My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Foundations of physics and/or philosophy of physics, and in particular, posts on unresolved or controversial issues

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby Joy Christian » Mon Jan 06, 2020 1:09 pm

YetAnotherGuest wrote:
Einstein would, however, not have been so happy.

Far from being unhappy, Einstein would have laughed at the physical naivety of Bell's argument, and so would have Pauli (for a different reason). It was Einstein who first spotted the faulty assumption in von Neumann's earlier theorem, and he would have been equally quick to spot the faulty assumptions in Bell's so-called "theorem". I have brought out Bell's faulty assumptions in considerable detail in this preprint, which has been published as Section 4.2 in my Royal Society paper. In fact, my Royal Society paper also brings out a few other faulty assumptions in Bell's argument. Einstein was a million times smarter than I am and he would not have needed anyone like me to see through the faulty assumptions and physical naivety in Bell's argument.

***
Joy Christian
Research Physicist
 
Posts: 2793
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:49 am
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby Joy Christian » Fri Jan 10, 2020 6:50 am

***
Quite independently of my above comments, let me explain why I think Bell's "theorem" is a con and the demand by the Bell-believers from a local-realistic theory is a swindle.

Consider a pair of biased coins, with some magnets inside them. They are loaded with magnets in such a way that, out of 100 tosses of the pair, both coins land on their heads 43 times and on their tails 43 times. On the other hand, the first coin lands on its head and the second coin on its tail 7 times, and the first coin lands on its tail and the second coin on its head 7 times.

In fact, we can perform an actual experiment by tossing the pair of coins 100 times and make the following table of outcomes by denoting a head as plus and a tail as minus:

First coin | Second coin

1) + | +
2) + | +
3) + | -
4) - | +
5) - | -

... etc.

This table is clearly analogous to the table of results that are supposed to have been observed by the experimentalists in Bell-test experiments. There is nothing mysterious about this table.

But does that mean that we can predict the outcomes of an individual toss of the pair, say those listed in the 4th entry above? The answer is: Yes, in principle, because, after all, the pair of coins, biased or not, is a classical deterministic system and nothing prevents us from working out the exact outcome of a toss if we knew all the variables and dynamics involved in the toss.

So far so good. But here is the swindle, or sleight of hand, that enters in the demand by the Bell-believers from a local-realistic theory. Even though it is possible in principle to predict the outcomes of the toss of the pair of coins, it is impossible in practice to predict the outcomes of a given toss despite the fact that we are dealing with a simple classical system. All we can do is predict the probabilities for the outcomes to turn out ++, --, +-, and -+ as being 43%, 43%, 7%, and 7%, respectively. It is impossible in practice to do any better than this.

Ignoring this elementary fact, among other things, is what makes Bell's "theorem" a con and a swindle.

***
Joy Christian
Research Physicist
 
Posts: 2793
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:49 am
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby FrediFizzx » Fri Jan 10, 2020 10:14 am

Complete states is a counter example to that. If you know a, b, s and eta, you can predict with certainty the outcomes of A and B event by event. So it is not necessarily impossible. If we hold the assumption that Nature is local as far as action goes, then Nature itself shoots down Bell's junk physics theory.
.
FrediFizzx
Independent Physics Researcher
 
Posts: 2905
Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:12 pm
Location: N. California, USA

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby Joy Christian » Fri Jan 10, 2020 10:53 am

FrediFizzx wrote:Complete states is a counter example to that. If you know a, b, s and eta, you can predict with certainty the outcomes of A and B event by event. So it is not necessarily impossible. If we hold the assumption that Nature is local as far as action goes, then Nature itself shoots down Bell's junk physics theory.

Unfortunately, the "complete state" prescription is misinterpreted by Bell-believers as exploiting the detection loophole. To interpret that prescription as you are interpreting it requires it to be understood within the 3-sphere geometry. But in that case, the Geometric Algebra representation of the 3-sphere is much cleaner. In any case, what you are currently aiming for is, in my view, impossible in practice.

***
Joy Christian
Research Physicist
 
Posts: 2793
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:49 am
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby FrediFizzx » Fri Jan 10, 2020 1:17 pm

I don't care how complete states is misinterpreted. It is still a good example that it is not impossible. Nature does it so the only question is it local action? Of course it is freakin' local! It is insanity to think otherwise.

Ok, you get to post the 10,000th post to the SPF section unless someone beats you to it. :D
FrediFizzx
Independent Physics Researcher
 
Posts: 2905
Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:12 pm
Location: N. California, USA

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby Joy Christian » Fri Jan 10, 2020 1:26 pm

FrediFizzx wrote:
Ok, you get to post the 10,000th post to the SPF section unless someone beats you to it. :D

:o

***
Joy Christian
Research Physicist
 
Posts: 2793
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:49 am
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby Joy Christian » Sat Jan 18, 2020 3:13 pm

Joy Christian wrote:***
Quite independently of my above comments, let me explain why I think Bell's "theorem" is a con and the demand by the Bell-believers from a local-realistic theory is a swindle.

Consider a pair of biased coins, with some magnets inside them. They are loaded with magnets in such a way that, out of 100 tosses of the pair, both coins land on their heads 43 times and on their tails 43 times. On the other hand, the first coin lands on its head and the second coin on its tail 7 times, and the first coin lands on its tail and the second coin on its head 7 times.

In fact, we can perform an actual experiment by tossing the pair of coins 100 times and make the following table of outcomes by denoting a head as plus and a tail as minus:

First coin | Second coin

1) + | +
2) + | +
3) + | -
4) - | +
5) - | -

... etc.

This table is clearly analogous to the table of results that are supposed to have been observed by the experimentalists in Bell-test experiments. There is nothing mysterious about this table.

But does that mean that we can predict the outcomes of an individual toss of the pair, say those listed in the 4th entry above? The answer is: Yes, in principle, because, after all, the pair of coins, biased or not, is a classical deterministic system and nothing prevents us from working out the exact outcome of a toss if we knew all the variables and dynamics involved in the toss.

So far so good. But here is the swindle, or sleight of hand, that enters in the demand by the Bell-believers from a local-realistic theory. Even though it is possible in principle to predict the outcomes of the toss of the pair of coins, it is impossible in practice to predict the outcomes of a given toss despite the fact that we are dealing with a simple classical system. All we can do is predict the probabilities for the outcomes to turn out ++, --, +-, and -+ as being 43%, 43%, 7%, and 7%, respectively. It is impossible in practice to do any better than this.

Ignoring this elementary fact, among other things, is what makes Bell's "theorem" a con and a swindle.


So, just to summarize my view, the correct and legitimate demands from a local-realistic model for the singlet correlations are the following:

The measurement outcomes observed by Alice and Bob must be of the form A(a, h) = +1 or -1 and B(b, h) = +1 or -1, where a and b are the measurement directions freely chosen by Alice and Bob and "h" is a set of hidden variables or an initial state of the singlet state. Moreover, these measurement outcomes must respect the averages < A > = 0, < B > = 0, and < AB > = -a.b.

That is all. An example of a model that satisfies the above requirements is, of course, my quaternionic 3-sphere model: https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.11578. It has existed since March 2007.

Note that A(a, h) = +1 or -1 and B(b, h) = +1 or -1 does not mean that we must predict whether A(a, h) = +1 or A(a, h) = -1 for a given run of a Bell-test experiment [and likewise for B(b, h)]. It would be illegitimate to demand such an event-by-event prediction from a local-realistic theory for the reasons I have explained in the quoted text above.

Note also that this does not contradict what Fred is trying to do. All I am saying is that Bell-believers have no right to demand an event-by-event prediction from a local-realistic theory.

***
Joy Christian
Research Physicist
 
Posts: 2793
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:49 am
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby FrediFizzx » Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:11 am

They might have no right as far as comparing to quantum mechanics is concerned but they demand it just the same. My point has always been that it seems that in order for a model to be 100 percent realistic, it should be able to predict the correct event by event outcomes when all the variables are known. I think your point is that we can't know all the variables. But Nature does it so Nature in fact knows all the variables. And the solution is probably not quantum mechanical.

Of course there is the other "spooky action at a distance" option but I don't consider it a valid option.
.
FrediFizzx
Independent Physics Researcher
 
Posts: 2905
Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:12 pm
Location: N. California, USA

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby Joy Christian » Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:07 am

FrediFizzx wrote:
My point has always been that it seems that in order for a model to be 100 percent realistic, it should be able to predict the correct event by event outcomes when all the variables are known.

This is where I disagree: We agree about locality but, in my view, you are using the word "realistic" incorrectly. A theory can be perfectly "realistic" and still cannot predict a specific event such a landing of a coin on its head. Classical mechanics is a realistic theory in the sense of Einstein and Bell. And yet it cannot predict the landing of a coin on its head, or the weather for a given hour of the day. It can only give us probabilities for such complex events. To be sure, if "all the variables (and dynamics of the coin) are known", then we can predict exactly on which face the coin will land in a given toss. But that is impossible to work out in practice, despite the fact that Nature does land the coin on one of its faces. The difficulty here has nothing to do with realism (or locality for that matter). A perfectly local-realistic theory such as classical mechanics cannot predict on which face the coin will land in a given toss.

***
Joy Christian
Research Physicist
 
Posts: 2793
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:49 am
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby FrediFizzx » Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:48 am

The problem with that kind of randomness is that it is ruled out by Nature itself since it wouldn't tend to -a.b every run of an experiment. If that kind of randomness were at play, the final results would be nonsense half of the time. One only has to look at complete states to see what might be going on. You have 4 random variables that if you knew each one, you can predict the correct outcomes event by event. Most likely that is the kind of randomness we are dealing with here. But who knows? There might be a 5th random variable involved. You won't know if you don't try different things.
.
FrediFizzx
Independent Physics Researcher
 
Posts: 2905
Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:12 pm
Location: N. California, USA

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby FrediFizzx » Sat Feb 08, 2020 11:59 pm

FrediFizzx wrote:...

Of course there is the other "spooky action at a distance" option but I don't consider it a valid option.
.

I'm not so sure this is actually an option either. Can QM predict the correct individual event by event outcomes by implementing non-local behavior? I've never seen it done. If that is the case, then for sure QM is not a complete theory of Nature if it can't solve the mystery of how Nature does it.
.
FrediFizzx
Independent Physics Researcher
 
Posts: 2905
Joined: Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:12 pm
Location: N. California, USA

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby Joy Christian » Sun Feb 09, 2020 2:48 am

FrediFizzx wrote:
FrediFizzx wrote:...

Of course there is the other "spooky action at a distance" option but I don't consider it a valid option.
.

I'm not so sure this is actually an option either. Can QM predict the correct individual event by event outcomes by implementing non-local behavior? I've never seen it done. If that is the case, then for sure QM is not a complete theory of Nature if it can't solve the mystery of how Nature does it.

Quantum mechanics cannot predict individual event-by-event outcomes for any phenomena. A good example is the decay of a radioactive element. Quantum mechanics can only predict probabilities for such a phenomenon. It is a statistical theory. And, in my opinion, no theory, including classical mechanics, can predict individual event-by-event outcomes for complex phenomena such as the weather or an outcome of a coin toss.

But we already know that quantum mechanics is an incomplete theory of Nature. Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen proved that rigorously in 1935. However, their proof depends on the assumptions of locality and reality.

***
Joy Christian
Research Physicist
 
Posts: 2793
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:49 am
Location: Oxford, United Kingdom

Re: My New Challenge to All Bell-Believers

Postby gill1109 » Thu Feb 13, 2020 11:18 pm

Joy Christian wrote:
FrediFizzx wrote:
FrediFizzx wrote:Of course, there is the other "spooky action at a distance" option but I don't consider it a valid option.

I'm not so sure this is actually an option either. Can QM predict the correct individual event by event outcomes by implementing non-local behaviour? I've never seen it done. If that is the case, then for sure QM is not a complete theory of Nature if it can't solve the mystery of how Nature does it.

Quantum mechanics cannot predict individual event-by-event outcomes for any phenomena. A good example is the decay of a radioactive element. Quantum mechanics can only predict probabilities for such a phenomenon. It is a statistical theory. And, in my opinion, no theory, including classical mechanics, can predict individual event-by-event outcomes for complex phenomena such as the weather or an outcome of a coin toss.
But we already know that quantum mechanics is an incomplete theory of Nature. Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen proved that rigorously in 1935. However, their proof depends on the assumptions of locality and reality.

Yes! I agree, entirely.

In fact, the reason that classical mechanics cannot predict event-by-event outcomes for the weather or a coin toss is because ultimately quantum interactions between individual "particles" (or waves?) at the most fine-grained, i.e., quantum, level will be involved in the first few nanoseconds of evolution of the whole system, even if at less fine-grained levels only classical mechanics is relevant.

Alongside of spooky action at a distance, there is also the option of spooky action from the past: superdeterminism. See Tim Palmer and Sabine Hossenfelder. https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/02/guest-post-undecidability_10.html
I have the feeling that this is a will-of-the-wisp; an illusion. But I haven't studied it carefully yet.
gill1109
Mathematical Statistician
 
Posts: 2812
Joined: Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:39 pm
Location: Leiden

Previous

Return to Sci.Physics.Foundations

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: ahrefs [Bot] and 84 guests

cron
CodeCogs - An Open Source Scientific Library