From: Eric Cordian <emc@wire.insync.net>
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:11:44 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: EPR, Bell, and FTL Bandwidth (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199801290055.BAA14039@basement.replay.com>
Message-ID: <199801290203.UAA10294@wire.insync.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



An Entity at Replay writes:
 
> So, you agree with Tim May's statement that:
 
>> All that is revealed is a _correlation_, a kind of structure built
>> into the Universe. Interesting, but not so weird as it seems.  (And
>> this is not any kind of "action at one site instantaneously changing
>> the state far away." No more so than sending two envelopes out, one
>> with a "1" inside and the other with a "0" inside changes things
>> instantaneously.....)
 
> You agree with the foolish statement that the behavior of correlated
> photons is no more weird than sending out two envelopes?  I thought
> you had more sense than that.
 
With correlated branch systems, examination of one branch can disclose
information about another branch which is currently distant from us.
This is no more weird in the quantum mechanical case, than it is in
the classical case.  The envelope analogy is perfectly appropriate.
 
That's not to say that quantum mechanical systems aren't "weird" in
ways that classical systems are not.  It's just that this is not one
of those areas of weirdness.
 
> How do you explain the violation of Bell's theorem in QM?  What is
> your nice, cozy, friendly, un-weird explanation?  I'm curious whether
> you are going to sacrifice locality or reality.  Somehow I think
> you'll have to go beyond what is necessary to explain the behavior of
> envelopes.
 
The wavefunction of the universe is not a physical observable.  I do
not have to sacrifice causality for physical phemonema to have
non-local collapse of the wavefunction when measurements are
performed.  A satisfactory theory of quantum mechanical measurement
does not currently exist, and it has even been conjectured that
gravitation may be the sole force immune from quantum mechanical
superposition, and that this may be the mechanism behind wavefunction
collapse.  There are other hypotheses as well, and the experiments to
distinguish amongst them have yet to be performed.
 
A correct theory of quantum mechanical measurement will disclose the
mechanisms by which things like non-local wavefunction collapse,
quantum teleporation, the quantum eraser effect, and other current
oddities are mediated.  This will undoubtedly involve a deeper
understanding of how quantum gravity works, and perhaps even the
physics underlying the existence of consciousness itself.
 
However, none of this implies in the least that a physical effect is
propagated non-causally across vast distances when a conscious choice
is made to measure one of two non-commuting observables for one of a
pair of "entangled" particles, which, I believe, is what the current
argument is over.

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"