What do violations of Bell's inequalities tell us about nature?

[rkastner]

My proposal has some affinity with this quote by Gisin, in the following sense: an offer wave (represented by |X>) is a physical possibility for property X to be actualized. However X can of course be decomposed into other properties (e.g., Yi) as Ʃi <Yi|X> |Yi>. The response by an absorber of adjoint property (confirmation wave) <X|Yi> <Yi| sets up an incipient transaction corresponding to that property, which may be actualized with the weight |<X|Yi>|^2 (i.e. probability).

This is the physical basis of von Neumann's 'Process 1' in which a pure state |X> transitions upon 'measurement' or 'observation' (in the usual parlance) into the mixed state
Ʃi |<X|Yi>|^2 |Yi><Yi|, with one of the |Yi><Yi| being randomly actualized as a property. Note that in this TI process, 'measurement' becomes precisely physically defined and is observer-independent. That problem is resolved by taking absorption (i.e., response of the absorber) into account.

If the intial |X> were responded to by adjoint <X| then that property would be actualized with certainty. However, since this is rarely the case, we don't have a classical type of realism. Also, it's not local wrt spacetime because of the advanced influences establishing the properties.

 

[edpell]

My current thought is that spin involves a unique spatial dimension that is not used by any other physical parameter/feature. The "fourth" dimension is tiny. All spin particles are effectively zero distance for each other. So measuring one and collapsing the state of the pair can be communicated to the second in near zero time as the distance in dimension four is tiny. Problem solved. No magic, nothing out of the ordinary, except for that fourth dimension used by spin. But hey spin has always seemed unique.

 

[Steve Brown]

For me, the philosophical implication of quantum non-locality is that the universe is a single, unified hyperparticle. This conclusion follows from the observation that two remotely separated particles can be in intimate and immediate communication with each other. Hence, they must be two components of a unified entity, connected in a transcendental or hyperspace dimension.

 

[wuliheron]

Since Bell's theorem the mounting evidence supports that quanta are contextual or, in other words, context trumps content. Using the context to define the properties of the individual parts contextual systems can do a complete end run around metaphysics because the context alone suffices to describe everything observable. As a result the same contextual system can have multiple metaphysical interpretations when none is actually needed to explain anything. The drawback for physics is that because indeterminacy can only be elucidated by its context it is a quintessential metaphor with possibly the void as its root metaphor.

Millions worldwide consider their ignorance to be part of the "mother of all" voids believed to be the origin of all that exists and does not exist. The tempting shade of a tree, the silences between the notes of a song, and the calm center of the storm are all believed to be manifestations of a single "great" void that makes everything, including our ignorance, useful and meaningful. Hints of its nonexistent-existence everywhere we look. A mystery that has no properties, obeys no physical laws, and is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere connecting all of life. That might sound like a lot of gibberish about nothing, but it's also a decent description of quantum indeterminacy.

So that's what Bell's inequality implies is that indeterminacy may be indistinguishable from the void. Einstein complained that, "God is subtle, but he is not malicious" to which Allan Watts might have replied, "God is playing peek-a-boo, and she's really good!"

 

[audioloop]

Properties are just predicates, ‘attributes,’ ‘qualities,’ ‘features,’ ‘characteristics,’ not the reality itself.

 

[wuliheron]

Properties are just predicates, ‘attributes,’ ‘qualities,’ ‘features,’ ‘characteristics,’ not the reality itself.

Properties can be treated as variables no different from X and Y and used to indicate whatever you want, but if it isn't useful its of questionable value.

 

[bohm2]

The wave function, at least for people who think (following Bohr) that the wave function provides a complete description of (microscopic) physical reality. It's true, there are people who don't think the wf in ordinary QM should be understood as a beable, as corresponding to some physical reality. The question for them is: what, then, does?

I thought this was an interesting paper in trying to answer this difficulty, a difficulty that was also pointed out by Maudlin that the authors believe they can answer:

Following Jeff Barrett (1999), we define a theory to be empirically incoherent in case the truth of the theory undermines our empirical justification for believing it to be true. Thus, goes the worry, if a theory rejects the fundamental existence of spacetime, it is threatened with empirical incoherence because it entails that there are, fundamentally, no local beables situated in spacetime; but since any observations are of local beables, doesn't it then follow that none of our supposed observations are anything of the kind? The only escape would be if spacetime were in some way derived or (to use the term in a very general sense, as physicists do) 'emergent' from the theory. But the problem is that without fundamental spacetime, it is very hard to see how familiar space and time and the attendant notion of locality could emerge in some way...at least without some concrete proposals on the table...

Suppose then that as far as many quantum theories of gravity are concerned, in various ways, familiar spacetime is not admitted at the fundamental level, putting quantum gravity in violation of Maudlin's dictum, and threatening empirical incoherence. In the next section, we will consider a range of such theories, and observe that the seriousness of these challenges depends a great deal on what they postulate instead of spacetime. Different theories leave more or less of the standard structure of spacetime intact, and so understanding our observations may, in the best case, require only a relatively small shift in our conception of local beables. But we will also see that in theories in which little or nothing of spacetime is left in the fundamental ontology, it still may be the case that the question of deriving some formal structure that mirrors local beables can be answered rather more readily than one might expect. In the final section we will turn to such derivations and address Maudlin's argument that such formal derivations never show that local beables are part an emergent ontology.

Emergent Spacetime and Empirical (In)coherence
http://lanl.arxiv.org/pdf/1206.6290.pdf

Slide presentation:
http://workshops.aei.mpg.de/philQG/Nick.pdf

 

[Quantumental]

I thought this was an interesting paper in trying to answer this difficulty, a difficulty that was also pointed out by Maudlin:

Pointed out by Maudlin? Does that mean he accepts that they have defused his worries?

 

[bohm2]

Pointed out by Maudlin? Does that mean he accepts that they have defused his worries?

Sorry, I changed it so it doesn't appear that it was a Maudlin quote. And I'm not sure if Maudlin accepts it, but I doubt it, although he acknowledges in some of his work that he may come to change his view, with time. But again, that's just my interpretation of his writings/videos.