Has further work been done building on J Christian's model?

[gill1109]

In another thread, Joy Christian claims that numerous works have endorsed and further developed his work. It could be interesting to build up some kind of annotated bibliography.

Using Google scholar, I found several papers which merely cite him approvingly, either for his introduction of Geometric Algebra into a treatment of quantum entanglement, or for his alleged disproval of Bell's theorem. Of course I found several well known papers which claim to thoroughly demolish his programme (for instance the one by James Weatherall).

This is what I have so far, on the positive side:

A Geometrical Model of Fermion Spin Correlations.
Close, Robert A.
Electronic Journal of Theoretical Physics. Nov2012, Vol. 9 Issue 27, p111-120. 10p.

Close is actually following Pearle and Caroline Thompson, though he seems not to know about those earlier works; he is explicitly investigating detection loophole models built on a spinning ball picture, where the ball is sometimes not seen, depending on the orientation of the ball and the observation angle. Christian's work is mentioned in passing, because of its use of geometric ideas.

http://arxiv.org/abs/0911.2980
From a 1D completed scattering and double slit diffraction to the quantum-classical problem: A new approach
N. L. Chuprikov

Cites approvingly Christian's work but does not appear to do anything with it. This paper does not seem to have got published anywhere yet. The author is affiliated with the Tomsk State Pedagogical University, in Tomsk, Russia.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.3619
Geometric Algebra: A natural representation of three-space
James M. Chappell, Azhar Iqbal, Derek Abbott

This paper gives a nice survey of gemoetric algebra. Mentions Christian's work on geometric algebra and entanglement, in passing. Has not appeared in print yet though by now is in its second revision so I expect it will finally be published somewhere. Igbal told me that he was initially impressed by Christian's discoveries but on close reading highly disappointed. He agrees with my analysis of the errors in the "one page paper" of some years ago.

[Heinera]

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ad ... 29015-g002
Analysis of Two-Player Quantum Games in an EPR Setting Using Clifford's Geometric Algebra
James M. Chappell, Azhar Iqbal, Derek Abbott

"Recently, Christian [64], [65] has used the formalism of GA in thought provoking investigations of some of the foundational questions in quantum mechanics."

I guess "thought provoking" is meant in an approving sense.

[gill1109]

Azhar wrote to me "I think with the sentence 'Recently, Christian [64], [65] has used the formalism of GA in thought provoking investigations of some of the foundational questions in quantum mechanics' I was careful not to give the impression that I have verified the results of Joy's calculations. I would guess at the conceptual level Joy's work appeared thought-provoking to a lot of people since after his first paper appeared back in 2007. I know a few people who mentioned it to me then."

Thought-provoking means thought-provoking at a conceptual level. There is no implication what is the nature of the thoughts which it provoked. We know for sure Christian's papers provoked many thoughts.

[Heinera]

Azhar wrote to me "I think with the sentence 'Recently, Christian [64], [65] has used the formalism of GA in thought provoking investigations of some of the foundational questions in quantum mechanics' I was careful not to give the impression that I have verified the results of Joy's calculations. I would guess at the conceptual level Joy's work appeared thought-provoking to a lot of people since after his first paper appeared back in 2007. I know a few people who mentioned it to me then."

Thought-provoking means thought-provoking at a conceptual level. There is no implication what is the nature of the thoughts which it provoked. We know for sure Christian's papers provoked many thoughts.

Yes, "thought provoking" can also be understood as a polite way of saying that they don't take a stand. And anyway, the actual content of their paper has nothing to do with Joy Christian's model. It's just that they also use GA formalism.

[Joy Christian]

Of course I found several well known papers which claim to thoroughly demolish his programme (for instance the one by James Weatherall).

It is quite fascinating that you did not find Christian's own systematic rebuttals of all of the bogus and uninformed criticisms of his work, for example this one.

One of the most dishonest claims made about Christian's work is that by James Owen Weatherall (who is simply a pawn of the establishment, which politically coerced the publication of his paper in a so-so journal---that's right, I know all the details about how his paper got accepted by a journal).

His straw-man argument has been thoroughly debunked by Christian in this book-chapter: http://libertesphilosophica.info/blog/w ... hapter.pdf.

Here is what Christian has to say in the conclusion of his rebuttal to James Weatherall's argument:

"It is evident from the above results that there is a valuable lesson to be learned from Weatherall’s analysis: An explicit, constructive, quantitatively precise physical model X cannot be undermined by repudiating its distorted misrepresentation Y, even by appealing to a formal theorem (especially when that theorem is grounded on unphysical assumptions). Such a strategy only serves to exemplify an elementary logical fallacy—namely, the straw-man fallacy."

And here is what Christian has to say on his blog about various attempts to discredit his work by critics with massive vested interests:

"It is also worth noting that all of the so-called arguments against my disproof to date are based on an elementary logical fallacy---the Straw-man Fallacy. What they do is replace my argument (or model), say X, with a grossly distorted misrepresentation of it, say Y, and then pretend---by refuting their own distortion Y (by resorting to deliberate dishonesty or out of sheer incompetence)---that they have undermined my actual argument (or model) X. Such a dishonest strategy defies reason at its very core (for more details, see this paper).

"Unlike Bell himself, some of the followers of Bell are naïve, uninformed, and dishonest."

[gill1109]

It is quite fascinating that you did not find Christian's own systematic rebuttals of all of the bogus and uninformed criticisms of his work, for example this one.

Obviously, I knew all of them in advance. We were discussing the question, whether other researchers have taken up your approach. It doesn't matter whether they cite your earlier papers or your own later rebuttals of others' criticism. We are looking for any papers which build on your work further. We are not looking for alleged demolitions, nor for repair jobs by yourself.

[Joy Christian]

No "repair job" was, or is needed to understand my model.

To explain the geometry and topology of the 3-sphere in different possible representations to make them comprehensible to the uninitiated is hardly a "repair job."

[gill1109]

OK. So: did we miss any important papers (by others than yourself) which build on your work further?

[Joy Christian]

OK. So: did we miss any important papers (by others than yourself) which build on your work further?

Here is another one: http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.4513

And another one: http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1453

Also, Han Geurdes has cited my work in couple of his published papers, like this one: http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.3320

[gill1109]

OK. So: did we miss any important papers (by others than yourself) which build on your work further?

Here is another one: http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.4513

And another one: http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1453

Also, Han Geurdes has cited my work in couple of his published papers, like this one: http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.3320

http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.4513 is again Chuprikov (Tomsk State Pedagogical University, Tomsk, Russia). He gives an overview of various different critques of Bell. He approves of your embedding of the outcome space in S^2.

"As regards the (two-valued) spin LHV used in studying the EPR-Bohm experiment, Bell embedded it into the topological space S^0. However, as is shown in [32], 'EPR[-Bohm] elements of reality are points of a 2-sphere [S^2], not 0-sphere [S^0] as Bell assigned'. Figuratively speaking, the two-valued spin components, as elements of reality, cannot belong to S0 where ”there are no room” for distinguishing the experimental contexts associated with the differently oriented polarization beam splitters used for detection of electrons."

He does not do anything with this. His own approach seems to be different.

[Joy Christian]

He does not do anything with this. His own approach seems to be different.

Most likely people who would (or should) find my work interesting are string theorists, or mathematicians like Michael Atiyah.

Unfortunately, in my experience, strings theorists are neither interested in Bell's theorem, nor understand its significance (or lack thereof).

I wrote to Michael Atiyah a coupe of years ago. He was intrigued by my use of 7-sphere (i.e., octonions) to derive ALL quantum correlations. He said he will study my work once he returned from Paris. I have not heard from him since. It should be noted, however, that he retired decades ago.

[gill1109]

Then, http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1453 is "Local probability model for the Bell correlation based on the statistics of chaotic light and non-commutative processes" by Louis Sica of Chapman University, Orange, CA, and Inspire Institute, Inc., Alexandria, VA. He remarks "Unfortunately, while Bell raised profound questions in his considerations of hidden variables, the model he used in deriving the Bell inequalities implicitly assumed that all hidden variables are commutative, and thus ignored the fact that many classical as well as quantum mechanical measurement procedures are non-commutative [6]. Recently, Christian [7], reached similar conclusions regarding this critical flaw in the derivation of Bell’s theorem." He does not build on your work, he just approves of it.

Finally, http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.3320 is one of several works by Han Geurdes, who writes "The present result is in accordance with the result obtained by Joy Christian [3] starting from a topological analysis of the measurement functions in the correlations and also connects to an earlier study of the author [4]." In other words, he acknowledges some moral similarity in approaches.

Geurdes is Dutch and we had many personal exchanges. I find all his many writings incomprehensible and/or fundamentally flawed.

None of these three papers seem to have got published anywhere.

[gill1109]

I wonder if there exists a kind of reversed straw-man fallacy, in the literature of logical fallacies?

Suppose you write something incomprehensible which is supposed (by you) to support some clearly false conclusion. Anyone who tries to dissect your reasoning has to infer some kind of semi-logical thought process behind it, in order to explain where the "logic" breaks down. Clearly, you can disown any such reconstruction. Evidently, it must be wrong, since it leads to the opposite of your conclusion.

Thus, someone who sticks by an incomprehensible derivation of an obvious untruth can dismiss every attack as a straw-man attack.

[Joy Christian]

I wonder if there exists a kind of reversed straw-man fallacy, in the literature of logical fallacies?

Suppose you write something incomprehensible which is supposed (by you) to support some clearly false conclusion. Anyone who tries to dissect your reasoning has to infer some kind of semi-logical thought process behind it, in order to explain where the "logic" breaks down. Clearly, you can disown any such reconstruction. Evidently, it must be wrong, since it leads to the opposite of your conclusion.

Thus, someone who sticks by an incomprehensible derivation of an obvious untruth can dismiss every attack as a straw-man attack.

Very good. You are catching on. Physicists, and empiricists before them, discovered that it is not in the interest of mankind to reject someone's reasoning simply because it is incomprehensible to you. This came after realizations by many that deep insights and utter nonsense sometimes have the same kind of look and feel.

For example, Kepler's brilliant insights, supported by extensive and detailed calculations of the orbit of Mars, was dismissed as "physics" (i.e., not proper astronomy) by the savants of the day. Nearly 100 years passed before the significance of his insights started to get recognized. And this colossal waste of time did not stop with the work of Kepler. Here is Hooke's critique of Newton's theory of light and colour. Hooke concludes that Newton's theory of light and colour is worthless!!!

So what is the solution to this problem? There have been, and there will always be, plenty of Hookes in the world. We can't get rid of them, for they are ten a penny.

So what is the solution to this problem? Well, we all know what the solution is. It is the experiment, of course.

[Heinera]

So what is the solution to this problem? Well, we all know what the solution is. It is the experiment, of course.

The (more or less) human species has existed for some four to eight million years. If something weird was going on in the macroscopic domain (as it surely would do, if your experiment with macroscopic balls turns out to be successfull), don't you think we would have noticed that by now?

[Joy Christian]

So what is the solution to this problem? Well, we all know what the solution is. It is the experiment, of course.

The (more or less) human species has existed for some four to eight million years. If something weird was going on in the macroscopic domain (as it surely would do, if your experiment with macroscopic balls turned out to be successfull), don't you think we woul'd have noticed by now?

Some of us have noticed: http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.0784.

Others are still in the dark.

[Heinera]

I have certainly read the paper, and it just confirms that your theory will have noticeable macroscopic consequences that should have been noticed by now. (And by the way, on page 10 you write "This will facilitate some 10^6 spin directions for the two shells..." Why 10^6?) Your sincere attempt to answer my original question will be appreciated.

[Joy Christian]

I have certainly read the paper, and it just confirms that your theory will have noticeable macroscopic consequences that should have been noticed by now. (And by the way, on page 10 you write "This will facilitate some 10^6 spin directions for the two shells..." Why 10^6?) Your sincere attempt to answer my original question will be appreciated.

There is nothing special about the number 10^6. Any sufficiently large number will do, say 100,000. Here is a demonstration of the experiment, which allows you to select the number of trials. It is easy to see from the demonstration that larger the number the better. Try, for example, 50, and then increase gradually to 10^7.

The problem with your original question is that one can say the same thing about almost every new prediction in physics. For example, before 1919 people were saying that "if light does bend as Einstein predicts then we would have seen it by now. Newton's theory of gravity have been verified for 300 years, in many different experiments, and no one has ever seen the light bend under the influence of gravity. So, clearly, Mr. Einstein is talking nonsense." It took a very special expedition in 1919 to observe the bending of light, and the rest is history. It is not that there was no bending of light before 1919 and all of a sudden it was there. No. The problem was that no one had bothered to make a special and systematic observation to confirm the bending, half of which is in fact already predicted by Newton's theory.

More to the point, the spinorial properties of the physical space in the macroscopic domain are already well known. You can easily convince yourself by tricking a belt or watching a waiter (i.e., by Dirac's belt trick or waiter's plate trick). But no one has ever bothered to do a systematic correlation experiment to check the effect in the context of Bell's theorem. It will take systematic efforts to see the correlation in the macroscopic domain. You won't see them by just watching tables and chairs.

[Heinera]

Yes, but the (minute) bending of light rays near the sun also involves a distance between the sun and the earth of 150 million kilometers. No wonder mankind didn't notice that bending until Einstein and Eddington came on the scene. But your objects (colored balls) are 3 cm in diameter, thus squarely in the realm of everyday objects and everyday distances where we have millions of years of daily experience. I'm sure that anything funny going on at that scale would have been noticed by now.

[FrediFizzx]

The point is that the parallelized 3-sphere character of space will only reveal itself in special cases macroscopically. It really has never been properly tested. There should be a test done somehow or the other.