Chinese Satellite Is 1 Giant Step for the Quantum Internet
On Aug 17, 2016, at 12:13 PM, Michael Shermer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > wrote:
My main point is an epistemological one: there is no paranormal or supernatural.
"Jack Sarfatti has been exploring a generalisation of David Bohm’s[4] ontological interpretation of quantum mechanics, extended so a particle is not just guided by the quantum potential, but, in turn, through backactivity, modifies the quantum potential field. Backactivity introduces nonlinearity into the evolution of the wave function, much like the bidirectional nonlinear interaction of spacetime and matter-energy in general relativity.
The effects of backactivity are negligible in interactions at the atomic scale; divergences from the predictions of conventional quantum mechanics would be manifest only in systems where quantum coherence occurs at the mesoscopic and macroscopic scale. Sarfatti suggests that this post-quantum backactivity may be involved in various phenomena as follows:
Postulates
1. Life in general, and consciousness in particular, depends upon a backactivity-mediated feedback loop operating on macroscopic quantum structures in the cell. Roger Penrose[15] and Stuart Hameroff have suggested the microtubule as the site of this quantum system, but it may be elsewhere.
Life, through homeostasis, maintains the far-from-equilibrium quantum machinery necessary for its own existence. Rocks aren’t alive because they have no structures which prevent thermal decoherence of the wave function.
There is, then, an élan vital, and it consists of backactivity operating in macromolecular quantum systems assembled within the cell.
2. Backactivity is the missing puzzle-piece needed to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity. Linear quantum mechanics operating in a background spacetime cannot possibly describe the effects of spacetime curvature due to mass-energy or curvature acting on itself. Macroscopic quantum systems employing backactivity may produce strong spacetime curvature or interactions with the zero-point vacuum energy not predicted by orthodox quantum mechanics or general relativity. Per item (1) above, a “macroscopic quantum system employing backactivity” is, necessarily, alive.
3. Development of a comprehensive and consistent post-quantum theory incorporating backactivity may, then, permit development of technologies impossible without such effects, for example:
- Communication across spacelike-separated intervals.
- Faster-than-light travel with an Alcubierre-like “warp drive”[1] without the need for exotic, negative energy, matter.
- Access to the zero-point energy of the vacuum.
If Haisch, Rueda, and Puthoff’s suggestion[11] that interaction with the zero-point energy is the source of inertia (as opposed to the Mach/Einstein view that it is caused by the dragging of inertial frames by distant galaxies), then technologies employing backactivity might be able to modify inertia.
I don’t know whether these suggestions are correct—nobody does at present, but there’s nothing in any of them which seems inaccessible to experiment in the relatively near future. Let’s assume calculations are done, predictions are made, experiments are performed, and the experimenters win the Nobel prize, shafting the theorists once again—that backactivity is shown to exist and indeed both accounts for life and permits the unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity."
Just the normal and the natural and things we have yet to subsume under normal/natural science. If Stuart Hameroff is right in his (and Penrose’s) ORCH theory then that just means such phenomena are part of quantum physics and neuroscience and explained as such.
And if, say, “mind reading” were real and explained by ORCH (for example), that would mean ESP is not “extra” sensory perception at all, but “Normal Sensory Perception,” or perhaps “Extra-normal Sensory Perception” to indicate that it is very subtle and difficult to measure.
MichaelWhy bother with supernaturalThe is no explanation for "natural " experience - perceptual or mental#HardProblem
Deepak Chopra
On Aug 17, 2016, at 11:38 AM, Michael Shermer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > wrote:
Gentlemen,Per George’s comments, Scientific American runs letters to the editor every month, and I almost always have at lease one critical letter published, along with my reply. If you would like to write one you can send it to the letters editor:Aaron Shattuck,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Contrary to what Jack Sarfatti just said, Scientific American likes critical letters to the editor. They almost never publish letters in agreement with an author. What would be the point? Knowledge frontiers are pushed forward by critical debate and dialogue.To that end, George, perhaps you’d like to host a show with me and whomever else on this list who would like to participate. I’ve been on Coast-to-Coast many times over the years, sometimes alone and sometimes with other guests critical of my position, both with George Noory and Art Bell. Or maybe a 2 x 2 debate with Sean Carroll and I on one side and two others on the other. I strongly recommend reading Sean’s book first, however, as I don’t think his book could have been written 50 years ago, and in any case he’s very thoughtful and reasonable about what physics can and cannot say about these many controversial issues.Sincerely,Michael
Michael Shermer
Skeptic Magazine
Scientific American
P.O. Box 338
Altadena, CA 91001