not broken) as long as the two subsystems are not disturbed by the environment. This does not involve a bell type HV. And stochastic behaviour is not a "state", it is only revelaed when you interact with something. That is exactly what we have in these experiments.

To make this analogy even deeper, one unavoidably enters the kind of speculations we arent supposed to do on here.

/Fredrik
 
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  • #339
javisot said:
In this case, it's not from Zeilinger, but I would like to see the following translated into Barandés' terms: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2076

I would like to see the translation of, for example, the following works by Zeilinger: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07756 , https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0201134
The latter Zeilinger paper maps nicely onto section VIII of Barandes's new prospects paper. We have 7 subsystems: particles 1,2,3,4 (which we will relabel P, Q, R, S) and Alice, Bob, and Charles (A, B, and C respectively). The initial state, before any preparation into Bell states, is$$\rho_\mathrm{All}(0) = \ket{p_0,q_0,r_0,s_0,a_0,b_0,c_0}\bra{p_0,q_0,r_0,s_0,a_0,b_0,c_0}$$This corresponds to Barandes's equation 66. Preparing subsystems PQ and RS each in the usual Bell state ##\psi^-## at time ##t'## gets us to$$\begin{eqnarray*}
\rho_\mathrm{All}(t') &=& U_\mathrm{All}(t')\rho_\mathrm{All}U^\dagger_\mathrm{All}(t')\\
&=& \ket{\psi^-_{PQ},\psi^-_{RS}, a_0, b_0, c_0}\bra{\psi^-_{PQ},\psi^-_{RS}, a_0, b_0, c_0}
\end{eqnarray*}$$This corresponds to Barandes's equation 67, 68. Next, let's get the reduced density matrix for Alice, Bob, and their particles.$$\begin{align*}
\rho_{PSAB}(t) &=
\operatorname{tr}_{QRC}\Bigl(
(U_{PSAB}(t\leftarrow t')\otimes U_{QRC}(t\leftarrow t')) \\
&\qquad \rho_{\mathrm{All}}(t')\,
(U_{PSAB}(t\leftarrow t')\otimes U_{QRC}(t\leftarrow t'))^\dagger
\Bigr) \\
&=\operatorname{tr}_{QR}\Bigl(
(U_{PSAB}(t\leftarrow t')\otimes I_{QR}) \\
&\qquad \ket{\psi^-_{PQ},\psi^-_{RS}, a_0, b_0}\bra{\psi^-_{PQ},\psi^-_{RS}, a_0, b_0}
(U_{PSAB}(t\leftarrow t')\otimes I_{QR})^\dagger
\Bigr)
\end{align*}$$This corresponds to Barandes's equation 70. Notice that all dependencies on ##c_0## have disappeared. Following Barandes's equations 71, 72:$$\begin{align*}
p((a_t,b_t), t | (p_0, q_0, r_0, s_0, a_0, b_0, c_0), 0) &=
\sum_{p_t,q_t,r_t,s_t,c_t}p((p_t,q_t,r_t,s_t,a_t,b_t), t | (p_0, q_0, r_0, s_0, a_0, b_0, c_0), 0) \\
&=p(a_t,b_t, t | (p_0, q_0, r_0, s_0, a_0, b_0), 0)
\end{align*}$$where$$\begin{align*}
p(a_t,b_t, t | (p_0, q_0, r_0, s_0, a_0, b_0), 0) &=\bra{a_t,b_t}\operatorname{tr}_{QR}\Bigl(
(U_{PSAB}(t\leftarrow t')\otimes I_{QR})\\
&\qquad\ket{\psi^-_{PQ},\psi^-_{RS}, a_0, b_0}\bra{\psi^-_{PQ},\psi^-_{RS}, a_0, b_0}
(U_{PSAB}(t\leftarrow t')\otimes I_{QR})^\dagger
\Bigr)\ket{a_t,b_t}\end{align*}$$The probabilities for Alice's and Bob's final states are not conditioned on Charles's initial state.

In section VIII, in the standard EPR scenario, Barandes shows Bob has no influence on Alice, as the computed probabilities for Alice turn out to not be conditioned on Bob. (He elaborates on the relation between causal relations and probabilities in section VI). Analogously, in the entanglement swapping scenario, we Charles has no causal influence on Alice or Bob, as their probabilities are not conditioned on Charles. This hinges on the factorizeability of ##U_\mathrm{All}(t\leftarrow t') = U_{PSAB}(t\leftarrow t')\otimes U_{QRC}(t\leftarrow t') ##
 
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  • #340
For those interested, Barandes has uploaded several papers (six in total), although two in particular seem relevant to the discussion that has taken place here:

A Deflationary Account of Quantum Theory and its Implications for the Complex Numbers
In this paper, he discussed Markovian embedding as a way to redefine an intrinsically non-Markovian process in such a way that it looks as a Markovian one, where the physical configuration of the system at each time seems to depend solely on the value, just at this time, of a suitable introduced notion of state. Then, he argued that the Hilbert space formulation of quantum mechanics can be interpreted in that way.

Pilot-Wave Theories as Hidden Markov Models
In this article, he analyzed the fact that Bohmian mechanics can be best understood as the hidden Markov model of a non-Markovian process.

He also discusses some of these things in his recent conversation with Tim Maudlin.

Lucas.
 
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  • #341
Sambuco said:
He also discusses some of these things in his recent conversation with Tim Maudlin.
Ah! I am a bit annoyed by that conversation. Hearing from Maudlin and Barandes seemed fun but it does not seem to tackle entanglement (according to transcription, the word entanglement was just mentioned once in the three hours). With Maudlin obsession over entanglement it could have been enlightening.

On another note, Barandes says the qubit calculation paper is out. Which one is it?
 
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  • #342
pines-demon said:
Ah! I am a bit annoyed by that conversation. Hearing from Maudlin and Barandes seemed fun but it does not seem to tackle entanglement (according to transcription, the word entanglement was just mentioned once in the three hours). With Maudlin obsession over entanglement it could have been enlightening.

On another note, Barandes says the qubit calculation paper is out. Which one is it?
Yes, that's right. It was clear that Maudlin didn't fully appreciate Barandes's interpretation, so much of the talk consisted of Barandes describing the motivation and circumstances that led him to develop his interpretation and, finally, explaining how it works. There wasn't much time left for further discussion (even though it lasted over three hours!)

Last month I carefully reread Barandes's work and gained a much better understanding of its various subtleties, particularly regarding entanglement. I'll make a separate post to explain it more clearly.

pines-demon said:
On another note, Barandes says the qubit calculation paper is out. Which one is it?
He said the work hasn't been published yet, but it's based on his lecture notes. @Morbert shared them with us a while ago, so I'm sharing them again here for anyone who wants to see them.

Lucas.
 

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  • #343
Regarding entanglement, I would like to make a brief preliminary comment on how it is addressed from the orthodox/textbook interpretation. When someone asks what causes the correlation between two spatially distant events in an EPRB-type experiment, the answer from orthodox/textbook interpretation is that the cause is the interaction/creation of the two particles in the past. However, the obvious question that follows is: how does information about that past event travel (is it transmitted) locally through spacetime to the two sites where each particle will be measured? Of course, the answer cannot be the wave function, since it is not defined in spacetime. Since the orthodox/textbook interpretation is complete, in the sense that there is nothing beyond the wave function, then there is no locally causal explanation for the correlation between the outcomes of the two spatially separated measurements. Formally, this is expressed in Bell's theorem.

Barandes' interpretation also answers that the cause of correlation is the interaction of the two particles in the past. For this to be considered a true explanation of the correlation, the hypothesis that dynamical laws must be Markovian is abandoned, and it is assumed that they are intrinsically indivisible (non-Markovian), so that a past event remains causally tied to a future event, even if they are separated by a finite amount of time. In other words, the usual action-at-a-distance, that is, influence across a space-like surface, necessary to explain correlation and explicit in an interpretation such as Bohmian mechanics, is replaced in Barandes' interpretation by a temporal non-local action.

Once this kind of interpretation is accepted, I find Barandes' argument reasonable that the appropriate way to think about causal relationships is through his novel notion of "causal locality," although I would have preferred a different name, rather than simply swapping the two words of Bell's "local causality." Of course, Barandes's interpretation is still non-local, in Bell's sense. Otherwise, it could not be equivalent to textbook quantum mechanics.

Lucas.
 
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  • #344
Sambuco said:
He said the work hasn't been published yet, but it's based on his lecture notes. @Morbert shared them with us a while ago, so I'm sharing them again here for anyone who wants to see them.

Lucas.
I totally missed the lecture notes. Thanks!
 
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  • #345
Sambuco said:
Barandes' interpretation also answers that the cause of correlation is the interaction of the two particles in the past. For this to be considered a true explanation of the correlation, the hypothesis that dynamical laws must be Markovian is abandoned, and it is assumed that they are intrinsically indivisible (non-Markovian), so that a past event remains causally tied to a future event, even if they are separated by a finite amount of time. In other words, the usual action-at-a-distance, that is, influence across a space-like surface, necessary to explain correlation and explicit in an interpretation such as Bohmian mechanics, is replaced in Barandes' interpretation by a temporal non-local action.

Once this kind of interpretation is accepted, I find Barandes' argument reasonable that the appropriate way to think about causal relationships is through his novel notion of "causal locality," although I would have preferred a different name, rather than simply swapping the two words of Bell's "local causality." Of course, Barandes's interpretation is still non-local, in Bell's sense. Otherwise, it could not be equivalent to textbook quantum mechanics.

Lucas.
I have been trying to narrow down what kind of nonlocality Barandes is obtaining but I have failed to grasp anything definitive (his redefinition of the problem has not been not informative). I wonder if it is more like a action-at-distance kind of solution or a superdeterministic one (or something new).
 
  • #346
I don't have the necessary tools and knowledge to verify if there is a complete correspondence between the textbook and Barandes' interpretation, but I can assume that a) it is true or b) it is not true.

In case b, there would be nothing interesting to say; Barandes would simply be wrong. His interpretation would be discredited, like objective collapse theories, for example.

In case a, there wouldn't be much interesting to say either, since its interpretation doesn't say anything new. One of the interesting questions would be: "Are there calculations I can perform more easily and quickly using Barandes' interpretation than with the textbook?"

(If Barandes' interpretation corresponds to the textbook but takes longer to perform any calculation, then it's a useless interpretation)
 

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