by Yablon » Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:52 am
Hi Richard,
I am in the middle of preparing a more extensive reply to Joy, but have been tied up this last week writing a large patent application for what is fundamentally a physics invention, and have also been trying to enjoy the all-too-fleeting summertime weather here. But I will take things out of order because I can reply more quickly to the good questions you have asked. And in many ways, this can be taken as my opening reply to both you and Joy, who I know have not agreed on very much.
Hi Jay, I looked briefly at your section 20 to see how you manage the double slit experiment. It seems you do this in the Bohmian way. Hence regarding the "Bell / Bohm / Joy Christian discussions about the core epistemological questions of cause and effect, etc., in quantum field theory" you do need superluminary communication.
That depends on how you define "superliminary." I do believe that there is something non-local going on in my theory, but not necessarily superluminal. So let me proceed...
If I would very rapidly close one slit just when a particle is approaching the other, the field would instantaneously change in front of the particle, and the interference pattern would vanish. Or do you predict that it takes time for this change to the field to propagate? In that case, rapidly opening and closing one of the slits would leave the interference pattern persisting as if they were open all the time.
That is a very good question, it it helps me cut to the chase on some things. I will give two answers to this question: 1) how I would use my theory to answer your question with mathematical precision. 2) what answer I believe my theory will give when that precise calculation is carried out.
1) The development in my section 20 of
http://jayryablon.files.wordpress.com/2 ... mplete.pdf leads to Figure 30 which just for sake of discussion I think of and will characterize as a Bohmian result. (BTW, I have noticed that spell checkers like to turn this into "Bohemian."
) But the equations which Figure 30 is representing result from analytically carrying forward a path integration to first order in the recursion I develop in sections 8 and 11, and the key point in the path integration where the question of how the field propagates over time is to be answered with mathematical precision occurs at (15.17) to (15.18) where I am essentially specializing (15.17) which is a time-dependent equation into (15.18) which is a static (or at least stationary) time-independent equation. Therefore, the equations in section 20 are specialized so as to not tell us about the field propagation, because they have been made time-independent. Therefore, the true answer to your question as to whether I "predict that it takes time for this change to the field to propagate" is that this is to be answered by not making the (15.18) specialization, but by deliberately carrying forward from (15.17) to develop a time-dependent solution. Since I have not done such a calculation, I will answer based on what I believe would occur if the time-dependent calculation was to be carried out based on what I am able to understand of my own theory at this time. And I will try to stay out of the weeds and speak broadly.
When one performs an analytically-exact path integration, one obtains a quantum action W(J) which has physical dimensions of mass x distance^2 / time. When one makes the (15.18) specialization we are extracting out a quantum guiding potential E with dimensions of energy mass x distance^2 / time^2. The crossover relationship is W=-ET used at (15.17). So the Bohmian guiding potentials in section 20 are time-independent quantities E (
x) = -W/T representing the time-independent time-density of a Bohmian guiding action. In the general case, spatial diagrams such as my Figure 30 would be drawn as spacetime diagrams because there would also be a time-dependency. For easiest visualization, one would probably wish to draw this as a time sequence of potential diagrams for E(
x,t) and then see the evolution of the potential over time where the time-driver is the "rapidly opening and closing one of the slits." The other time driver, which I have thought about quite a bit, might be keeping both slit open but changing their separations and / or widths as the experiment is going on. One specifies the probability densities at and near the changing slits as a function of time, and isomorphically derives the potential, as I do for time-independent cases in section 20 as well as sections 16-19.
2) From what I know of my theory, I have a pretty strong belief that when this sort of calculation is done, it would "predict that it takes time for this change to the field to propagate." One would see a time-dependency in the Bohmian guiding potential as E = -dW/dt resulting from the slit configuration changes, and there is nothing that leads me to believe that these changes in the potential would propagate superluminally. But -- that does
not mean that there is not some sort of non-local behavior going on. In fact, there is! I have tried to find some way to avoid non-local behavior, and I believe it to be impossible. So the key question for me is to precisely understand the nature of the non-locality, and then come to grips with what it means, i.e., what it teaches us about the inner workings of our marvelous and mysterious physical universe. Our job as physicists is not to fight with nature. It is to bring our own views into a simple and comprehensible harmony with nature. We cannot change nature; we must allow nature to change us when the evidence so requires.
Your theory of the two slit experiment can be considered a hidden variables theory. The two slit experiment can be seen as a Bell-CHSH type experiment if we allow rapid random opening and closing of the two slits. Hence by Bell's theorem, if the theory reproduces conventional quantum theoretical predictions, then it has to be non-local. Or you could go back a step and argue (conspiracy?) that rapid random switching of open-shut slits is not physically possible, perhaps because of some quantum position-momentum indeterminacy relations. Or you could argue that this experiment has never been done and when it is done, we will not see what quantum theory predicts: ie quantum theory is wrong. Or we could just shake our head wisely with Bohr and say that there is no point in inventing hidden layers "behind" what is going on on the surface, because what is going on at the surface is all there really is. ie non-locality which is only in a hidden layer which we can't see anyway is just a word game. See Bell's list of four possible stances to take concerning his results, in his "Bertlman's socks" paper (and note that this list is not exhaustive - there is also "Bell's fifth position", and maybe more).
Well, rather than follow any of those paths, let me try this in my own way:
1)
Least action survives: It is very clear to me and I firmly maintain that least action survives into the quantum arena fully intact as a principle which governs the propagation of individual photons, electrons, etc. An individual particle lands where it does on a detector because of the vagaries it encounters along the way in the vacuum, namely, the guiding potential, and not because we ought not even ask the question "why did that particular photon strike there at point A and not elsewhere at point B." Physics is still physics; it is not magic. So with all due respect I do not think that Bohr was being wise on this point. Mine is a hidden variable theory if by that you mean a theory that believes and insists that a least action explanation can and must be found for where individual field quanta strike a detector.
2)
No superliminosity: Per above, I do believe that the time dependent application of my theory will show that the guiding potential changes in a classical subluminal or luminal, but not supoerluminal way when the slits are changed.
3)
Non-local behavior of the guiding potential: That said, there are profound quantum effects which all get swept into the guiding potential itself. When there is no particle propagating through the slits and over to the detector, the guiding potential has a "latent" character. There is no energy gradient that can be detected. As a particle does travel through the quantum vacuum, the vacuum itself "detects" what sort of particle it is, and what its energy is, on a local basis, and then configures itself accordingly. Which is another way of saying that the guiding potential is a locally-actuated function of the particle type and the particle energy, and will configure differently when one changes those variables. (I believe that these potentials can be detected as small voltage drops when particles strike the detector if one equips particle detectors with ultra sensitive photovoltaics -- that will be my next paper, but you can already see where I am headed from section 20 of the present paper) But the potential is also a function of the slit configurations, and
those are not local. Information about changes in the slit configuration travel sub-luminally or luminally, but when the particle travels thorough the vacuum, it is traveling though a vacuum that has already encoded information about the slits, which information its receives at some speed that is not superluminal. Try as I might, I can find no other way to understand this. So now, let me try to break through the conceptual challenges that this presents, to make some sense of this that can perhaps gain wider acceptance among the various contestants in these discussions.
Put simply and bluntly, in order for the potential to configure itself
as a function of the slits, in addition to being a function of the particle itself, that vacuum must
know about the slits which are not local in relation to the spacetime events at which the configuration is taking place. The vacuum obtains that "knowledge" at ordinary speeds, but it does have that knowledge. Now, there are two ways I look at this, one is "underlying," the other "overarching."
Underlying, my equations which map a constant probability density to a potential and a time-dependent probability density to an action / time-dependent potential, only are obtained after a complete analytical path integration over a) all fields $DG, b) all of spacetime for source and sink, $dx and $dy, and c) all momentum states $dk. So in a certain underlying way, these equations have already accounted for and summed up all of the possible things that could happen. "The path integral sees everything." But this is just the underlying, mathematical mechanics.
Overarching -- and it has been a struggle for me to get here -- I am more and more convinced that
in these non-local yet sub-luminal quantum phenomena, we have inexorably stumbled onto the physics mechanism by which nature herself brings knowledge and consciousness into the universe. There, I said it! And it took me a long time to get myself to being comfortable saying it.
In the double slit, the vacuum itself has encoded information about the slits. Then, real things happen based on this encoded information. A potential configures, and while the local reality of the field quantum type and its energy go into that configuration, so too does the vacuum's "awareness" of the slits which are non-locally situated.
Let me give an example: there is a beach I love to go to in Florida to vacation. I know that that beach is there, it is in my memory. If I go online to reserve a flight there, I am taking an action which is based on something non-local. Now, I did not find out about that beach via any sort of superluminal communication. I have seen it, up close and locally, before. The light from the magnificent sunset entered my eyes, well, at the speed of light. But suppose I had not seen the beach before. Suppose I was surfing the web and said "wow, looks like a great beach, let me get a plane ticket." I received information about that beach over the internet which may be many things, but it does not transmit information superluminally. Burt when I make the reservation, I am acting based on information about something that is non-local to where I am presently situated.
Now, you can say to me: "Jay, that is different, because you have knowledge of that place, and your knowledge is causing you to act." But try as I might, I cannot find the difference. When the vacuum configures its potential based on information it has previously received about the slits, it too is using some rudimentary awareness of a non-local, i.e., not immediately present slit configuration. A few inches is as good as a few thousand miles; it is still non-local. Now, the vacuum may not have "choice" and "free will" as we suppose humans do. I can choose the beach in Florida or a beach on the Jersey Shore. Or anywhere else. While the vacuum is not free to say "I'll mess with these guys, even though my latest information tells me there are two slits I'll deal with this photon as if there was one slit." The vacuum does not have choice, and it cannot be mendacious as humans can be. But if you look at the rudiments of "having non-local knowledge" and "behaving based on that non-local knowledge," I don't see a material difference.
So now let's take this from the top. We know that in the universe, there does exist awareness, reflex, memory, consciousness. We know this, because of ourselves and how we behave and what sits in our own minds. Someway, somehow, there must be some physics which makes this possible. Or, put differently, if physics in principle should be able to explain everything in the universe which can be experienced, then somewhere physics must be able to explain these phenomena of awareness, reflex, memory, and consciousness. What goes on in our brains and our bodies is thought to be a complex set of neurological responses built out of the carbon, water, oxygen etc. which comprise our physical bodies, but somewhere, there has to be some underlying physics for this. It is likely that physical elements such as carbon are needed to code such things as "memory," but for sheer awareness and elemental reaction to awareness -- such as the vacuum being aware of the slit configurations and then reacting with a certain potential once the final ingredient of a field quantum with a given energy starts to move through -- the double slit is telling us that you do not even need the carbon or other material form for encoding. The quantum vacuum itself, even disembodied from material elements -- still has the basic ability to receive information subluminally from a non-local place, and then use that information together with local information gleaned from the participle itself to configure a potential on a particle-by-particle basis.
So, again, while it has been difficult for me to bring myself to this position and I have been very conservative by resisting it as long as I can, I believe that what we are witnessing in double slit experiments, and in the other non-local quantum paradoxes, is physics evidence of a disembodied, elemental consciousness that exists in the universe. When that consciousness moves from the vacuum and gets encoded into elements such as carbon, more sophisticated configurations form which allows individualized memory and decision making and other aspects that we associate with the consciousness of life forms. But even in the vacuum itself, there is a disembodied ability to "react" based on what is imminently "known" about something non-local, namely, the slit configuration.
Newton taught us about local action and reaction. Quantum teaches us about non-local, but still non-super-luminal, action and reaction. It is action in reaction to information about non-local configurations of matter (e.g., slits) in spacetime.
Jay
Hi Richard,
I am in the middle of preparing a more extensive reply to Joy, but have been tied up this last week writing a large patent application for what is fundamentally a physics invention, and have also been trying to enjoy the all-too-fleeting summertime weather here. But I will take things out of order because I can reply more quickly to the good questions you have asked. And in many ways, this can be taken as my opening reply to both you and Joy, who I know have not agreed on very much.
[quote]Hi Jay, I looked briefly at your section 20 to see how you manage the double slit experiment. It seems you do this in the Bohmian way. Hence regarding the "Bell / Bohm / Joy Christian discussions about the core epistemological questions of cause and effect, etc., in quantum field theory" you do need superluminary communication. [/quote]
That depends on how you define "superliminary." I do believe that there is something non-local going on in my theory, but not necessarily superluminal. So let me proceed...
[quote]If I would very rapidly close one slit just when a particle is approaching the other, the field would instantaneously change in front of the particle, and the interference pattern would vanish. Or do you predict that it takes time for this change to the field to propagate? In that case, rapidly opening and closing one of the slits would leave the interference pattern persisting as if they were open all the time.[/quote]
That is a very good question, it it helps me cut to the chase on some things. I will give two answers to this question: 1) how I would use my theory to answer your question with mathematical precision. 2) what answer I believe my theory will give when that precise calculation is carried out.
1) The development in my section 20 of http://jayryablon.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/paper-7-0-complete.pdf leads to Figure 30 which just for sake of discussion I think of and will characterize as a Bohmian result. (BTW, I have noticed that spell checkers like to turn this into "Bohemian." :) ) But the equations which Figure 30 is representing result from analytically carrying forward a path integration to first order in the recursion I develop in sections 8 and 11, and the key point in the path integration where the question of how the field propagates over time is to be answered with mathematical precision occurs at (15.17) to (15.18) where I am essentially specializing (15.17) which is a time-dependent equation into (15.18) which is a static (or at least stationary) time-independent equation. Therefore, the equations in section 20 are specialized so as to not tell us about the field propagation, because they have been made time-independent. Therefore, the true answer to your question as to whether I "predict that it takes time for this change to the field to propagate" is that this is to be answered by not making the (15.18) specialization, but by deliberately carrying forward from (15.17) to develop a time-dependent solution. Since I have not done such a calculation, I will answer based on what I believe would occur if the time-dependent calculation was to be carried out based on what I am able to understand of my own theory at this time. And I will try to stay out of the weeds and speak broadly.
When one performs an analytically-exact path integration, one obtains a quantum action W(J) which has physical dimensions of mass x distance^2 / time. When one makes the (15.18) specialization we are extracting out a quantum guiding potential E with dimensions of energy mass x distance^2 / time^2. The crossover relationship is W=-ET used at (15.17). So the Bohmian guiding potentials in section 20 are time-independent quantities E ([b]x[/b]) = -W/T representing the time-independent time-density of a Bohmian guiding action. In the general case, spatial diagrams such as my Figure 30 would be drawn as spacetime diagrams because there would also be a time-dependency. For easiest visualization, one would probably wish to draw this as a time sequence of potential diagrams for E([b]x[/b],t) and then see the evolution of the potential over time where the time-driver is the "rapidly opening and closing one of the slits." The other time driver, which I have thought about quite a bit, might be keeping both slit open but changing their separations and / or widths as the experiment is going on. One specifies the probability densities at and near the changing slits as a function of time, and isomorphically derives the potential, as I do for time-independent cases in section 20 as well as sections 16-19.
2) From what I know of my theory, I have a pretty strong belief that when this sort of calculation is done, it would "predict that it takes time for this change to the field to propagate." One would see a time-dependency in the Bohmian guiding potential as E = -dW/dt resulting from the slit configuration changes, and there is nothing that leads me to believe that these changes in the potential would propagate superluminally. But -- that does [i]not[/i] mean that there is not some sort of non-local behavior going on. In fact, there is! I have tried to find some way to avoid non-local behavior, and I believe it to be impossible. So the key question for me is to precisely understand the nature of the non-locality, and then come to grips with what it means, i.e., what it teaches us about the inner workings of our marvelous and mysterious physical universe. Our job as physicists is not to fight with nature. It is to bring our own views into a simple and comprehensible harmony with nature. We cannot change nature; we must allow nature to change us when the evidence so requires.
[quote]Your theory of the two slit experiment can be considered a hidden variables theory. The two slit experiment can be seen as a Bell-CHSH type experiment if we allow rapid random opening and closing of the two slits. Hence by Bell's theorem, if the theory reproduces conventional quantum theoretical predictions, then it has to be non-local. Or you could go back a step and argue (conspiracy?) that rapid random switching of open-shut slits is not physically possible, perhaps because of some quantum position-momentum indeterminacy relations. Or you could argue that this experiment has never been done and when it is done, we will not see what quantum theory predicts: ie quantum theory is wrong. Or we could just shake our head wisely with Bohr and say that there is no point in inventing hidden layers "behind" what is going on on the surface, because what is going on at the surface is all there really is. ie non-locality which is only in a hidden layer which we can't see anyway is just a word game. See Bell's list of four possible stances to take concerning his results, in his "Bertlman's socks" paper (and note that this list is not exhaustive - there is also "Bell's fifth position", and maybe more).[/quote]
Well, rather than follow any of those paths, let me try this in my own way:
1) [u]Least action survives[/u]: It is very clear to me and I firmly maintain that least action survives into the quantum arena fully intact as a principle which governs the propagation of individual photons, electrons, etc. An individual particle lands where it does on a detector because of the vagaries it encounters along the way in the vacuum, namely, the guiding potential, and not because we ought not even ask the question "why did that particular photon strike there at point A and not elsewhere at point B." Physics is still physics; it is not magic. So with all due respect I do not think that Bohr was being wise on this point. Mine is a hidden variable theory if by that you mean a theory that believes and insists that a least action explanation can and must be found for where individual field quanta strike a detector.
2) [u]No superliminosity[/u]: Per above, I do believe that the time dependent application of my theory will show that the guiding potential changes in a classical subluminal or luminal, but not supoerluminal way when the slits are changed.
3) [u]Non-local behavior of the guiding potential[/u]: That said, there are profound quantum effects which all get swept into the guiding potential itself. When there is no particle propagating through the slits and over to the detector, the guiding potential has a "latent" character. There is no energy gradient that can be detected. As a particle does travel through the quantum vacuum, the vacuum itself "detects" what sort of particle it is, and what its energy is, on a local basis, and then configures itself accordingly. Which is another way of saying that the guiding potential is a locally-actuated function of the particle type and the particle energy, and will configure differently when one changes those variables. (I believe that these potentials can be detected as small voltage drops when particles strike the detector if one equips particle detectors with ultra sensitive photovoltaics -- that will be my next paper, but you can already see where I am headed from section 20 of the present paper) But the potential is also a function of the slit configurations, and [i]those are not local[/i]. Information about changes in the slit configuration travel sub-luminally or luminally, but when the particle travels thorough the vacuum, it is traveling though a vacuum that has already encoded information about the slits, which information its receives at some speed that is not superluminal. Try as I might, I can find no other way to understand this. So now, let me try to break through the conceptual challenges that this presents, to make some sense of this that can perhaps gain wider acceptance among the various contestants in these discussions.
Put simply and bluntly, in order for the potential to configure itself [i]as a function of the slits[/i], in addition to being a function of the particle itself, that vacuum must [b]know[/b] about the slits which are not local in relation to the spacetime events at which the configuration is taking place. The vacuum obtains that "knowledge" at ordinary speeds, but it does have that knowledge. Now, there are two ways I look at this, one is "underlying," the other "overarching."
Underlying, my equations which map a constant probability density to a potential and a time-dependent probability density to an action / time-dependent potential, only are obtained after a complete analytical path integration over a) all fields $DG, b) all of spacetime for source and sink, $dx and $dy, and c) all momentum states $dk. So in a certain underlying way, these equations have already accounted for and summed up all of the possible things that could happen. "The path integral sees everything." But this is just the underlying, mathematical mechanics.
Overarching -- and it has been a struggle for me to get here -- I am more and more convinced that [i]in these non-local yet sub-luminal quantum phenomena, we have inexorably stumbled onto the physics mechanism by which nature herself brings knowledge and consciousness into the universe[/i]. There, I said it! And it took me a long time to get myself to being comfortable saying it.
In the double slit, the vacuum itself has encoded information about the slits. Then, real things happen based on this encoded information. A potential configures, and while the local reality of the field quantum type and its energy go into that configuration, so too does the vacuum's "awareness" of the slits which are non-locally situated.
Let me give an example: there is a beach I love to go to in Florida to vacation. I know that that beach is there, it is in my memory. If I go online to reserve a flight there, I am taking an action which is based on something non-local. Now, I did not find out about that beach via any sort of superluminal communication. I have seen it, up close and locally, before. The light from the magnificent sunset entered my eyes, well, at the speed of light. But suppose I had not seen the beach before. Suppose I was surfing the web and said "wow, looks like a great beach, let me get a plane ticket." I received information about that beach over the internet which may be many things, but it does not transmit information superluminally. Burt when I make the reservation, I am acting based on information about something that is non-local to where I am presently situated.
Now, you can say to me: "Jay, that is different, because you have knowledge of that place, and your knowledge is causing you to act." But try as I might, I cannot find the difference. When the vacuum configures its potential based on information it has previously received about the slits, it too is using some rudimentary awareness of a non-local, i.e., not immediately present slit configuration. A few inches is as good as a few thousand miles; it is still non-local. Now, the vacuum may not have "choice" and "free will" as we suppose humans do. I can choose the beach in Florida or a beach on the Jersey Shore. Or anywhere else. While the vacuum is not free to say "I'll mess with these guys, even though my latest information tells me there are two slits I'll deal with this photon as if there was one slit." The vacuum does not have choice, and it cannot be mendacious as humans can be. But if you look at the rudiments of "having non-local knowledge" and "behaving based on that non-local knowledge," I don't see a material difference.
So now let's take this from the top. We know that in the universe, there does exist awareness, reflex, memory, consciousness. We know this, because of ourselves and how we behave and what sits in our own minds. Someway, somehow, there must be some physics which makes this possible. Or, put differently, if physics in principle should be able to explain everything in the universe which can be experienced, then somewhere physics must be able to explain these phenomena of awareness, reflex, memory, and consciousness. What goes on in our brains and our bodies is thought to be a complex set of neurological responses built out of the carbon, water, oxygen etc. which comprise our physical bodies, but somewhere, there has to be some underlying physics for this. It is likely that physical elements such as carbon are needed to code such things as "memory," but for sheer awareness and elemental reaction to awareness -- such as the vacuum being aware of the slit configurations and then reacting with a certain potential once the final ingredient of a field quantum with a given energy starts to move through -- the double slit is telling us that you do not even need the carbon or other material form for encoding. The quantum vacuum itself, even disembodied from material elements -- still has the basic ability to receive information subluminally from a non-local place, and then use that information together with local information gleaned from the participle itself to configure a potential on a particle-by-particle basis.
So, again, while it has been difficult for me to bring myself to this position and I have been very conservative by resisting it as long as I can, I believe that what we are witnessing in double slit experiments, and in the other non-local quantum paradoxes, is physics evidence of a disembodied, elemental consciousness that exists in the universe. When that consciousness moves from the vacuum and gets encoded into elements such as carbon, more sophisticated configurations form which allows individualized memory and decision making and other aspects that we associate with the consciousness of life forms. But even in the vacuum itself, there is a disembodied ability to "react" based on what is imminently "known" about something non-local, namely, the slit configuration.
Newton taught us about local action and reaction. Quantum teaches us about non-local, but still non-super-luminal, action and reaction. It is action in reaction to information about non-local configurations of matter (e.g., slits) in spacetime.
Jay
