Where we stand-Baez talk at Luminy

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  • #91
**Erm, by superluminal signalling I mean transmitting information faster than c. And this you cannot do with entangled pairs. You can invent whatever waves you like (Gisin and co once even put experimental bounds on their velocities) which propagate between entangled pairs, but information (meaning something you can access) carry they will not :frown: **

I know, but it is easy to get out of that one: you just give this wave a label indicating that it can only interact with the EPR pair (not with the apparatus of course). The EPR particles or ``photons´´ do not travel faster than c obviously - in this way each of the particles can know of the detectorfield of the other (which each of them feel 3 nanoseconds in advance ) :smile: It seems extremely unlikely that perfect entanglement exists so on long distances any such line of thinking is saved by the very low measurement rates (which is actually a prediction in SED and therefore far from conspirational). But let's not discuss this now.

**
I'm waiting especially for double slit :!)
**

Aha, I know this one is the golden key, just wait two or three months (the physical idea is there, and the math is following).

**
Ah, that's something you say when you drink vodka (provided you can still speak :smile: ) **

Haha, naaa zzdrrooowie
 
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  • #92
Careful said:
Moreover, I have given a LOGICAL reason why defining local observables within a *background independent* quantum universe is IMPOSSIBLE...

this is your post #84 on this thread.

I want to learn from you, careful, if you have something definite to teach me.

Tell me your LOGICAL reason, that you have given.

Please say what you mean by *background independent* (because people in different discussions mean different things by it)

and say what you mean by local observables

and prove that it is IMPOSSIBLE to define them.

Since you have already given your logical reason somewhere, this should not be difficult for you to do---I hope in just a sentence or two.

Please do not refer me to some other books and authors. Just give me the LOGICAL reason which you mentioned having given. I will appreciate it, I assure you.
 
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  • #93
Careful said:
But your question is fairly basic quantum mechanics, which amounts to : where can we put the observer? In order to know that you have to be able to *dynamically* identify your classical components (Schroedinger cat problem, here she is again :smile:) : you cannot just put it in by hand.

I like a lot what you are saying re dynamics vs. kinematics. You got me once thinking with similar remark (all that orthomodular toys should really be dynamically determined, not rigid as they are right now). However the only theory with kinematics following from dynamics seems to be GR, as Bergmann and the followers, like Lusanna, showed. You have any other examples or clues? It seems that nobody ever though along this lines in mechanics (be it quantum or classical).

Cheers,
jarek

PS Re EPR - this is what I thought - "confined" sort of information, so multiplying ghosts and moving towards magic. People who attack EPR are sometimes very predictable :biggrin:
 
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  • #94
**
I want to learn from you, careful, if you have something definite to teach me.
Tell me your LOGICAL reason, that you have given. **

If you want to define a local observable, then I said that you have the following possibilities:
(a) no superposition of rigmapped spin networks (which is as good as classical)
(b) classical timelike boundaries (possibly combined with spatial caps) - but then you have no local information about the interior.
(c) figuring out a mechanism which gives relational information (more than just topological one !) between nodes in two different spin networks
(d) measuring expectation values of global observables which you try to fit to a Lorentzian manifold (not a classical solution to the vacuum Einstein equations in case you include matter)

Option (b) runs straight against quantum mechanics. Option (c) is tantamount to picking a background structure, option (a) is killing off superposition (something I like), option (d) is plagued with ambiguities like any black box modelling is.

**
Please say what you mean by *background independent* (because people in different discussions mean different things by it) **

By background independent I mean - in the concrete context of spin networks - there is no further relational data provided between spin networks than knotting information. More generally, in a covariant formulation, I mean that there are no identifications given between the different spacetimes (no gauge fixing).

**and say what you mean by local observables**

An example of a local observable is : the position of the moon relative to the Earth given axes determined by the sun, Jupiter and saturnus. But the no-go argument *precisely* consists in asserting that ANY definition of a local observable REQUIRES extra relational information of the type mentioned above. If you do not specify any further information then you are bound to limit yourself to global observables such as average volume, dimension and so on, in either then you need to see the entire universe as a black box or you have to kill off superposition.

For example the point of view in dynamical triangulations is that only global spatial observables - such as average volume, dimension, curvature and higher moments of those - can be measured. As such they indirectly claim that local observables do not exist.


**Please do not refer me to some other books and authors. Just give me the LOGICAL reason which you mentioned having given. I will appreciate it, I assure you. **

?? Well, well, you can only do that I presume... :mad:

So I define a local observable indirectly by summing up the kind of examples it should be able to cover (actually I should add more to the list). This is a sensible strategy if you want to find a new mathematical object, you start by telling what it should do. Note that f-h did not give a definition of a local observable either, he intuitively argued that these observables are somehow showing localized behavior at the *classical* level.
 
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  • #95
**I like a lot what you are saying re dynamics vs. kinematics. You got me once thinking with similar remark (all that orthomodular toys should really be dynamically determined, not rigid as they are right now). However the only theory with kinematics following from dynamics seems to be GR, as Bergmann and the followers, like Lusanna, showed. You have any other examples or clues? It seems that nobody ever though along this lines in mechanics (be it quantum or classical). **

Pfew, that is a difficult one (I guess you are somehow referring to this discussion about dynamical entropy, no?). I doubt it if you can find a general prescription for such thing, even in concrete examples such as the amount of information stored on the black hole horizon, it gets very difficult if the horizon itself is non stationary.


**
PS Re EPR - this is what I thought - "confined" sort of information, so multiplying ghosts and moving towards magic. People who attack EPR are sometimes very predictable :biggrin: **

Haha, this was just the most obvious scenario which came to my mind in a few minutes. :smile:
 
  • #96
I appreciate your efforts here. I am not entirely satisfied because I understood you to say you had a proof of a more general fact (not tied to spin networks). I will have to think and see if it generalizes in some obvious way.

The statement you claimed IIRC was that it is logically impossible to define local observables in an
background independent theory.

The usual meaning of background independent is that that theory does not require a fixed background metric on the manifold to be established in advance.

If I don't see, from your post, how to make good your "no-go" claim, I will get back to you.

Thx.

Careful said:
**
I want to learn from you, careful, if you have something definite to teach me.
Tell me your LOGICAL reason, that you have given. **

If you want to define a local observable, then I said that you have the following possibilities:
(a) no superposition of rigmapped spin networks (which is as good as classical)
(b) classical timelike boundaries (possibly combined with spatial caps) - but then you have no local information about the interior.
(c) figuring out a mechanism which gives relational information (more than just topological one !) between nodes in two different spin networks
(d) measuring expectation values of global observables which you try to fit to a Lorentzian manifold (not a classical solution to the vacuum Einstein equations in case you include matter)

Option (b) runs straight against quantum mechanics. Option (c) is tantamount to picking a background structure, option (a) is killing off superposition (something I like), option (d) is plagued with ambiguities like any black box modelling is.

**
Please say what you mean by *background independent* (because people in different discussions mean different things by it) **

By background independent I mean - in the concrete context of spin networks - there is no further relational data provided between spin networks than knotting information. More generally, in a covariant formulation, I mean that there are no identifications given between the different spacetimes (no gauge fixing).

**and say what you mean by local observables**

An example of a local observable is : the position of the moon relative to the Earth given axes determined by the sun, Jupiter and saturnus. But the no-go argument *precisely* consists in asserting that ANY definition of a local observable REQUIRES extra relational information of the type mentioned above. If you do not specify any further information then you are bound to limit yourself to global observables such as average volume, dimension and so on, in either then you need to see the entire universe as a black box or you have to kill off superposition.

For example the point of view in dynamical triangulations is that only global spatial observables - such as average volume, dimension, curvature and higher moments of those - can be measured. As such they indirectly claim that local observables do not exist. **Please do not refer me to some other books and authors. Just give me the LOGICAL reason which you mentioned having given. I will appreciate it, I assure you. **

?? Well, well, you can only do that I presume... :mad:

So I define a local observable indirectly by summing up the kind of examples it should be able to cover (actually I should add more to the list). This is a sensible strategy if you want to find a new mathematical object, you start by telling what it should do. Note that f-h did not give a definition of a local observable either, he intuitively argued that these observables are somehow showing localized behavior at the *classical* level.
 
  • #97
Ah, but the arguments are not tied to spin networks at all : for example they also apply to causal sets (I just presented them in a form suitable for spin networks for clarity). Joe Henson writes a lot about this issue in pretty much the same way as I speak about it: that is how points in different spacetimes could be ``the same´´ which is just gauge fixing in disguise IMO. Even if *you* believe some mighty clever construction might avoid my argumentation and still satisfy our intuition, try in good spirit yourself to figure out how it could work (you will see you end up in (a), (b), (c) or (d))

Ah, concerning the background metric : the argumentation here is a bit more difficult - I will try to be as clear as possible. In order to add this extra relational information without introducing a background metric you have to look for kinematical ``comparison mechanisms´´ depending only upon the intrinsic structures of the spin networks, causal sets or whatever. Apart from the fact that any choice of such ``way of comparing´´ is highly non-unique and quite complicated, any particular choice gives no unique answer either, which leads to further ambiguities. The main problem furthermore is that such ``identification mechanisms´´ are not transitive and neither symmetric, meaning that if I compare p_1 in U_1 with p_2 in U_2 and p_2 in U_2 with p_3 in U_3, then it is generically not like that that the same mechanism compares p_1 with p_3, and p_2 does not necessarily need to be compared with p_1. That is: the points in the different spacetimes do not form a chain. If you consistenly apply this weakness then you end up with the conclusion that any point in any spin network will be included in your definition of ``one point´´. The only way to avoid this ``diffusion of points´´ is to pick out one spin network which serves as a reference; this is your background.

Cheers,

Careful
 
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  • #98
Careful, you are throwing a lot of independent problems together and mixing them up. Each individually can be addressed.

There are two issues of locality. Entangled states and background independence. These are conceptionally different and it would help if you would stop throwing them together.

One is the observer within the QM system, wavefunction of the universe style. Nobody knows how to do this (except perhaps for Hartle). It's a well known problem, and not specific to QG. However if we declare a part of the system to be the observer we have a working interpretation relative to that observer Everett style. No classical boundary information needed. (morally that's how Rovelli get's a propagator, notice that the classical boundary conditions drop out, there is a quantum mechanical state to which the question is relative, a semiclassical one, a superposition of many spinnetworks, but a real quantum mechanical state)

Classical GR, no matter. What are the local observables? If I construct them via Dittrich it is crucial to realize that Kinematical information (before implementing the diffeoinvariance) supplies the notion of locality.
Without that, talking purely about the 4-geometries allowed by Einsteins equations and not about metrics we don't have a notion of locality and the question becomes meaningless.
The notion of locality obtained by going kinematical refers to the possibility of auxiliary systems with the same kinematics being coupled to the background independent theory relative to which we ask local questions. Test particles.

Your spinfoam objection has a precise analogue in classical GR and is resolved by Rovellis/Dittrichs work. There is nothing specifically Quantum mechanical about your objection.

Freidel has constructed 2+1 background independent QFTs with testparticles. If I have a testparticle on a superposition of spin networks that is a sollution to the Hamiltonian constraint I can of course ask local questions with respect to it's location on the spin network. Just like I use testparticles in classical theory relative to which I can ask about the local state of the geometry (which I can't sensibly if I *only* work with the allowed geometries)

Can we define a sensible notion of relative locality of Quantum mechanical systems? Yes, if I take a spin state and couple it to a Quantum mechanical system I can say the coupling is local in time or space (as operators in the kinematical Hilbertspace!) or whatever other partial observable I cook up in the kinematics.

Is Quantum mechanics nonlocal? Not really. It leads to no nonlocal effects at least. That's one of the points of Rovellis relational QM which makes good sense if taken as an epistemology of QM rather then an interpretation.

So far I see no argument in anything you say that comes close to substantiating your very strong dogmatic claims which you have repeated several times now.
 
  • #99
Basically you do not understand the conceptional set up of background independence, and the nature of local physical statements in a background independent theory.

Really have you read Rovellis "What is observable in Classical and Quantum Gravity."?

C. Rovelli, What is observable in classical and quantum gravity?, Class Quant Grav 8 (1991) 297. G/A

This does not neccessarily represent our current best understanding of these issues but it lays some of the important conceptional groundwork from which to see them as the apparent nonsubstantial problems they are.
 
  • #100
arivero said:
Can I contradict it, then? Newtons conception of time and movement is a lot simpler than phase space and symplectic areas.

I can explain the basic ideas of Lagrangian mechanics to someone who has never had any formal physics education a lot quicker then Newtons ideas.

Familiarity is not simplicity is not naturality.
 
  • #101
Careful said:
I don't care for the moment about this too much, first concentrate on double slit, atomic physics and so on.
Since you brought it up, I might as well ask one of the issues I had been sitting upon:

The paper you mentioned in a previous thread seemed to say that in the presence of the background EM field acts in just the right way to corral electrons into a stable orbit. But at face value, this seems to reject the possibility of any other sort of orbit!
 
  • #102
**
There are two issues of locality. Entangled states and background independence. These are conceptionally different and it would help if you would stop throwing them together. **

In order to speak about an entangled state within the context of *background independent* quantum gravity, you have to be able to identify the local degrees of freedom (hence you need a background independent notion of locality) - something which is a priori given in background dependent QFT. In LQG you can only speak about superposition of rigged spin network states since you cannot identify the local degrees of freedom. If you throw in matter, let's say point particles, then these objects will quickly diffuse on the spin networks (as is known by QM), so how can you speak about local geometry when a single particle is smeared out over the distance of half a meter - say ? In that case you must be playing around with projection operators of the type : ``particle is on a vertex with such intertwiner, so many ingoing and outgoing edges and such spin labels´´ or ``This is the geometry, where is the particle?´´. But where is the OBSERVER ??


**
One is the observer within the QM system, wavefunction of the universe style. Nobody knows how to do this (except perhaps for Hartle). It's a well known problem, and not specific to QG. **

I did not claim it was specific to QG, I said QG makes the question more urgent. By the way, I always have seen THAT problem as the main one to be solved, we observers form part of the universe and cannot be separated from it. This has to be a dynamical result and not an assumption.

**However if we declare a part of the system to be the observer we have a working interpretation relative to that observer Everett style. No classical boundary information needed. (morally that's how Rovelli get's a propagator, notice that the classical boundary conditions drop out, there is a quantum mechanical state to which the question is relative, a semiclassical one, a superposition of many spinnetworks, but a real quantum mechanical state)**

But one problem is to show that this is consistent within a real dynamical framework (!) - that is you need to adress the issue of decoherence properly. Here Rovelli just argues that *background dependent* QM *practice* has thought us it is like that; sweeping lots of the difficulties from the table like that.

**Classical GR, no matter. What are the local observables? If I construct them via Dittrich it is crucial to realize that Kinematical information (before implementing the diffeoinvariance) supplies the notion of locality. **

Like I said, that is a gauge dependent construction. But it does not need to be like that at all you know : most classical relativists would argue that observers actually are nothing but matter flows themselves. Observables are diffeomorphism invariants which you can construct from matter and the metric. The spirit of Einsteins theory is that everything is dynamical included observation itself - of course this is one of the clashes between GR and QM which are not just solved by some local gauge fixing.

**
Without that, talking purely about the 4-geometries allowed by Einsteins equations and not about metrics we don't have a notion of locality and the question becomes meaningless.**

? The 4 - geometries allowed by Einsteins equations ARE the metrics. :bugeye:

**
The notion of locality obtained by going kinematical refers to the possibility of auxiliary systems with the same kinematics being coupled to the background independent theory relative to which we ask local questions. Test particles.**

Well first of all, you cannot violate ``background independence´´ classically. Second, when you pick out a gauge, it needs to be dynamically determined and this goes at the cost of adding Lagrange multipliers in your action principle. This is actually something Karel Kuchar has written a lot about in his papers on the problems of quantisation in the Gaussian gauge.


**
Your spinfoam objection has a precise analogue in classical GR and is resolved by Rovellis/Dittrichs work. There is nothing specifically Quantum mechanical about your objection. **

Of course there is something specifically quantum mechanical about my objections unless you separate the observer from an isolated subsystem of the universe (an option which I mentioned already). By the way when you pick out isolated subsystems that is tantamount putting on ``classical boundary conditions´´ - you have to be of bad will if you do not want to understand that.

** Freidel has constructed 2+1 background independent QFTs with testparticles. If I have a testparticle on a superposition of spin networks that is a sollution to the Hamiltonian constraint I can of course ask local questions with respect to it's location on the spin network. Just like I use testparticles in classical theory relative to which I can ask about the local state of the geometry (which I can't sensibly if I *only* work with the allowed geometries)**

I have heard about this: apart from the salient feature that there is no gravitation in 2+1 dimensions (the theory is just topological), it of course fairly obvious that you can ask local questions about the state of the geometry - like the ones I mentioned in the beginning. The particle, being in more geometries at once of course, and at the same time in more places at once in the same spin network. Of course, you can choose some time T which you call evolution, a parameter which you treat *classically* I presume (time should *also* be a quantum observable, no ?) and ask for the expectation value of the volume the particle is occupying or even a specific probability about the local geometry itself. It is just that for one realistic particle of dimensions of 10^{-18} meters you will have an immense number of states to consider.


**Is Quantum mechanics nonlocal? Not really. It leads to no nonlocal effects at least. That's one of the points of Rovellis relational QM which makes good sense if taken as an epistemology of QM rather then an interpretation.**

I am not going to nag about terminology here: Rovelli just does not address the issue of self consistency (of his relational QM) AFAIK by appealing to an argument that *experience* shows that it works consistently.

Look f-s, we clearly have different views here, when I speak about QG, I mean wave function of the universe, a unification between the observed and the observer. That is something LQG has stopped adressing, instead it took the more pragmatic road which is clear from the ideas behind relational QM (I am wondering when Rovelli is going to write a paper about consciousness and zombies).

Bedtime now.

Cheers,

Careful
 
  • #103
Hurkyl said:
Since you brought it up, I might as well ask one of the issues I had been sitting upon:

The paper you mentioned in a previous thread seemed to say that in the presence of the background EM field acts in just the right way to corral electrons into a stable orbit. But at face value, this seems to reject the possibility of any other sort of orbit!
A stable orbit is not simply circular or elliptic, the electron actually is performing a chaotic motion.
 
  • #104
**Basically you do not understand the conceptional set up of background independence, and the nature of local physical statements in a background independent theory. **

I do, it is just that we have very different ideas about the measurement problem. Rovelli and co have gone towards MWI, thereby withdrawing from iffy quantum mechanical issues; a ``solution´´ I find unacceptable.
 
  • #105
A stable orbit is not simply circular or elliptic, the electron actually is performing a chaotic motion.
Thus I said it's being corraled into its orbit. :-p The point is if that the background field is believed to act by pushing the electron towards this particular orbit, then by what phenomenon would an electron manage to maintain any other sort of orbital?
 
  • #106
Rovelli and co have gone towards MWI, thereby withdrawing from iffy quantum mechanical issues; a ``solution´´ I find unacceptable.
Why is that unacceptable? Progress is often made by abandoning (the strictest form of) old concepts when they prove to be problematic.

In some sense, a problem of QM is that we demand classical answers from the quantum theory. So abandoning this demand seems to be the most natural thing to do.

Obviously you have a strong bias towards the classical, so you would naturally reject any attempt to head further away from the classical. Is there anything more to your opinion?
 
  • #107
Ok f-h, now that I know in what subfield of QG you are, let me ask you a question (for a change). Karel Kuchar was already playing around with ideas concerning gauge fixing in the mid eighties. However, he is keen on manifest general covariance and insisted upon gauge fixing and at the same time securing the former. Hence, he needed to add the gauge conditions (in covariant form to the action) using Lagrange multipliers. What he found is that in this way some matter is introduced (I do not remember the type anymore) and of course the Hamiltonian constraint can be EXACTLY solved. This is in perfect agreement with the relativist idea that a preferred coordinate system needs to be dynanamically determined and coincides with a matter flow. It turned out however that the quantum version of the theory suffers from a breakdown of the gauge conditions.

Now, Dittrich and Rovelli, as you said introduce these gauge conditions *kinematically*, thereby dropping the issue of general covariance. Actually, apart from Thiemann, it seems almost anyone has given upon quantum covariance : (a) no strong closure of the Dirac algebra (b) I think one still needs to show in the master constraint programme how the Dirac algebra can be derived from the ``master algebra´´ (at the classical level). So, your quantum evolution operator is going to be explicitely gauge dependent, how can you reasonably argue that your classical limit is going to be GR?
 
  • #108
**Thus I said it's being corraled into its orbit. :-p The point is if that the background field is believed to act by pushing the electron towards this particular orbit, then by what phenomenon would an electron manage to maintain any other sort of orbital? **

Ah, the other orbitals can only be maintained when the lower ones are (just as in QM these higher orbitals are unstable if only one electron is present). An electron in a higher orbital is going to resonate with a different component of the background field too, the electron-electron interactions are probably important here, about ``electron-spin´´ I am more reserved.
 
  • #109
**Why is that unacceptable? Progress is often made by abandoning (the strictest form of) old concepts when they prove to be problematic.**

True, but it depends upon the scientist at hand what particular aspect is considered as problematic.

**
In some sense, a problem of QM is that we demand classical answers from the quantum theory. So abandoning this demand seems to be the most natural thing to do. **

Well, for me the most natural line of thinking is just the opposite.

**
Obviously you have a strong bias towards the classical, so you would naturally reject any attempt to head further away from the classical. Is there anything more to your opinion?**

Apart from the unbelievable philosophical implications this line of thinking has, there are indeed some serious issues left - some of which I partially adressed already. To name a few:
(a) As far as concerns the issue of consciousness, I DO think that the overall goal of QG demands that the measurement problem gets clarified (b) much more serious however are issues concerning the uniqueness of the dynamics (I do not expect the kinematics to be of much importance), a weakness which shows up already in attempts to quantize the Hamiltonian constraint and gets only worse in the more liberal spin network setup.
(c) the classical limit (you give up on quantum covariance so...?)
(d) the entire lack of ``economy´´, a good theory of nature should fit observation and be minimalistic, the degrees of freedom in such theory will be gigantic.
(e) the issue of self-consistency.
(d) there are fundamental aspects in cosmology I do not see adressed in LQG, ie the cosmological constant problem. This is a fundamental issue common to both GR and QFT nevertheless.

By the way, I did much more than expressing an opinion; I believe this discussion revealed quite well some of the aspects one is facing and which solution comes at what cost. Perhaps now, even more people will think Rovelli's approach is the correct one. :rolleyes:
 
  • #110
Pfew, that is a difficult one (I guess you are somehow referring to this discussion about dynamical entropy, no?). I doubt it if you can find a general prescription for such thing, even in concrete examples such as the amount of information stored on the black hole horizon, it gets very difficult if the horizon itself is non stationary.

:puke: why are you attacking me with your silly entropy all the time :eek: I was rather referring to point individuation, as that would be an example how you get "kinematical" background (i.e. manifold itself, of diff class rather) from dynamics (Einstein Eq's). I KNOW that such schemes are difficult, but no difficulty is too big to save the holy realism a la 19th century physics :smile:

I think Aharonov once tried something distantly similar, i.e. making kinematics part of dynamics, in QM. There are two articles: "Is the notion of time evolution correct in QM" or something like that.

best,
j
 
  • #111
Careful: your response doesn't make sense at all.

Merely abandoning the hypothesis that measurements must behave in a classical fashion does not change the classical limit, introduce additional degrees of freedom, introduce new chances for inconsistencies, or anything like that.

I think you've mentally substituted some particular theory of quantum gravity for what I actually said.
 
  • #112
*But one problem is to show that this is consistent within a real dynamical framework (!)*

This is true classically as well. There is no theory of physics where we are actually able to describe observations as changes of the state of mind of a realistically modeled human brain. The problem of QM is not that it can not do that, but that it appears to be fundamentally incompatible with any such construction.

QG makes this problem no more or less urgent. If I treat part of the system under study as classical I can describe the rest by QM and get perfectly fine answers. There is nothing novel or unique here in this respect.

"Entanglement needs locality"

Wrong! Entanglement needs a Hilbertspace whose dimensionality is not a primenumber and a physically suggested split into two subspaces. I just saw a very nice talk by Terno where he points out that even in ordinary QFT such a split can not be Lorentz covariant.

*The 4 - geometries allowed by Einsteins equations ARE the metrics.*

Wrong. Geometries are metrics up to diffeomorphisms. Geometries know no points hence no locality, metrics do. Metrics are kinematical, before the implementation of the constraints, geometries are the gaugeinvariant dynamical entities.

* Well first of all, you cannot violate ``background independence´´ classically. *

Hu?

*Of course, you can choose some time T which you call evolution, a parameter which you treat *classically* I presume*

Nope, I work completely quantum mechanically. Time operator and all. Thiemann has a paper on reduced vs constrained Quantisation that addresses this point as well.

*and ask for the expectation value of the volume the particle is occupying or even a specific probability about the local geometry itself. It is just that for one realistic particle of dimensions of 10^{-18} meters you will have an immense number of states to consider.*

So are you saying it's technically difficult or that it's conceptionally impossible?

Also one issue is locality. We have diffeoconstraints which mess up locality at first glance. We also have the issue that we have no external evolution parameters. Related but different issues.

*I am not going to nag about terminology here: Rovelli just does not address the issue of self consistency (of his relational QM) AFAIK by appealing to an argument that *experience* shows that it works consistently.*

Not true. Self consistency is the whole point of Rovellis exercise. There's a student here in Marseille who is just working out a detailed description of EPR from Rovellis perspective.

*(I am wondering when Rovelli is going to write a paper about consciousness and zombies)*

Rovelli is about the last person to suspect of that. He deeply detests all talk of concioussnes and mysticism.
You are right, LQG is not trying to solve all problems of theoretical physicis at the same time. It's not a theory of everything, it doesn't solve the conceptional problems of Quantum mechanics and it can't cure the common cold. But it is a viable theory of Quantum Gravity. You are arguing that it can not succeed at solving the problems it is looking at, and you do repeat your opinion time and time again without producing arguments.

Some of the things you point out are real subtlties. But your attack on them illustrates my initial point in this thread. It's worth deeply and carefully considering the established theories to see what they have to tell us about the problems we face. In the case of the problems you point out they appear to be indeed solvable by this precise method, and your declarations of impossibility are premature and inconsistent.

*I do, it is just that we have very different ideas about the measurement problem. *

Wait so now your objection has transformed into "LQG doesn't solve the meassurement problem"? Well yes. I agree, it does not. Why should it? It seems to boil down to that you have a certain bias on what Quantum Gravity should be and LQG doesn't fit that bias. *shrugs* fair enough. We don't need to solve the meassurement problem or unification to do physics.

*Actually, apart from Thiemann, it seems almost anyone has given upon quantum covariance*

Dittrich was Thiemanns student when she wrote on complete Observables. Rovellis intention is precisely to construct covariant Observables with a local interpretation. The Observables themself are nonlocal in a technical sense, but they have a local interpretation.

On the technical side I'm very much a beginner, I do not know for sure but I believe that classically it has been shown that the Master constraint algebra is equivalent to the usual constraint Algebra. As usual I do not know what this issue could possibly have to do with the issue of local observables.

Most of what I do is not related to quantizing classical systems, but to interpreting quantum mechanical ones. We construct observables on the Physical Hilbertspace, where all constraints (including the "evolution constraint") are implemented already, so we don't have "quantum evolution Operators". There is no "evolution operator" anywhere in Rovelli/Dittrich. Your question doesn't make sense.
 
  • #113
Also unless you sit down and describe in detail the precise language, assumptions and arguments of your "no-go theorems" and how they relate to what the host of people who have been working in this area have come up with, I'm out of this thread.
I hope it has been informative to some of the people following it, but it is entering the going round in circles phase now.

Also, my English sucks (especially above). Apologies.
 
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  • #114
**
I think Aharonov once tried something distantly similar, i.e. making kinematics part of dynamics, in QM. There are two articles: "Is the notion of time evolution correct in QM" or something like that.

**

I must confess I deliberately created some confusion with f-h in the hope he would learn something apart from Rovelli's credo (and actually see some weaknesses in them), but it seems I will have to be straightforward. The point identification schemes I was talking about serve geometrical path integral approaches to a unification of geometry, quantum mechanics (in the path integral formulation) AND matter (such as people try in causal sets). The idea goes back to Einstein :he was not very pleased about GR, the right hand -or left hand- side of the equation should not be there. That is, matter should be observable geometrical exitations or vice versa geometry should be the result of matter interactions, i.e. the metric as an effective observable and not as a dynamical variable. What I argued was that within the first scenario, when doing ``quantum mechanics´´ a la Feynman, a background metric is required in case you want to define local observables (in the second scenario that would probably be likewise). The second possibility is what the Sundance preon model could serve for, matter models interacting in a vacuum minkowski background creating physical measure sticks.

Now, Loop Quantum gravity, spin foam and all these models are of course not unifying matter and geometry. Moreover, the very fact that matter needs to be *different* from geometry in these models in order to define local observables can legitimatly be interpreted as a serious weakness, since the latter implies that there is no room within the quantised framework for further unification anymore. A further ramification of this procedure is that the number of states gets immense : one would definately need superselection rules to single out a very limited class of physical states.

It appears to me that there is a fundamental clash between background dependence, unfication of geometry, matter and QM on the one hand and a background independent quantization of geometry and matter on the other. Concluding : I am pretty much convinced that background independence is not the guiding principle for physics.

Cheers,

Careful
 
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  • #115
**
"Entanglement needs locality"

Wrong! Entanglement needs a Hilbertspace whose dimensionality is not a primenumber and a physically suggested split into two subspaces. I just saw a very nice talk by Terno where he points out that even in ordinary QFT such a split can not be Lorentz covariant. **

Of course, technically you can construct entanglement like that, but what does it do for me PHYSICALLY ?

**
*The 4 - geometries allowed by Einsteins equations ARE the metrics.*

Wrong. Geometries are metrics up to diffeomorphisms. Geometries know no points hence no locality, metrics do. Metrics are kinematical, before the implementation of the constraints, geometries are the gaugeinvariant dynamical entities. **

This is funny, by metrics I mean metrics up to diffeomorphisms (just language you know, I am a relativist so why would I speak of coordinate tensors?). Of course do geometries KNOW locality at the classical level (where did you get that wrong idea - there has been written plenty of stuff about that).


* Well first of all, you cannot violate ``background independence´´ classically. *

Hu?

Sure, background independence at the classical level means : solution of Einstein equations.


**
Not true. Self consistency is the whole point of Rovellis exercise. There's a student here in Marseille who is just working out a detailed description of EPR from Rovellis perspective. **

Of course that is the whole point, but he still needs to SHOW that, no ?

** *(I am wondering when Rovelli is going to write a paper about consciousness and zombies)*

Rovelli is about the last person to suspect of that. He deeply detests all talk of concioussnes and mysticism. **

Good, so then he should be consistent and avoid constructions which do lead to such exotism.

**
You are right, LQG is not trying to solve all problems of theoretical physicis at the same time. It's not a theory of everything, it doesn't solve the conceptional problems of Quantum mechanics and it can't cure the common cold. But it is a viable theory of Quantum Gravity. You are arguing that it can not succeed at solving the problems it is looking at, and you do repeat your opinion time and time again without producing arguments.**

No, I was hoping you to figure out that I was not speaking about LQG at all and at the same time to see that LQG has some irrepairable weaknesses (even if they would succeed in what they try to do).

**In the case of the problems you point out they appear to be indeed solvable by this precise method, and your declarations of impossibility are premature and inconsistent.**

No, they are pointing into the direction that a physical theory which leaves room for improvement is probably NOT background independent. The solution you presented was the very motivation for Einstein behind relativity : study matter configurations relative to other similar configurations.

** *I do, it is just that we have very different ideas about the measurement problem. *

Wait so now your objection has transformed into "LQG doesn't solve the meassurement problem"? Well yes. I agree, it does not. Why should it? It seems to boil down to that you have a certain bias on what Quantum Gravity should be and LQG doesn't fit that bias. *shrugs* fair enough.
*Actually, apart from Thiemann, it seems almost anyone has given upon quantum covariance* **

Ohw, this was just another thing I casually mentioned.

** (including the "evolution constraint") are implemented already, so we don't have "quantum evolution Operators". There is no "evolution operator" anywhere in Rovelli/Dittrich. Your question doesn't make sense. **

Sigh, evolution constraint versus evolution operator : If you have your constraint H, you are defining projection operators : P = limit(T -> infinity)1/2T integral(- T, T) dt exp( Ht) which is nothing but the Wick rotated version of limit of the operator : (T -> infinity) i/2T int(-T,T) exp(i H t) which contains the ``time evolution´´ exp(i H t).

I know that it is difficult to speak to people thinking differently but taking such a scolar ``definition oriented´´ attitude is not going to be of use.

Cheers,

Careful
 
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  • #116
**puke: why are you attacking me with your silly entropy all the time :eek: **

Ah, I was not sure where you were heading to...

** I was rather referring to point individuation, as that would be an example how you get "kinematical" background (i.e. manifold itself, of diff class rather) from dynamics (Einstein Eq's). I KNOW that such schemes are difficult, but no difficulty is too big to save the holy realism a la 19th century physics :smile: **

You don't have any idea how far I want to go for that :smile: But at least I am having good fun.

** I think Aharonov once tried something distantly similar, i.e. making kinematics part of dynamics, in QM. There are two articles: "Is the notion of time evolution correct in QM" or something like that. **

Thanks, for an orthomodular lattice guy you are pretty well informed about the interesting things too :smile: must have to do with your relativity past.

Cheers,

Careful
 
  • #117
The entanglement is as physical as the split in the overall Hilbertspace you introduce. As I mentioned it's never even lorentz invariant in QFT, unless you take noninteracting systems.

*Of course do geometries KNOW locality at the classical level (where did you get that wrong idea - there has been written plenty of stuff about that).*

How? If you meant geometries when you said metrics my original question stands. The value g_mu,nu (x) of the metric tensor field is *meaningless*. It's notdiffeoinvariant. What are your local observables?
As a simple matter of fact (as I should have pointed out before) until Dittrichs construction there were only a handfull of observables of GR (and only for special cases) known at all. All of them global.
All calculations proceeded by introducing test systems and "fixing gauge". Of course it's not actually fixing gauge, gauge symmetries are not violated in nature.

Look a lot of what you say doesn't make any sense to me. If that's intentional then you're wasting my time, if not then perhaps you should go and polish your statements.

Ok, next thing. The natural thing in the quantum mechanical system is to introduce locality and what you erronously insist on calling gaugefixing AFTER the construction of the projection operator. THerefore my projection operator can not depend on them therefore your statements are just blatantly false.

It's obvious that you have thought about these issues for some time. But in the few areas where I have a rather good idea what's going on and could pin them down to something concrete your statements are just wrong, in those I have no clear grip on they seem just confused.

You are making up and dropping claims as you see fit, and screaming out extraordinary claims without a shred of argumentation. I usually call this behavior on the Internet trolling.
 
  • #118
**The entanglement is as physical as the split in the overall Hilbertspace you introduce. As I mentioned it's never even lorentz invariant in QFT, unless you take noninteracting systems.**

But in background dependent QFT the split is *natural* since you can speak of local degrees of freedom (given a Lorentz frame).

**
As a simple matter of fact (as I should have pointed out before) until Dittrichs construction there were only a handfull of observables of GR (and only for special cases) known at all. All of them global. **

No, they are not, many invariants of the metric : Ricci scalar, Riemann scalar, gradients of the ricci scalar and so on allow you to put up a relational interpretation by amongst others measuring geodesic distances, this is old stuff really. And these invariants GENERICALLY allow you to construct local interpretations.

**
Look a lot of what you say doesn't make any sense to me. If that's intentional then you're wasting my time, if not then perhaps you should go and polish your statements. **

Well, you think it is a GOOD feature matter that it is necessary to define local observables. I argued why can look on this issue differently : I cannot help it if the ideas which I tell you sound strange or weird (they are actually very old and well known by specialists). For example: are you telling me you did not hear about the possibility of looking on gravity as
an *emergent* phenomenon coming particle interactions in Minkowski? Or vice versa, that a geometrization program of matter is one of the options?


**
Ok, next thing. The natural thing in the quantum mechanical system is to introduce locality and what you erronously insist on calling gaugefixing AFTER the construction of the projection operator. THerefore my projection operator can not depend on them therefore your statements are just blatantly false. **

I think again that we are missing each other's intentions here (there exist many models around each with different features so I can only guess what you are doing unless you SAY IT). Your gauge fixing is KINEMATICAL (right?) so I assume you start from something like causal spin networks which are foliated : each ``hypersurface´´ carrying a time label (am I still correct?). At time t_0 in the folation time you pick out a superposition of spatial spin networks each of which carry a copy of the particle at some vertex. Then you have some path integral formulation involving local amplitudes corresponding to elementary moves as well for the geometry of the spin network and for the particle (right ?). So now you can do a couple of things : you can ask about the probability that the local geometry at the node the particle is in at *foliation time* t is such and such. That I would call a gauge dependent construction (since you introduce a preferred foliation). Another thing which you could do is to introduce an external classical clock cl and ask about the expectation value of the time t at cl = 5 (here you could image allowing for processes which also go backwards in time). I agree that in BOTH cases the projection operator does NOT depend upon this issue (quite logical). I was merely pointing out that your DYNAMICAL rules do not necessary correspond to what you might expect the fully quantized Hamiltonian constraint to do.

**
It's obvious that you have thought about these issues for some time. But in the few areas where I have a rather good idea what's going on and could pin them down to something concrete your statements are just wrong, in those I have no clear grip on they seem just confused. **

They ARE not, I told you I was deliberatly misguiding you in the beginning. Moreover, you seem to be stuck into one type of language which makes it impossible to see for you that the other party might be suggesting something else than you think.

Cheers,

Careful
 
  • #119
*No, they are not, many invariants of the metric : Ricci scalar, Riemann scalar, gradients of the ricci scalar and so on allow you to put up a relational interpretation by amongst others measuring geodesic distances, this is old stuff really. And these invariants GENERICALLY allow you to construct local interpretations.*

The Ricci scalar et al are invariants of the metric wrt local lorentz transformations, they are not gaugeinvariant wrt diffeomorphisms. They are not invariants of the GEOMETRY as they are not invariant under active diffeomorphisms. So when you say metric do you mean the metric field or the metric field up to equivalence under diffeomorphisms? You claimed before that it was the later, now you say something that indicates the former. It's hard to learn the language you are speaking in if you are constantly shifting.
Geodesic distance between what? The best thing you could do is say something like "the sum over all geodesic distances between places where the Ricci scalar field is 5". That's probably a gaugeindependent statement. I can do the same in LQG. That kind of statement has never been translated into an observable, and it can be argued that it's pretty nonlocal anyways.

Matter is what we usually do in classical GR for natural localized observables. But the matter might of course just be a peculiar (perhaps renormalized, perhaps open edge) excitation of the spin network. Just any identifiable featur relative to which we can localize.

- In QFT nothing that requires a Lorentz frame is natural.

I personally work with simpler toy models, and mostly on the conceptional framework, independent of a particular model, but what you describe is not at all what is suggested by Rovelli/Dittrich.
Assume for the moment that we have one constraint left to implement on some space K. The projector gives me a subspace of this space H which is annihalated by the constraint, the states of this subspaces are "nonlocal" in K relative to the usual operators (say with eigenvectors as specific spin network states). So any operator on this subspace H seems to be naturally nonlocal as well. Some of these operators correspond to local questions though (is a specific spin network in the "nonlocal" superposition? If so where's the particle on it?).
But I'm always talking about operators on H! So these operators are really gauge invariant questions! They get their *interpretation* through kinematical considerations, and this interpretation is not unique in any sense, but I'm manifestly nowhere breaking the gauge invariance of the observables or the states. I never even need to think about transitions between specific "timeslices" or foliations. This breaks gaugeinvariance no more or no less then the Newton Wigner operator breaks Lorentz invariance. You get different Newton Wigner operators for different frames but each individual operator has to be lorentz covariant.

One of the issues is that the spin network basis is not very well suited for intuitions regarding this. The physical projector acting on the spin networks does not produce a time orderd sequence of spin networks but a superposition of spin networks without any ordering. A spin network is not projected to a spinfoam or something like that.

Perez has written about the breakdown of this intuition in the case of LQG. Well worth checking out.
 
  • #120
**
The Ricci scalar et al are invariants of the metric wrt local lorentz transformations, they are not gaugeinvariant wrt diffeomorphisms. They are not invariants of the GEOMETRY as they are not invariant under active diffeomorphisms. So when you say metric do you mean the metric field or the metric field up to equivalence under diffeomorphisms? You claimed before that it was the later, now you say something that indicates the former. It's hard to learn the language you are speaking in if you are constantly shifting. **

No, you just are not aware of the old relational constructions between events which are labelled by metric invariants : that is all. Ask to Rovelli about this, I guess he will explain you.

**
Geodesic distance between what? **

Between two events labelled by physical (metric) coordinates (a,b,c,d). Generically, there are only four of them: in special cases we have to add coordinates to avoid global ambiguities (of course in Minkowski you are lost - but there you cannot ask physical questions anyway). You know, matter curves geometry, this effect is visibe in the Ricci scalar, the Riemann tensor and so on...

**
The best thing you could do is say something like "the sum over all geodesic distances between places where the Ricci scalar field is 5". **

You can do MUCH better than that, but at least you start thinking.

**That's probably a gaugeindependent statement.**

Yes it is

**I can do the same in LQG. **

Of course you can

**
That kind of statement has never been translated into an observable, and it can be argued that it's pretty nonlocal anyways. **

It is not nonlocal at all if you understood differential geometry; actually the geodesic distance is the most natural variable to consider in GR, Synge has rewritten entire GR just based upon this.

** Matter is what we usually do in classical GR for natural localized observables. But the matter might of course just be a peculiar (perhaps renormalized, perhaps open edge) excitation of the spin network. Just any identifiable featur relative to which we can localize. **

Matter information can be GENERICALLY retrieved from metric invariants.


** - In QFT nothing that requires a Lorentz frame is natural.**

In flat spacetime for sure it is required : in curved spacetime QFT becomes much more complicated.

**I personally work with simpler toy models, and mostly on the conceptional framework, independent of a particular model, but what you describe is not at all what is suggested by Rovelli/Dittrich. **

But Smolin Markopolou work with that and many others provide similar models in such a spirit. Why should I only take into account the suggestions by Rovelli/Dittrich?

**Assume for the moment that we have one constraint left to implement on some space K. The projector gives me a subspace of this space H which is annihalated by the constraint, the states of this subspaces are "nonlocal" in K relative to the usual operators (say with eigenvectors as specific spin network states). So any operator on this subspace H seems to be naturally nonlocal as well. Some of these operators correspond to local questions though (is a specific spin network in the "nonlocal" superposition? If so where's the particle on it?). **

So, that is something similar to the projection operator for the constraint H I have written down before. Eeuh I would call the question whether a specific spin network is in a ``non local´´ superpostion a non local one. Could you mention why I shoud think of this as local?

**But I'm always talking about operators on H! So these operators are really gauge invariant questions! They get their *interpretation* through kinematical considerations, and this interpretation is not unique in any sense, but I'm manifestly nowhere breaking the gauge invariance of the observables or the states. I never even need to think about transitions between specific "timeslices" or foliations. This breaks gaugeinvariance no more or no less then the Newton Wigner operator breaks Lorentz invariance. You get different Newton Wigner operators for different frames but each individual operator has to be lorentz covariant.**

I think there was a confusion in our different use of language. My main concern is : what is your constraint and correspondingly H? How does it relate to the classical Hamiltonian constraint? How are all the four constraints treated and how should I think about the quantum Dirac algebra? So, it is quite obvious that you can abstractly look for gauge invariant statements. I did not deny that, my concerns are mainly of the above type.

**
One of the issues is that the spin network basis is not very well suited for intuitions regarding this. The physical projector acting on the spin networks does not produce a time orderd sequence of spin networks but a superposition of spin networks without any ordering. A spin network is not projected to a spinfoam or something like that. **

Ah ok, so you are really just modelling a constraint type of operator and looking for ``frozen´´ states. this was not entirely clear for me before and I was thinking more about spin foam, where you also easily ask such kind of questions.

Cheers,

Careful
 

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