13 Comments

How can you bring up Dean Radin and Wolfgang Pauli and not know about this?

https://www.sheldrake.org/files/pdfs/A_New_Science_of_Life_Appx_B.pdf

Bohm did believe in the "zeroth law," he literally created a deterministic model, and he talked with Rupert Sheldrake, who considered his deterministic model similar to the idea of morphic resonance. Not everyone believes "psi" breaks the laws of nature. In fact Dean Radin is doing an experiment now called SIGIL about the double-slit experiment, though I would rather do another experiment based on more math, I think this one is a good thing. There are more interpretations of quantum mechanics than the Copenhagen one and the many-worlds one. You even mentioned Bohm but didn't know what he really did. I hope I have given you something to read about, but please don't write these things without knowing all the facts next time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-variable_theory

Expand full comment
author

Michaela -

I'm eager to learn from you, but there's no such thing as "knowing all the facts." I don't know much about hidden variable theories, but I know more than the Wikipedia article.

I appreciate the role that Sheldrake has played in prodding the scientific community to expand. The idea of morphic resonance has been around for 30 years, but Sheldrake has never gelled it into a predictive theory. I believe he is right that it is a tendency in the way the world works.

I've corresponded with Radin about SIGIL. I'm enthusiastic about the experiment, because it is intended to establish that consciousness has a role in QM. SIGIL will not make QM deterministic, and it will not lead to a Theory of Everything. I predict that the results will be positive, but they will be ignored by mainstream physicists, as they have ignored all evidence of psi in the past because it does not fit with their ontology.

At one point in about 1977, I called David Bohm in London from where I lived in Boston and asked if he would take me on as a graduate student. He was less than encouraging, because of his age, as I remember. I sometimes look back and wonder how my life would have been different if I had had the strength of conviction to pursue this connection.

- Josh

Expand full comment

I never said psi would fix quantum mechanics, I said Bohm was trying to fix it. But, psi is consistent with it at least. If you know more than the Wikipedia article, you haven't done anything to show it, and you didn't bring it up in your podcast where it was super relevant and what you should've focused on. The implicate order is not necessarily the same thing as morphic resonance even though Bohm and Sheldrake saw the connections themselves.

Expand full comment
author

re: "super-relevant"

Michaela - I think you misread my intention as being about DETERMINISM. The Zeroth Law is not about determinism. Physics has given up on determinism 100 years ago, but the Zeroth Law is still an implicit, unstated assumption everywhere.

Imagine a world in which God makes the rules, creates the Big Bang and then lets the whole thing coast. That's the Zeroth Law. Now imagine that God watches how the world is going and every once in a while She steps in to tweak a wave function here or create a miracle there or plant a thought in Einstein's head. That's the world I'm talking about, in which the Zeroth Law is violated.

Expand full comment

Still sounds like determinism, and “physics” doesn’t give up on anything, people give up on things.

Expand full comment

Thank you for pointing out "Hidden Variable Theory" and providing this link. A couple of things jump out at me (not a physicist, but enjoyed 4 semesters of college physics before med school and always wondered how karma and physics coordinated).

First:

Shortly after making his famous "God does not play dice" comment, Einstein attempted to formulate a deterministic counter proposal to quantum mechanics, presenting a paper at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, on 5 May 1927, titled "Bestimmt Schrödinger's Wellenmechanik die Bewegung eines Systems vollständig oder nur im Sinne der Statistik?" ("Does Schrödinger's wave mechanics determine the motion of a system completely or only in the statistical sense?").[10][11] However, as the paper was being prepared for publication in the academy's journal, Einstein decided to withdraw it, possibly because he discovered that, contrary to his intention, his use of Schrodinger's field to guide localized particles allowed just the kind of non-local influences he intended to avoid...

Second:

The debates between Bohr and Einstein essentially concluded in 1935, when Einstein finally expressed what is widely considered his best argument for the incompleteness of quantum mechanics. Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen had proposed in a paper their definition of a "complete" description as one that uniquely determines the values of all its measurable properties.[18] Einstein later summarized their argument as follows:

Consider a mechanical system consisting of two partial systems A and B which interact with each other only during a limited time. Let the ψ function [i.e., wavefunction] before their interaction be given. Then the Schrödinger equation will furnish the ψ function after the interaction has taken place. Let us now determine the physical state of the partial system A as completely as possible by measurements. Then quantum mechanics allows us to determine the ψ function of the partial system B from the measurements made, and from the ψ function of the total system. This determination, however, gives a result which depends upon which of the physical quantities (observables) of A have been measured (for instance, coordinates or momenta). Since there can be only one physical state of B after the interaction which cannot reasonably be considered to depend on the particular measurement we perform on the system A separated from B it may be concluded that the ψ function is not unambiguously coordinated to the physical state. This coordination of several ψ functions to the same physical state of system B shows again that the ψ function cannot be interpreted as a (complete) description of a physical state of a single system.[19]

Bohr answered Einstein's challenge as follows:

[The argument of] Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen contains an ambiguity as regards the meaning of the expression "without in any way disturbing a system." ... [E]ven at this stage [i.e., the measurement of, for example, a particle that is part of an entangled pair], there is essentially the question of an influence on the very conditions which define the possible types of predictions regarding the future behavior of the system. Since these conditions constitute an inherent element of the description of any phenomenon to which the term "physical reality" can be properly attached, we see that the argumentation of the mentioned authors does not justify their conclusion that quantum-mechanical description is essentially incomplete."[20]

Bohr is here choosing to define a "physical reality" as limited to a phenomenon that is immediately observable by an arbitrarily chosen and explicitly specified technique, using his own special definition of the term 'phenomenon'. He wrote in 1948:

As a more appropriate way of expression, one may strongly advocate limitation of the use of the word phenomenon to refer exclusively to observations obtained under specified circumstances, including an account of the whole experiment."[21][22]

This was, of course, in conflict with the definition used by the EPR paper...

And followed on:

In 1952, David Bohm proposed a hidden variable theory. Bohm unknowingly rediscovered (and extended) the idea that Louis de Broglie's pilot wave theory had proposed in 1927 (and abandoned) – hence this theory is commonly called "de Broglie-Bohm theory". Assuming the validity of Bell's theorem, any deterministic hidden-variable theory that is consistent with quantum mechanics would have to be non-local, maintaining the existence of instantaneous or faster-than-light relations (correlations) between physically separated entities.

Bohm posited both the quantum particle, e.g. an electron, and a hidden 'guiding wave' that governs its motion. Thus, in this theory electrons are quite clearly particles. When a double-slit experiment is performed, the electron goes through either one of the slits. Also, the slit passed through is not random but is governed by the (hidden) pilot wave, resulting in the wave pattern that is observed.

In Bohm's interpretation, the (non-local) quantum potential constitutes an implicate (hidden) order which organizes a particle, and which may itself be the result of yet a further implicate order: a superimplicate order which organizes a field.[26] Nowadays Bohm's theory is considered to be one of many interpretations of quantum mechanics. Some consider it the simplest theory to explain quantum phenomena.[27] Nevertheless, it is a hidden-variable theory, and necessarily so.[28] The major reference for Bohm's theory today is his book with Basil Hiley, published posthumously.[29]

A possible weakness of Bohm's theory is that some (including Einstein, Pauli, and Heisenberg) feel that it looks contrived.[30] (Indeed, Bohm thought this of his original formulation of the theory.[31]) Bohm said he considered his theory to be unacceptable as a physical theory due to the guiding wave's existence in an abstract multi-dimensional configuration space, rather than three-dimensional space.[31]

Expand full comment

Yes, and now we have string theory which has a bunch of dimensions so where's the problem? Even Kaluza-Klein had four dimensions. If you're really picky about only having three dimensions or not having any space-waves then I guess you can get rid of determinism, but personally doesn't a system that allows some information to go faster than light have way more explanatory and predictive value than one that says "nothing is faster than light so it must be random?" We already have telescopes that can observe things moving faster than light anyway because space itself is moving, that just sounds like more of the same.

Expand full comment

What intrigues me is that non-local effects could not be excluded as possible in the Wikipedia article. The "spooky action at a distance" could be described as "faster than light", but that seems to be somehow out-of-context to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement

This is the "in" that I have considered, in recent years, to possibly join the projects of physics and "Psi", "karma", "prayer", "God works in mysterious ways", and so on.

John-praying-for-the-pinball-early-for-better-efficacy

Expand full comment

Thank you for these informations, but i am afraid that you search for the straw in modern sciences while ignoring the beam... which is the fraudulent heliocentric model! It is this lie (or invalid theory affirmed as a fact) that has caused the departure of faith, moral and common sense from sciences. That lie is the foundation of modern sciences with the consequence that only «science» can tell you the truth and not the Word of God, nor direct observations.

You have to believe what the judeo-masonic scientific mafia tells you is «science», meaning that only the experts (who agree with the scientific mafia) can tell you the truth, no matter how insane are their lies.

This was made possible with the creation of the Royal Society of London and the Bank of England with other accomplices banksters (disproportionally Jews - ennemies of God) printing fraudulent devises.

They succeeded to make you believe (to this day) that the heliocentric model, which rejects all our direct observations without the support of a single direct observation and avoiding to explain (and defund anyone trying to do so) how all of our observations can be explained with their virtual imaginary model of the universe.

To make the story short, it would be impossible, for example, that 2 observers on the same meridian of longitude, but at different latitudes to observe at approximately the same time the passage of the Sun at noon during the equinoxes.

It also would be impossible to observe the planets always moving in the same path of the ecliptic, more specially during the solstices and equinoxes.

Expand full comment

Is there no written version, only audio?

Expand full comment
author

Mostly the same, with links and illustrations:

https://mitteldorf.substack.com/p/the-zeroth-law-of-science?

Expand full comment

How can you make this and not even bring up Bohm's hidden variable theory? I get the sense you haven't even heard of Bohm's hidden variable theory.

Expand full comment
author

I know a little about Bohm. In 1952, he published an interpretation of quantum mechanics of a single particle in which the randomness was removed. Later, he tried to extend it to many particles but the details became more complicated than I could follow. Did he write anything that is relevant to the Zeroth Law of Science?

Expand full comment