Ben6993 wrote:I am not completely clear about the word "irreducible". I looked up "irreducible chance" on google and mostly found "irreducible complexity" in Intelligent Design articles. But I have heard Susskind in video lectures talking about what is assigned to chance being so assigned because we cannot keep track of all the variables involved. Too many degrees of freedom to handle, so all the effects get confounded into a chance effect. I presume that is what you mean by the lack of control with the pump photons.
Indeed like Susskind, I believe all randomness is due to incomplete knowledge/specification. That is, randomness is not a property of the nature, but a property of our description of nature. This is the same sense in which Einstein meant that QM was incomplete. That is, the reason why QM only gives probabilities and not definite individual outcomes is because it is not a complete description of the system. Those who believe Einstein was wrong, have since concluded that the randomness in QM is irreducible (a fundamental ontological property of nature itself). In other words, that QM is complete and there is no way to have anything more than the randomness which QM predicts.
I think such conclusions are seriously misguided and you can find examples of it in:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.5103.pdf (Page 3 & 4)
In this way, we can keep quantum mechanics, locality and freedom. This position does entail taking quantum randomness very seriously: it becomes an irreducible feature of the physical world, a “primitive notion”; it is not “merely” an emergent feature.
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However, there is no such explanation for quantum randomness. Quantum randomness is intrinsic, nonclassical, irreducible
http://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0610115.pdfAccording to Bell’s theorem, the randomness of quantum mechanics is truly ontological and not epistemological: it cannot be traced back to ignorance but is “for real.” It is curious that the quantum physics community is currently falling under the thrall of Bayesian ideas even though their science should be telling them that the probabilities are objective.
They are all completely wrong of course. It is sad that universities still allow such backward views to be taught to students in the 21st century, as Jaynes already explained many years ago.
http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/cmystery.pdfJaynes wrote:Many circumstances seem mysterious or paradoxical to one who thinks that probabilities are real physical properties existing in Nature
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It is very difficult to get this point across to those who think that in doing probability calculations their equations are describing the real world. But that is claiming something that one could never know to be true; we call it the Mind Projection Fallacy. The analogy is to a movie projector, whereby things that exist only as marks on a tiny strip of film appear to be real objects moving across a large screen. Similarly, we are all under an ego-driven temptation to project our private thoughts out onto the real world, by supposing that the creations of one's own imagination are real
properties of Nature, or that one's own ignorance signifies some kind of indecision on the part of Nature.
Not surprising that there was also a deliberate attempt to lie and misrepresent Jaynes' views that is still going on years after his death. You can find examples of it on by searching for the word "Jaynes" on this wikipedia page "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem". Complete misrepresentation about Jaynes views, which you can find in his paper above, on page (15) 3rd paragraph from the bottom. Contrary to the claims on that wikipedia page, Jaynes clearly recognized that the goal-post had been shifted and it would take time to find the error. Just to show you that there has been a concerted effort to misprepresent anyone who disagrees with the QM is irreducibly complete mantra. Going back well before Joy even stepped up.
Ben wrote:So if one could tabulate all the variables all the time then there would be no chance.
Yes. A complete theory (in the sense intended by EPR) can predict individual outcomes, unlike QM. (Note a distinction between what we can predict or what is accounted for in the theory, vs what actually exists).
Ben wrote:I think this is a deterministic approach when all the outcomes follow on from their causes, and all could be calculated given the required variables and values.
Yes it is. That does not mean a stochastic theory would not be appropriate to describe a deterministic world. Such a theory would be incomplete but still provide very useful predictions, just like QM does these days. However, if a theory is complete, it must be fully deterministic according to EPR.
Unfortunately, by insisting that QM is complete, and attacking everyone who dares to look for a deeper theory, Bell's followers have effectively frozen the progress of theoretical physics for 50 years. They are everywhere, on Journal editorial committees, funding agency boards and committees, etc etc. And they summarily reject everything which contradicts their views. Not only that, they have henchmen who go around making life difficult for their opponents as well. The only thing that will change it is if they all die and a new generation, who have hopefully not been indoctrinated, take over. That means another 50 years probably before the dark age is over.
Sorry about the rant but what they've done, and continue to do, to Joy and others who have questioned Bell is unconscionable.