Dialogue with Nick Herbert on Quantum Realities

On Aug 22, 2010, at 5:58 PM, nick herbert wrote:

There are three levels of description
Theory
Fact
Reality

Agreed

Quantum Theory is patently non-local cause it's formulated in configuration space not 3D space.

Agreed

Quantum Fact is empirically local.

Agreed

What about Quantum Reality? Is it local? (obeys relativity) or non-local? (disobeys relativity).

Your error here may be that nonlocality means disobey's relativity - Shimony's "passion at a distance" shows that is not the case. There is the third alternative of David Finkelstein.

However, I think "passion at a distance" is only a limit like the limit of zero curvature reducing 1916 GR's LIFs to 1905 SR's GIFs, e.g. limit of sub-quantal thermal equilibrium for the real particle hidden variables piloted by the nonlocal quantum potential Q.

Note in ordinary quantum theory the hidden variables are the localized real particles on local classical trajectories. All the weirdness is in the qubit quantum potential. "Beables" have garbled this clear distinction it seems to me. In field theory the hidden variables are the classical field configurations on either spacelike or lightlike hypersurfaces, e.g. the Penrose-Rindler null tetrads for the latter in the case of the gravitational field (curvature and maybe torsion).

Bell proved that any deterministic model of reality must be non-local.

OK

Bell proved that any probabilistic model of reality must be non-local.

OK

But Bell's theorem doesn't apply to the Multiverse model of reality.

Agreed.

Multiverse is local and reproduces (so tis said) the Quantum Facts.

I don't understand "Multiverse is local." How is that falsified? I agree that quantum measurements must be local. I mean localized detectors, not Yakir Aharonov's more abstract idea of nonlocal measurements needing several localized detectors or the same detector at different times along its world line.

This is Tipler's point. If Reality is local, then the Multiverse is where we REALLY LIVE.

You and Tipler have lost me. Also there are at least three levels of multiverse.

But the Multiverse is not the only choice.
Nobody today looks for a mechanism (Reality) behind the Lorenz Contraction.

I think Zielinski and Puthoff do - also Bell himself seems to prefer it in "How to teach relativity" in his Unspeakable book.

(Altho a lot of theorists wasted their time constructing ether models of matter which contracted in motion) Today we regard time and space transformations as basic properties of spacetime NOT NEEDING AN EXPLANATION IN TERMS OF SOME DEEPER REALITY such as the ether.

We do have the generally covariant and locally special relativistic aether of virtual bosons and closed virtual fermion loops. Indeed, the former is the dark energy and the latter is the dark matter in my opinion.

Likewise we could simply accept the ULTRA-STRONG QUANTUM CORRELATIONS AS A BASIC FEATURE OF NATURE not  to be explained by some deeper structure (Reality). This is close to what Bohr was saying, I believe. No need to invoke the Multiverse.  Is Reality Local? The question makes no sense in this formulation.

But Bohr's view is seriously inadequate in my opinion.

There are problems with this "pragmatic approach" which do not exist in the relativistic/ether case but the possibility of taking this  "Bohrian" stance is why I have labeled Tipler's nice little paper a "proof" rather than a proof.

I have not read Tipler's paper as yet as carefully as you have and your point may be correct. I don't know.

On Aug 22, 2010, at 5:34 PM, JACK SARFATTI wrote:

On Aug 22, 2010, at 3:47 PM, nick herbert wrote:

If Relativity holds at the level of Reality that FTL potentials of the Bohm variety are Kaput.

I don't understand you, take the Relativistic Klein Gordon equation for 2 interacting particles A & B. The quantum potential Q(A,B) comes out of the Hamilton-Jacobi piece of the Klein-Gordon equation.

Entanglement means Q(A,B) =/= Q(A) + Q(B)

Or better yet the Bethe-Salpeter equation.

The Bethe–Salpeter equation[1], named after Hans Bethe and Edwin Salpeter, describes the bound states of a two-body (particles) quantum field theoretical system in a relativistically covariant formalism. The equation was actually first published in 1950 at the end of a paper by Yoichiro Nambu, but without derivation.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethe–Salpeter_equation

The Bohm ontology needs to be formulated in this case. I don't see why this is not possible, probably someone did it already?


On Aug 22, 2010, at 3:16 PM, JACK SARFATTI wrote:


On Aug 22, 2010, at 2:53 PM, nick herbert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> wrote:

I can see why you might not like this.
If Relativity is correct at the level of Reality
this blows Bohm out of the water.


How?

However Tipler's argument does not prove the existence of Multiverse, anymore than observations on light prove existence of the luminiferous ether.

Ok


http://quantumtantra.blogspot.com/2010/08/quantum-immortality.html