the implications of quantum physics II

Not because of any limitation in human technology or understanding, but because according to QM the answers are not even there. That is what QM is saying that is so significant. It is saying there is no reason at all why some things do what they do!

How so? There have been more developments within QM since Einstein's time and in the lasy 10 years as well. Several times you have glossed over my statements that the principle of entanglement has superceded the concept of the Uncertainty Principle, and some other issues, and then say I don't understand QM.

Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. Why don't you explain some of your statements such as the one above?

But QM has nothing to do with spirituality. It is physics plain and simple.

Your argument is a circular argument. You say physics and math cannot touch the spiritual dimensions so if something is within the realm of physics and math, it cannot be spiritual. But all "spiritual" means is a word denoting an invisible realm with certain qualities and principles. If our science discovers invisible realms possessing the same qualities and principles, then it's more logical to say, hey, this looks like what the spiritual and religious people were talking about rather than assert theology, that is nowhere in the Bible, that something could never be assessed by math or science.

In fact, the Bible says man's science could reach into heaven. The skeptics dismiss the tower of Babel story as if the story meant they could build brick walls into heaven, but that's not precisely what it says. It says that once man started down this track, without being divided, he could by his own means find a way to reach even into heaven itself and to the seat of God Himself. Say what you want, but the Bible contains no limitations you insist must be there, other than God's will for a certain era.

If you believe that everything can be described in this way then you have no choice but to believe what QM is saying, that there are ultimately no reasons why some things do what they do. It is so weird that you are all excited by QM and all the while you are really repudiating what it says because you misunderstand what it is saying. If you keep doing this then like so many non-scientists you are using quantum physics as a magical word for the purposes of rhetoric without understanding anything about it.

I want to be nice, but that's just a bunch of bunk. Everthing I am saying about QM in terms of what we observe, don't observe, etc,....stems from quantum physicists themselves. You seem to think the Uncertainty Principle is the end-all and be-all to QM, and that's just not the case, and it's often an overstated concept anyway. Now, it is true quantum physicists don't say QM involves spiritual things, though one did bring up the point on the idea that information is at the root of all things as a very old and biblical idea.

But physicists are not suppossed to say if something is spiritual. We are to look at what they are qualified to say, that is the principles and properties of certain dimensions, and then draw our own conclusions.

What if there is no spirituality?

You are missing the point. If you have doctrine that man's science cannot reach into the spiritual realm, which is contradicted by Genesis and the story of the tower of Babel, then whatever we discover in science, you have to assume it is not spiritual, and that's an error. It's a simple concept, having nothing to do with doubts and questioning as you surmise.

Can you explain why this is not a case of non-locality and can you explain what difference QM would make in this situaltion?

I already did on the other thread in my discussions with parasomnium. The particle's collapse into one state or another determines the state of the entangled particle. Since the particle exists in an undetermined state prior to the observation or measurement event, whatever that may be, the other particle's state is also undetermined, and depending on the type of measurement, the particle and the entangled particle will result in one thing or another, correct? I have heard the idea that entanglement you espouse, and if that was all there was to it, it would never have been called spooky action at a distance by Einstein because there would be action at all.

No two points on the earth requires more than a twentieth of a second for light to travel from one to the other so I am afraid this is a very poor example.

You think there some sort of knowledge wave travelling to our intuition at light speed or something?

Besides I have already said I have no doubt any such thing. But all attempts to make objective measurements of this have failed.

If you have no doubt, then why not discuss it's ramifications. Moreover, the second part is wrong. They have that black box over at Oxford, I believe, that appears to make predictions or to show a coorealation between large events and it's code. Maybe someone that knows more about it can tell us the deal on it, but it's been in the news sometimes, especially a few years ago.

The point is to figure out what aspect of spirituality it is that you think isn't spiritual. Because as I explained before that is all any scientific investigation of the spiritual could possibly succeed in proving.

It's just a circular argument on your part again. Physics already suggests reality consists of greater dimensions. I say those dimensions are likely what people have called spiritual dimensions since reality is not just physical. You have some doctrine and theology this is impossible, but what is that based on?

Do you have some Bible scriptures, some empirical evidence, or what to base that doctrine on?

Where does what energy come from? What kind of superposition state? The collapse of the wave is the result of an interaction - a disturbance of the wave that occurs in the process of getting that information. The information only exists because the interaction destroys the superposition state.

Couple of questions. There are plenty of quantum physicists that don't see the wave-function as either a wave or a particle, but exists in an undetermined state. Some have gone as far as to say that "most physicists are extremely naive. They still believe in real waves or particles." What they mean is that the particle is neither a wave or a particle until observed.

You seem to hold to the view that the particle exists as a wave until collapsed into a particle. Is that correct?

Now, even if one thinks that is what is happening, delayed-choice experiments have shown it is not the physical interaction of measuring the photon that causes the collapse because they have shown that even if it is determined after the photon has travelled it's path, what path the photon took, that the photon still collapses. So "the mere threat" or the potential for obtaining information causes the collapse.

Have you read of these experiments?

Edited by randman, : No reason given.

I am quickly coming to the conclusion that communication between us is nearly impossible. We just do not seem to speak the same language. Just because I am willing to step away from the physics and enter into a philosophical or theological discussion does not mean I am willing to confuse the science with the philosophy or the theology.

I am not like you at all. You look at descriptions of physics and see spiritual truths there, I do not. I am a physicist and I see the physics as part of a larger pattern, but I do not see any spiritual truths in the physics itself.

You use the terms of science but I do not think that you understand what the words really mean to the scientist. Take the word "dimensions", for example. Dimensions refers to the difference between a piece of paper and box. A piece of paper is large in only two dimension while the box is large in three dimensions. The physical world is large in four dimension and very small in another 6 or 7 dimensions (depending on how you look at it). You see this as having something to do with a spiritual reality and I do not.

I have tried to explain the significance of quantum mechanics to you and I must admit failure. I think you can only see your spiritual truths in QM so you cannot understand what it is saying in physics at all.

randman writes: Now, even if one thinks that is what is happening, delayed-choice experiments have shown it is not the physical interaction of measuring the photon that causes the collapse because they have shown that even if it is determined after the photon has travelled it's path, what path the photon took, that the photon still collapses. So "the mere threat" or the potential for obtaining information causes the collapse. Have you read of these experiments?

I have not only read them I studied the mathematics while working on my masters degree in physics.

The Wheeler's delayed choice experiment simply means that it is the detection method which determines the result. It is the detection process which disturbes and collapses the wave. The fact that a choice of method is made after the light has passed through the two slits is irrelevant. It absurd to think that the detection method changes what happens at the two slits anyway. The detection method only changes how the wave is modified by the detectors when it detects the wave. The whole point of this experiment is to show that you cannot think of the photon as a particle which passes through one slit or the other no matter what detection method you use. In other words, even though the telescope detection method makes it seem like the light is really a particle that goes through one slit or the other, it is not true at all. It is the telescopes themselves that are collapsing the wave to make it seem like this.

In the Mandel experiment, it is blocking an idler path which changes the results. It is no mere threat that changes the results but the actual change to some portion of the light path which collapses the wave function and changes the results. It is not the threat, of determining the route which the photon has taken, which changes the result. It is only that the change, wrought by disturbing the path of the light, is consistent with the fact that you can now calculate which path the photon has taken. For if you can make such a calculation you have changed how the light interacts with the system, modifying the wave so that it behaves in a manner that is consistent with what you can calculate. In other words it is not the knowledge of the observer (or threat of such knowledge) that changes the result, it is the other way around. It is the change of the wave function which makes the knowledge possible. Physicists implicitly know that this is the case, but that does not prevent them from exploiting the apparent paradox to make their work seem more interesting.

You can say that information destroys the pattern but that is because the information is not seperate from the wave function. The information exists because the wave function has changed.

Edited by mitchellmckain, : db code error and restatement of conclusion

Edited by mitchellmckain, : No reason given.

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See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at http://www.relspace.astahost.com

Just because I am willing to step away from the physics and enter into a philosophical or theological discussion does not mean I am willing to confuse the science with the philosophy or the theology.

Yet you are willing to assert your theology as definitive in this discussion?

Well, let's just stick to the science side then.

The Wheeler's delayed choice experiment simply means that it is the detection method which determines the result.

Well, that's a pretty big thing in and of itself, and certainly Wheeler thought so and took it so far to advance the observer/participancy principle of which he makes the following remarks.

Stronger than the anthropic principle is what I might call the participatory principle. According to it we could not even imagine a universe that did not somewhere and for some stretch of time contain observers because the very building materials of the universe are these acts of observer-participancy. You wouldn't have the stuff out of which to build the universe otherwise. This participatory principle takes for its foundation the absolutely central point of the quantum: No elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed (or registered) phenomenon.

http://www.bigear.org/vol1no4/wheeler.htm

Also, on his thought experiment.

The astronomers choice of how to observe photons from the quasar here in the present apparently determines whether each photon took both paths or just one path around the gravitational lens-billions of years ago. As they approached the galactic beam splitter the photons must have had something like a premonition telling them how to behave in order to satisfy a choice to be made by unborn beings on a still nonexistent planet. The fallacy giving rise to such speculations,Wheeler explains, is the assumption that a photon had some physical form before the astronomer observed it. Either it was a wave or a particle; either it went both ways around the quasar or only one way. Actually Wheeler says quantum phenomena are neither waves nor particles but are intrinsically undefined until the moment they are measured. In a sense the British philosopher Bishop Berkeley was right when he asserted two centuries ago that "to be is to be perceived."

http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/qphil.html

Apparently, you disagree with Wheeler and think the particle does have some physical form before observation/measurement, and that's fine, but don't act like I am ignorant or just don't understand the experiments or what is being said here. It's explicitly clear what Wheeler and Mandel think. Let's look at Mandel's opinion on the matter.

Now comes the odd part. The signal photons and the idler photons, once emitted by the down-converters, never again cross paths; they proceed to their respective detectors independently of each other. Nevertheless, simply by blocking the path of one set of idler photons, the researchers destroy the interference pattern of the signal photons. What has changed? The answer is that the observer's potential knowledge has changed. He can now determine which route the signal photons took to their detector by comparing their arrival times with those of the remaining, unblocked idlers. The original photon can no longer go both ways at the beam splitter, like a wave, but must either bounce off or pass through like a particle. The comparison of arrival times need not actually be performed to destroy the interference pattern. The mere "threat" of obtaining information about which way the photon travelled, Mandel explains, forces it to travel only one route. "The quantum state reflects not only what we know about the system but what is in principle knowable," Mandel says.

http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/qphil.html

Maybe Mandel is wrong, but he is not some ignorant buffoon, and my parroting these guys doesn't make me one either.

It absurd to think that the detection method changes what happens at the two slits anyway.

Why is it absurd? The whole experiment measures whether the particle travels in a wave-like pattern or a particle-like pattern through the slits, right? If detecting the photon, after the photon has passed through the slits or around the quaser in the thought experiment, causes the photon to take one route or another, or travel one form or another, then how you can say the detection event doesn't affect what the photon does at the 2 slits? It certainly does. Wheeler sort of gets around causality to a degree by saying the photon really didn't exist in a physical form until it was detected, but regardless, a later detection event determines a prior path.

It is not the threat, of determining the route which the photon has taken, which changes the result.

So you say. Mandel says:

The mere "threat" of obtaining information about which way the photon travelled, Mandel explains, forces it to travel only one route. "The quantum state reflects not only what we know about the system but what is in principle knowable," Mandel says.

Why does he say this and disagree with you? I think it's important to grasp that. The whole idea of the delayed-choice experiments was to try to determine if it was the act of measurement in a physical sense that caused the collapse of the wave function or something else. The delayed-choice is the idea that the choice to "disturb" the wave function was after the wave function had passed a certain point, and so determining what it did in it's prior projectory dismisses the mechanical explanation you are advancing. At least that's what these guys, like Wheeler, thinks they are doing.

One is that measurement requires direct physical intervention. Physicists often explain the uncertainty principle in this way:in measuring the position of a quantum entity, one inevitably blocks it off its course, losing information about its direction and about its phase, the relative position of its crests and troughs. Most experiments do in fact involve intrusive measurements. For example, blocking one path or the other or moving detectors close to the slits obviously disturbs the photons passage in the two-slit experiment as does placing a detector along one route of the delayed-choice experiment. But an experiment done last year by Mandel's team at the University of Rochester shows that a photon can be forced to switch from wavelike to particlelike behaviour by something much more subtle than direct intervention.

You remarked:

Physicists implicitly know that this is the case, but that does not prevent them from exploiting the apparent paradox to make their work seem more interesting

If you are correct, then I guess Wheeler and men like Zellinger and Mandel are either senile old men or absolutely insane to suggest something like observer participancy, eh? You mention:

In the Mandel experiment it is blocking the path to the idler detector which changes the results.

But one set of photons' path is not blocked and so is not physically interfered with in any manner, right?

Now comes the odd part. The signal photons and the idler photons, once emitted by the down-converters, never again cross paths; they proceed to their respective detectors independently of each other. Nevertheless, simply by blocking the path of one set of idler photons, the researchers destroy the interference pattern of the signal photons. What has changed? The answer is that the observer's potential knowledge has changed. He can now determine which route the signal photons took to their detector by comparing their arrival times with those of the remaining, unblocked idlers. The original photon can no longer go both ways at the beam splitter, like a wave, but must either bounce off or pass through like a particle.

So clearly the path of one set of photons is not affected mechanically, and yet it collapses too. Mandel thinks the issue is the mere threat of knowing which way the photon went. That may be true, but I have also wondered why entanglement wouldn't explain the collapse, assuming the other set of photons were entangled with the group that collapses without physical interference, but either way, what is occuring is remarkably different than the way you are describing it.

Your stance and the stance sometimes of others is that this is nothing really remarkable at all. It's not that different than heating up water into steam or some such. You mechanically disturb the wave function and it changes, but that's the very issue these experiments and others sought to settle. Is it physical disturbance that changes the wave function from that point on, or can the collapse occur even without direct physical disturbance, and the answer is yes, it does occur without that.

I am open to hearing your side, but acting like the ideas gleaned from Wheeler and others about what these experiments and QM shows is mere ignorance on my part is wrong. There is something pretty strange going in with QM.

Now, admittedly there is a lot of controversy, but there is no reason to act like where I am coming from on this is outside the mainstream or not under consideration of quantum physicists, at least in terms of the science. We ought to be able to have a good discussion, but it seems you are bent on just saying, well, you're wrong, and that doesn't go very far....?

Edited by randman, : No reason given.

Edited by randman, : No reason given.

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No local realistic theory agrees with all predictions of quantum mechanics as quantitatively expressed by violation of Bell's inequalities. Local Realism is is one of the major principles in our understanding of Nature, which is based on everyday experience and classical physics. Realism supposes that measurement results are predetermined by the properties the particles carry prior to and independent of observations. Locality supposes that these results are independent of any action at space-like separations.

http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Caslav.Brukner/researchnew.html

Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which two or more quantum systems have to be described with reference to each other regardless of their spatial separation [1]. It leads to correlations that are inconsistent with local realism [2] as demonstrated by violation of Bell’s inequalities [3]. Although entanglement does not involve information transfer, it surprisingly can produce effects over arbitrary distances as if information had been transferred. It can substitute or even eliminate any need of communication that is classically necessary for achieving a goal of common interest of separated parties [4, 5, 6]. Entanglement can thus reduce the communication complexity of certain problems; the key ingredient for this is violation of local realism (quantum non-locality) [7]. Here we show that entanglement can help individuals in making decisions if their goal is to find each other, even if there is no communication between them. This gives the problem properties of “pseudo-telepathy” [8]. Ref. [9] suggests a similar mechanism to explain cooperation of insects and demonstrates an advantage of the use of entanglement over some classical strategies.

http://www.arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0509/0509123.pdf
Note: I don't really follow this paper completely, but the concept is worth noting.

The temporal Bell inequalities are derived from the assumptions of realism and locality in time. It is shown that quantum mechanics violates these inequalities and thus is in conflict with the two assumptions. This can be used for performing certain tasks that are not possible classically. Our results open up a possibility for introducing the notion of entanglement in time in quantum physics.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0402/0402127.pdf

randman writes: Now, admittedly there is a lot of controversy, but there is no reason to act like where I am coming from on this is outside the mainstream or not under consideration of quantum physicists, at least in terms of the science. We ought to be able to have a good discussion, but it seems you are bent on just saying, well, you're wrong, and that doesn't go very far....?

Well it appears that you can look like you know what you are talking about, but in your previous posts it did not appear so to me at all. It seem there are issues upon which we disagree, that are fundamental enough to make discussion very difficult. What you say in regards to spirituality makes absolutely no sense to me and I have been unable to explain things to you either. Sure there are funny things going on in quantum mechanics and a great deal of controversy but the conclusion you are drawing from this are not intelligible to me. I just don't know where to go from there.

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See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at http://www.relspace.astahost.com

randman writes: Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. Why don't you explain some of your statements such as the one above?

I can't even try anymore because I have lost faith that it will do any good. I am just repeating myself. You don't agree, and I don't agree with you.

randman writes: But all "spiritual" means is a word denoting an invisible realm with certain qualities and principles.

But the defining qualities and priciples which I see are not those which you see. Too bad really, because I think mine lead to a reconcilliation of science and religion and explains a great many things. No its not Biblical. But I don't see anything Biblical in what you are saying either.

randman writes: You think there some sort of knowledge wave travelling to our intuition at light speed or something?

No, the point was simply that, I do not see how you could possibly know if you are getting such messages in less that 1/20 of a second in order to justify calling them super-luminal. It seems just like a fantasy of yours to call it super-luminal.

randman writes: If you have no doubt, then why not discuss it's ramifications. Moreover, the second part is wrong. They have that black box over at Oxford, I believe, that appears to make predictions or to show a coorealation between large events and it's code. Maybe someone that knows more about it can tell us the deal on it, but it's been in the news sometimes, especially a few years ago.

Because I don't think there are any ramifications, certainly not in regards to science and technology. Besides believing that something can occur and believing that such things are of value are two different things. I have no such communication experiences so the possibility does not mean much to me, and I have other things to do which are more important to me that exploring these experiences.

randman writes: Couple of questions. There are plenty of quantum physicists that don't see the wave-function as either a wave or a particle, but exists in an undetermined state.

But what you talk about seeing it as, is just a visualization of the mathematical representation, and we call that mathematical representation a wave function. This wave function represents this undetermined state. Its change and motion in time is given by the Schrodinger wave equation, so it is natural to call it a wave and that is what I mean, not a classical wave of any kind.

Edited by mitchellmckain, : addition

Edited by mitchellmckain, : addition

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See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at http://www.relspace.astahost.com