> "A thing is as it is because the universe is as it is. Considering the endless list of factors required for anything to happen, one can only admit that everything is responsible for everything, however remote." ~ Nisargadatta
If I might make an analogy, there seems to be something like a perceptual bow-wave running ahead of events in human lived experience. A programmer friend of mine (NASA and global banking transactions) Told me about a meta-monitor of all internet activity, which was put together in the early 1990s, and which shows a sharp uptick in activity ahead of big human events, such as a big uptick about 13 hours before the attacks of 9/11/01. This is monitored by the intelligence apparatus.
It is sensitive, but completely non-specific.
I experience a heaviness a day or two before big, heavy events with other people, not things I know will happen. I have learned to lean into this with compassion meditation to accept the heaviness before the event, even though I don't know what or when. This seems to help me be clear headed, energetic and efficacious in the actual events.
I am just putting this out there as either hearsay or my subjective experience of my life, not as anything which could be a proof of any sort to anybody else.
The premonitions we receive from the future, while undoubtedly real, always seem to be quite fuzzy and garbled. Usually it's nothing more than a feeling; when in the form of a premonitory dream, it's communicated with vague imagery. In all cases it seems to be open to a great many possible interpretations, and it often seems that it doesn't make sense until the relevant event has been encountered.
This seems like it must be related to the QM principle that the correlation between entangled particles cannot be verified until they can be compared directly.
Nice article - and it's lovely to see the complexities of quantum correlations and entanglement being discussed.
I don't really agree that this physical system (with violation of the Bell Inequality (BI)) shows that either Alice's (or Bob's) measurement affects the results of measurements of Bob (or Alice).
If you look at this from the perspective of the reduced density matrix then Alice's measurement does not alter Bob's and vice versa.
You don't even need correlated particles to see a violation of the BI. It can be observed with a single particle. In the standard version of the BI with a spin-1/2 particle Alice and Bob will measure the spin at 3 angles, typically chosen at zero, 60 and 120 degrees. They'll choose these directions at random and record their results. When they compare notes later they will find a violation of the BI, if the particles are quantum correlated (eg a singlet state).
Now suppose Alice *prepares* a spin-1/2 particle, at random, in one of the six possible states chosen from the set (angle of measurement, up/down) and sends that on to Bob. Bob will do his random measurement thing as he would for a BI experiment. When they later compare notes there is a violation of the BI between Alice's preparation data and Bob's measurement data.
The key feature here is that violations of the BI are observed in joint *data* - lists of numbers - and the statistical properties observed in this data cannot be explained with a classical model of probability.
Together with a colleague, I published a paper on this and showed how it could be used as an alternative to using correlated particles for one form of quantum key distribution.
But it also has implications for what the BI is telling us. In essence, it harks back to Boole who showed that if you have 3 binary random variables with a joint distribution P(A,B,C) then the marginal joint probabilities like P(A,B), P(A,C) etc are constrained by an inequality. This is the BI. Boole, of course, was using a classical assumption that the variables 'existed' (had definite values) in an objective sense outside of measurement.
It is, as you pointed out, tied into complementarity and the downstream consequence of that which is the uncertainty principle.
It's my view that the BI is telling us about the property of realism, assumed by classical physics, and is not about the locality (i.e causality) aspect - but that's very much a non-standard view and I'm probably wrong on that score.
Particles are created in antimatter opposites. There are multiple mirror symmetries (charge, momentum, polarization, angular momentum etc.) comparing two particles that were created from photons or particle collisions. If 2 photons are created at some point in space such that nothing else affects their phase, polarization or whatever else you can measure on a photon, then those 2 photons leave each other in opposite directions, with mirror opposites of multiple types of measurements (spin orientation, momentum, whatever). Even one thousand light-years away, traveling through a perfect vacuum, they are mirror opposites in some measurement ( I don't have the expertise to describe the various types of measurement that can be done, though I do know quite a bit about it for a mechanical engineer). So why does *almost* everyone write that measuring one affects the other and not bring up the fact of mirror symmetries that can travel thousands of light years away from the starting point?
Everyone please respond to my answer. I rarely see people write about what I just described although I know it is out there. I would like to see others similarly curious about this and if people can describe it better than I can.
Wisdom from a modern sage:
> "A thing is as it is because the universe is as it is. Considering the endless list of factors required for anything to happen, one can only admit that everything is responsible for everything, however remote." ~ Nisargadatta
Thank you, Josh. Always appreciate your thoughtful reflections . . . .
If I might make an analogy, there seems to be something like a perceptual bow-wave running ahead of events in human lived experience. A programmer friend of mine (NASA and global banking transactions) Told me about a meta-monitor of all internet activity, which was put together in the early 1990s, and which shows a sharp uptick in activity ahead of big human events, such as a big uptick about 13 hours before the attacks of 9/11/01. This is monitored by the intelligence apparatus.
It is sensitive, but completely non-specific.
I experience a heaviness a day or two before big, heavy events with other people, not things I know will happen. I have learned to lean into this with compassion meditation to accept the heaviness before the event, even though I don't know what or when. This seems to help me be clear headed, energetic and efficacious in the actual events.
I am just putting this out there as either hearsay or my subjective experience of my life, not as anything which could be a proof of any sort to anybody else.
The premonitions we receive from the future, while undoubtedly real, always seem to be quite fuzzy and garbled. Usually it's nothing more than a feeling; when in the form of a premonitory dream, it's communicated with vague imagery. In all cases it seems to be open to a great many possible interpretations, and it often seems that it doesn't make sense until the relevant event has been encountered.
This seems like it must be related to the QM principle that the correlation between entangled particles cannot be verified until they can be compared directly.
Wonder what you think of dreams as connecting future to present through quantum information represented through energy pathway
Nice article - and it's lovely to see the complexities of quantum correlations and entanglement being discussed.
I don't really agree that this physical system (with violation of the Bell Inequality (BI)) shows that either Alice's (or Bob's) measurement affects the results of measurements of Bob (or Alice).
If you look at this from the perspective of the reduced density matrix then Alice's measurement does not alter Bob's and vice versa.
You don't even need correlated particles to see a violation of the BI. It can be observed with a single particle. In the standard version of the BI with a spin-1/2 particle Alice and Bob will measure the spin at 3 angles, typically chosen at zero, 60 and 120 degrees. They'll choose these directions at random and record their results. When they compare notes later they will find a violation of the BI, if the particles are quantum correlated (eg a singlet state).
Now suppose Alice *prepares* a spin-1/2 particle, at random, in one of the six possible states chosen from the set (angle of measurement, up/down) and sends that on to Bob. Bob will do his random measurement thing as he would for a BI experiment. When they later compare notes there is a violation of the BI between Alice's preparation data and Bob's measurement data.
The key feature here is that violations of the BI are observed in joint *data* - lists of numbers - and the statistical properties observed in this data cannot be explained with a classical model of probability.
Together with a colleague, I published a paper on this and showed how it could be used as an alternative to using correlated particles for one form of quantum key distribution.
But it also has implications for what the BI is telling us. In essence, it harks back to Boole who showed that if you have 3 binary random variables with a joint distribution P(A,B,C) then the marginal joint probabilities like P(A,B), P(A,C) etc are constrained by an inequality. This is the BI. Boole, of course, was using a classical assumption that the variables 'existed' (had definite values) in an objective sense outside of measurement.
It is, as you pointed out, tied into complementarity and the downstream consequence of that which is the uncertainty principle.
It's my view that the BI is telling us about the property of realism, assumed by classical physics, and is not about the locality (i.e causality) aspect - but that's very much a non-standard view and I'm probably wrong on that score.
Particles are created in antimatter opposites. There are multiple mirror symmetries (charge, momentum, polarization, angular momentum etc.) comparing two particles that were created from photons or particle collisions. If 2 photons are created at some point in space such that nothing else affects their phase, polarization or whatever else you can measure on a photon, then those 2 photons leave each other in opposite directions, with mirror opposites of multiple types of measurements (spin orientation, momentum, whatever). Even one thousand light-years away, traveling through a perfect vacuum, they are mirror opposites in some measurement ( I don't have the expertise to describe the various types of measurement that can be done, though I do know quite a bit about it for a mechanical engineer). So why does *almost* everyone write that measuring one affects the other and not bring up the fact of mirror symmetries that can travel thousands of light years away from the starting point?
Everyone please respond to my answer. I rarely see people write about what I just described although I know it is out there. I would like to see others similarly curious about this and if people can describe it better than I can.
So fascinating!