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The Soul's Paradox
A Dance of Definites and PossibilitiesAs one treads the expansive corridors of philosophy, few subjects engender as much fascination as the soul – that elusive, ethereal concept often seen as the essence of who we are. A common question on this voyage of introspection is: where does the soul reside?The simplest answer might be: within the physical body. After all, we experience life, feel…
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Could An Incompleteness In Quantum Mechanics Lead To Our Next Scientific Revolution?
“But in the quantum Universe, this notion of relativistic causality isn't as straightforward or universal as it would seem. There are many properties that a particle can have — such as its spin or polarization — that are fundamentally indeterminate until you make a measurement. Prior to observing the particle, or interacting with it in such a way that it's forced to be in either one state or the other, it's actually in a superposition of all possible outcomes.
Well, you can also take two quantum particles and entangle them, so that these very same quantum properties are linked between the two entangled particles. Whenever you interact with one member of the entangled pair, you not only gain information about which particular state it's in, but also information about its entangled partner.”
One of the most important ideas in classical physics are those of locality and causality: that objects in close proximity can affect one another through the forces they exert on one another, which are limited by the speed of light. But quantum mechanics turns much of that on its head, where locality doesn’t appear to be a fundamental property of reality at all. Yet one of the most remarkable ideas of all out there conjectures that quantum gravity, which contains fundamental non-localities, could be described by variables that completely explain what we view as non-locality in standard quantum physics.
Could this be right? Lee Smolin is giving a talk on that today, and I’ll be live-blogging it as it happens. Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind event!
Entanglement is one of the properties specific to quantum particles. When two photons become entangled, for instance, the quantum state of the first will correlate perfectly with the quantum state of the second, even if they are at a distance from one another. But what happens when three pairs of entangled photons are placed in a network? Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, working in partnership with Tehran's Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), have proved that this arrangement allows for a new form of quantum correlation in theory. When the scientists forced two photons from separate pairs to become entangled, the connection was also made with their twin photon present elsewhere in the network, forming a highly correlated triangle. These results, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, create the potential for new applications in cryptography.
“Entanglement involves two quantum particles—photons, for example—forming a single physical system in spite of the distance between them. Every action performed on one of the two photons has an impact on its "twin" photon. This principle of entanglement leads to quantum non-locality: … “
Kant and Non-Locality
For Kant all physics is an account of appearances. Classical mechanics, relativity, quantum field theory all of it belongs to epistemology (how we know), not ontology (what exist). None of it tells us what exists “in itself.” Kant would have had no trouble saying that black holes, electrons, entanglement are lawful appearances under conditions of possible experience. Full stop.
Now, physics constantly revises its laws because the same human apparatus encounters appearances under different constraints. Bus-scale laws fail near black holes. Classical probability fails at quantum scales. This is not surprising; it is exactly what Kant predicts once you stop mistaking local success for necessity.
Where non-locality does push you toward Kant is subtler than your current objection might allow. Non-locality does not challenge Kant’s claim that physics is epistemology. It challenges the physicists’ unexamined realism inside that epistemology.
Before quantum theory, physicists quietly assumed that appearances map onto a world made of spatially separate entities with intrinsic properties. That assumption was never justified by experience; it was smuggled in from common sense. Kant explicitly warned against this move by saying that spatial multiplicity does not license metaphysical claims about things as they are in themselves.
Bell non-locality exposes exactly that mistake. What fails is not “space as appearance,” but the inference that because two things appear spatially separated, they must be ontologically independent. That inference is pre-Kantian metaphysics masquerading as physics.
When experiments force physicists to give up local hidden variables, what collapses is not Kant’s framework but a naïve realism that Kant already dismantled. Non-locality shows that even within appearance, spatial separation cannot be read as metaphysical separability. That is a Kantian correction, not a refutation.
A converstion with Copilot, re. quantum entanglement
As Richard Feynman, a renowned physicist known for his work in quantum mechanics (QM) and quantum electrodynamics, famously said, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.” In one sense, that comment is discouraging, but in another sense, it is encouraging because no matter how ill-informed you may be, you can take comfort in the knowledge that the…
Sabine Hossenfelder
Understanding Quantum Mechanics: Non-locality (May 2020)
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
Scientists have captured the first ever image of a phenomenon which Albert Einstein once described as "spooky action at a distance".The photo shows a strong form of quantum entanglement, where two particles interact and share their physical states for an instant.It occurs no matter how great the distance between the particles is.The connection is known as Bell entanglement and underpins the field of quantum mechanics.
(via https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/5/7/eaaw2563.full.pdf )
The BIG BELL TEST
New Post has been published on https://www.aneddoticamagazine.com/big-bell-test/
The BIG BELL TEST
Worldwide quantum physics experiments powered by human randomness.
A Bell test is an experiment to decide whether the world is really as strange as quantum mechanics says it is. Our ordinary experience tells us that inanimate matter has a reality independent of ourselves. For example, we believe the moon was there, orbiting the earth, long before there were any people to admire it. Quantum physics seems to say something different: that the act of observing the world can change it. Niels Bohr, a towering figure in quantum mechanics, even claimed that observables such as “the position of the atom” have no meaning until someone measures them. If this is true, the act of observation at least alters and maybe creates the world, quite the opposite of an independent reality. Physicists and philosophers have debated Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics since it was published in 1927.
The BIG Bell Test (BBT) is a worldwide project to bring human randomness to cutting-edge quantum physics experiments. On November 30th, many people will contribute randomly chosen bits. These will be distributed in real-time to experimental groups around the world for use in quantum physics experiments, including the first Bell test(s) with human-generated randomness. In addition to testing fundamental physical principles like non-locality, human randomness is useful in important applications such as secure communications, and also as a “seed” for the generation of even more randomness.
http://thebigbelltest.org
