Bell's theorem/Abd/Telepathy

In the first draft of this, I may be seriously confused. Don't worry. It will be cleared up. My friends will help me out, or, as I continue to read sources, the confusion will disappear and I'll come back and revise this. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 18:07, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Paper by Guy Vandegrift:

The paper gives a brief description of the phenomenon addressed by Bell's theorem. Off the top of my head, still learning about this (though I knew this in round outlines for many years), particles are created in pairs, they have the quality called "spin," and spin is conserved. That is, if one particle has a particular spin, the other has the opposite spin, such that the sum of spins remains the same.

The spin of a particle is a quantum-mechanical state. The particle exists, under quantum mechanics, in a superposition of states, and many observed phenomena show this. One of the most beautiful is the double-slit experiment, which could be the topic of another resource, Feynman considered this experiment extremely important, and I agree. Quantum mechanics has been extraordinarily successful at predicting experimental results, when the experiments are arranged to simplify involved interactions, such that the math becomes tractable.

In other words, under quantum mechanics, the "spin" of the particle is meaningless *until it is measured.* Before then, the particle is described by the wave function, which describes the possible states and their probabilities. Like a wave, the particle is everywhere, that is, could be detected anywhere, given sufficient sensitivity and low enough noise. Thus in the double-slit experiment, when there is no way of knowing which slit the particle went through, the patterns shown on a screen that has a phosphor that flashes when hit by a particle, show wave behavior, interference. But if the experiment is arranged so that it is possible to tell which slit the particle went through, that pattern disappears, instead we see "particle behavior."

In experiments that have been set up to measure particle spin, the results are "entangled." That is, even though the particles behave, unmeasured, as if they were both spins superimposed, as if they were identical, when they are actually measured, they are paired. I.e., from the result of one measurement, one knows what the other measurement will produce. It does not matter when the measurements are made. So ... how is this correlation maintained? What is the mechanism?

Any mechanism that communicates the result of one measurement to the other measurement must operate at faster than the speed of light, which, as is noted, violates basic causality, i.e., the arrow of time. Indeed, it must be effectively instantaneous.

Thinking about this with a mind that expects linear causation, this, then, raises the specter of telepathy, that one particle "knows" the result of the other measurement. There can be no causal link. Communication without a link, when it's human minds involved, is called "telepathy."

However, "communication" implies a sender and a receiver. There is only one sender in the experiments, the atom that created the two particles. At that point, the two particles were entangled by location, not just by spin. They were effectively one, united. Okay, does the sender somehow encode the results in the particles?

No. I haven't yet gotten a grasp of Bell's math, but it is this "local causality" that he rules out. The particles are simple. There is no other information there, no "local variables." However, Bell's theorem does not rule out global variables (and congratulations to him for that!).

This "does" connect, for me, with mysticism, but Guy shows he has a common misunderstanding:

To put this talk about correlations into everyday language, we have a situation where Harry and Sally have good days and bad days with respect to their ‘psychic powers’. However, the good days happen so often that it would defy the laws of probability for them to obey Rules (1) and (2) as often as they do. Imagine, for example, that Harry and Sally obey the rules on only half the days, with the selection of these days being completely random. On those days when Harry and Sally do not obey the rules, they simply give random answers. However, half the time, they obey both rules, thus doing the ‘impossible’. Such ‘impossible’ behaviour could be detected statistically by observing for a large number of days.

I have elsewhere written about the telepathy problem, as it applies to certain experiments in parapsychology. It boils down to correlated results from people distant from each other. That's the actual result, not "telepathy," rather, telepathy is inferred by requiring a cause, by considering that the results require a communications link. However, the "sender" and "receiver" have a common cause. They are human, using the same astonishingly complex association engine, both instinctive (pre-programmed) and trained (in similar environments). That they might react or display signs similarly could indicate, not communication, but "entanglement," of a kind.

There is a published author, in an interchange over a certain parapsychological experiment (which produced astonishing results) who expressed a Bayesian prior of 10^20 for the results being artifact, that there is no such thing as "telepathy." Hence the results must be artifact. This is nothing other than raw, unshakable belief in a certain model of causality, a model which is actually rejected by physics, at least those who think that Bell's theorem is cogent. I don't have that high a prior on propositions like "I'm still alive." It is obvious that the prior was not based on any objective analysis, but this pretended to be a scientific paper. Strong experimental results were rejected based on this high prior (i.e., the statistical significance of the results must overwhelm the prior, and it would take more than the life of the universe to collect such data. Certainly not possible for humans. Hence, bottom line, "it's impossible because I say so. Trust me. I'm an expert.)

Bell's theorem does not establish telepathy. It demolishes certain concepts of causality.

Unitary causality, the concept that there is a single cause for everything, is quite familiar to theologians and "mystics." Let me put it in practical terms. God created "that terrible chrysalis," the singularity, in order to allow me to have a beautiful day today. Why not? It is not the future causing the past, it is something beyond time, "he only has to say to a thing, Be!, and it is" (Qur'an). When God says Be! everything comes into existence without effort, without any other cause. The magnitude of that Be! is a cause for awe and wonder. Bang! Very Big Bang!

Now, the concepts of the Big Bang and other ideas of modern science are not found in the Qur'an. Rather, when one knows these concepts, they can be seen in the Qur'an, which is self-described as a "reminder." It is not a "science textbook," though one can find heuristics useful for science in it, and the development of Muslim science was facilitated by that, with a later fundamentalist takeover then suppressing this kind of science.

Guy wrote: I did not intend to write an essay on psychic phenomena, and made this analogy because it is the most direct description of what the EPR experiment is actually doing.

No. That appearance arises out of an attachment to "channels."

It was Bell who in 1965 pointed out that the correlations predicted by quantum theory are impossible without what might loosely be called ‘communication’ between the particles. These ‘impossible’ correlations have been observed in a number of experiments

I will examine what Bell has to say about this. It is the same with telepathy in the parapsychological experiments. The results seem "impossible" without "communication between the minds." However, that's limited thinking. There can be a third "variable," the primary cause, that created both particles and both minds. It is operating through a global variable, which Bell allowed. Putting it in "spiritual" or "religious" terms, that variable is "What God wills."

This is not a scientific theory. It is not, as far as I know, testable. It is an "explanation" that does not actually explain. However, we would want, then, to look at the function of explanations, and what I would do in a fuller examination is explore this. Explanations are not the truth. And God is simply a name for Reality.

Indeed, there are people who truly disbelieve in Reality. They are rare, actually. Mostly the atheism/theism/etc debate is over what words can be used for what concepts. Not terribly useful, in itself, mostly good for developing attitudes of superiority. I.e., "I am right and they are all stupid, confused, deluded -- or worse." Again, very much not useful!

One more point. The results of quantum mechanics in this area have been used by some to justify or explain, ah, unusual views. Fringe. Pseudoscience. What the results do is open the door to possibilities outside of our normal thinking. It does not, then, support any particular explanation, particularly if it is untestable. It merely allows more room for such.

To apply this to another current controversy, that the predictions of quantum mechanics (extraordinarily accurate in its field of application) appeared to rule out what was called Cold fusion, which has been replicated, reproduced, and confirmed through clear correlation of heat and the nuclear ash (that's what my Current Science paper was about)

That Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, then, are apparently possible, does not function as a confirmation of the unconfirmed results of Andrea Rossi, with his w:Energy Catalyzer (a mess), and see also Cold fusion/Nickel-hydrogen system/Energy Catalyzer/Wikipedia article, where we can enjoy a Wikiversity visit from a Nobel Prize winner, who is very much not enjoyed by a faction on Wikipedia. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 18:07, 9 September 2015 (UTC)