I received a helpful email from Chris, a physicist knowledgeable about current thinking and terminology regarding the double slit experiment. In case you don't speak physics, I'll do a short summary here: the main issue (other than out of date terminology) was my claim that physicists in the 1920s realized that it was the recording of the measured data rather than the measurement itself that was critical to the outcome of the double slit experiment. Indeed that is not true. As Chris points out, physicists assumed (and still do) that it is the interaction with the measurement apparatus, rather than the fact that measured data is recorded. The math works out the same either way -- and since both were always done together, the experiment to determine whether their assumption was true has not been done. The bottom line is that my discussion of the history of the double-slit experiment in the YouTube videos is incorrect - it would seem that contemporary physicists would not agree that creating information in PMR is the key ingredient rather than an invisible theoretical physical interaction. In any case, which ever assumption is shown to be correct, there is no impact on fundamental MBT theory presented in the books or presented in the workshops (YouTube). It is primarily a matter of me getting my history right at best and not attributing to current physics understandings that they don't have. Certainly at the Macro level, probability and information are more fundamental to the content and substance of our reality than the details of the rule-set which simply represent constraints on the information allowed expression within the virtual PMR - it would seem to make sense that that would be true of the micro world as well - but that remains an unproven assumption.

Tom

---------------------------------------------------------------

Chris: Hi. In a set of Youtube videos, you bring up the dual slit

experiment: You say that if we "leave on" the apparatus which detects which slit a photon goes through, and merely don't look at it, don't let it record its observation, then you still see an interference pattern. You claim that this problem is called the "measurement problem."

Both of these statements are incorrect. In the dual-slit experiment, you couple some environment to the photon going through the two slits 0 and 1. This coupling changes the system from | 0 > + | 1 > to the entangled state | 00 > + | 11 >. This causes the density matrix to trace out as 0.5 | 0 >< 0 | + 0.5 | 1 >< 1 | -- which is not the density matrix for | 0 > + | 1 >. Thus, it is the fact that you are entangling another system /at all/ which causes the disappearance of the interference pattern.

In other words, the change in patterns that you see has nothing to do with the measurement problem, and is governed by the normal unitary evolution of quantum mechanics -- the part that's not an "interpretation". When you perform that CNOT gate to take it from | 00> + | 10 > into the state | 00 > + | 11 >, you automatically destroy
the original interference pattern, no matter whether you record the second qubit or not.

-- Chris

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On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 11:05 PM, Tom Campbell <twcjr@comcast.net> wrote:

Thanks Chris. Tell me what this means: "you couple some environment to the photon going through the two slits 0 and 1."

You seem to assume an interaction of some sort (coupling) and that the photon is going through both slits which is, of course, the answer to the problem which gives an interference pattern.

I'd like to understand if I have misspoken - please explain your notation -- its been a while.

Tom

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom --
Well, to take the notation first: it's your standard normal Dirac bra-ket notation that you see everywhere in QM; I have been sloppy with normalizing factors for the sake of conciseness. I will fix that
here: let s = sqrt(1/2).

I mean, just to review, we define an inner product space where every wave function ψ is represented by a ket vector | ψ > which has a conjugate transpose < ψ |. There are basis states for a system -- for a qubit, those states are | 0 > and | 1 >. The general state in QM is allowed to be any linear combination of these states, although we generally make the restriction that < ψ | ψ > = 1 (normalization). An observable operator A is a mapping from kets to kets, or equivalently from bras to bras, defined where < ψ | A | ψ > is the average value of the observable A seen across an ensemble of systems prepared in state
| ψ >.

With that said: the environmental coupling does not "give an interference pattern," but rather it takes it away. The system starts out in the s | 0 > + s | 1 > state, a superposition of going through both slits equally. The key to its interference pattern is that its density matrix looks like this:

| ψ >< ψ | = 1/2 ( | 0 >< 0 | + | 0 >< 1 | + | 1 >< 0 | + | 1 >< 1 | )

...where you can see "cross terms" in the density matrix. Those cross terms represent the distinctively /quantum/ superposition, different from if I flip a coin and point my laser at each of the two slits based on its outcome.

Now, you have an experimental environment -- a detector of "which slit did it go through? -- which we will perhaps say starts in a neutral state | n > but can indicate either "the photon went through 0" | 0 > or "the photon went through 1" | 1 >. Thus, at the start, just as the photon goes through the slits, you have a state:

| ψ > = s | 0n > + s | 1n >.

Now you turn on the coupling: a unitary evolution U which allows you to use your environment to observe the photon. Ideally, you design your apparatus very well, so that it takes | 0n > to | 00 > and | 1n > to | 11 >. Thus, your apparatus produces the state:

U | ψ > = s | 00 > + s | 11 >.

This is the "interaction of some sort" -- this state-evolution operator U which entangles your measurement apparatus with the photon-in-flight. The first bit now has lost the cross-terms which created the initial entanglement; it has the same density matrix as if you just flipped a fair coin and sent it through | 0 > on heads or | 1
> on tails.

I hope this gives you an understanding of what I mean when I say that your "which slit?" detection apparatus is an "environment" which is being coupled to the photon's "qubit state".

Friendly greets,
--Chris
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2010/8/4 Tom Campbell <twcjr@comcast.net>:
Thanks Chris,

Your tutorial sounded familiar -- I have worked the last 40 years in industry -- an applied physicist -- and there isn't much use for ket vectors there. So it has been a long time. Use it or lose it.

One question on notation: | ψ >< ψ | and < ψ | ψ > both would appear to be a multiplication of a ket vector with its conjugate transpose -- refresh my memory about the difference the order of terms makes. Just using cross product vector multiplication doesn't seem to explain what you have written, so I must not fully understand this notation: | ψ >< ψ |

I did read up on the double slit experiment before talking about it on film and thought I had it correct. It was explained in several places much as I explained it on the video -- with multiple references using the terminology "probability wave colapsing to a physical particle" and "the measurement problem"

So what is the bottom line here? I take it from your notation that you are saying that what makes the photon go through just one slit or the other is the fact of making a detection. Not the
fact of recording the detection? [I suspect that one was not done without the other so they always occurred simultaneously and thus may be impossible to separate which caused what]

Are you sure it's the appratus? Well it appears I need to do some more reading. I have presented this to a dozen physicists and not one saw that issue. And several of those were current Academic physicist -- well known even.

Thanks for pointing out the problem and I will let you know what I find out -- I can't call back movies, but can stop making the same mistake in the future. And thanks for the brush up on ket vector notation. I appreciate you taking the time to be helpful.

Tom

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom --

Well, the difference if you like is that | a > < b | is a matrix while < a | b > is a scalar. If I were to right-multiply by a ket | c > then they would become two different vectors:

< a | b > | c > vs. | a > < b | c >

The first is parallel to | c > and the second is parallel to | a >.
The first is 0 if a and b are orthogonal; the second is 0 if b and c are orthogonal. The scalars can then of course commute with the vector, but you can't commute a vector with a vector to turn an outer product into an inner product: it would be an abuse of the notation.

You ask, "I take it from your notation that you are saying that what makes the photon go through just one slit or the other is the fact of making a measurement (a detection). Not the fact of recording the measurement (detection)?"

It's not even "making a measurement." The moment you prepare the two qubits into the 00 + 11 quantum state, entangling the two with each other, the first qubit is not in the quantum 0 + 1 superposition any more, and in fact cannot be described as a pure quantum state any more. The entanglement comes at the price of decoherence. This is, if you like, why quantum computation is so hard: any environmental effect which couples with a set of quantum bits harms their ability to remain in their carefully prepared state. You need very high quality factors to make sure that as few shenanigans as possible happen.

Now there *is* a measurement problem lurking about -- it is the nonunitary dynamics which attend a wave-function collapse at the point of a measurement. But this disappearance of the interference pattern has nothing to do with it -- it is a part of the unitary dynamics which prevail normally. The disappearance of the interference pattern is a decoherence problem, rather than a measurement problem.

If you like, QM says that my television can be in the state:

sqrt(1/2) | living room > + sqrt(1/2) | bedroom >

The above decoherence argument, when applied to photons and air molecules bouncing off of my television, can entangle so many alternate degrees of freedom that this becomes classical:

50% living room, 50% bedroom.

...while the environment is entangled with it (i.e. there is a hole in the gas in one room or the other to "make room" for the television, and so forth). Any interference effects between my bedroom and living room disappear. But now, nonetheless, when we go to observe it, we don't see it "half in the living room" and "half in the bedroom," but the television is in either one or the other place. That is the measurement problem.

Feynman gives a good discussion in his Messenger Lectures[1] and his big physics textbook about the dual-slit experiment, and when he talks about the measurement problem it is a question of how the electron "makes up its mind" the way that a bullet does, to appear at one detector or the other. This is distinct from the question of the unitary decoherence. If you wish, the measurement problem is that "light comes in corpuscles", treated in his first Auckland lecture[2], whereas the decoherence problem is treated in microcosm at the beginning of his third Auckland lecture[3]. The measurement problem is "how does a photon decide whether it's reflected or not?"

-- Chris

[1] Bill Gates has made these lectures available online, but I use Linux and his technology does not support my OS. Still, I have the memory that he treated them in those lectures: but I cannot give you a link saying "here is precisely in the videos where it is discussed."
[2] http://vega.org.uk/video/programme/45 , about 35 minutes in.
[3] http://vega.org.uk/video/programme/47 , about 5 minutes in.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2010/8/4 Tom Campbell <twcjr@comcast.net>:

Thanks Chris, I thought the cross/dot product thing was the key but wasn't familiar enough with the notation to be sure. It all makes sense.

Saying that it is not the measurement, but decoherence that "causes" the wave function to collapse to a particle (no diffraction pattern) sounds like a semantic issue (how you use the words -- at what level of description) -- indeed, With that bigger semantic picture in mind:

When the apparatus produces the state:

U | ψ > = s | 00 > + s | 11 >.

Where U represents an "interaction of some sort" -- You say that the state-evolution operator U entangles the measurement apparatus with the photon-in-flight.

Could you not just as easily say that that the state-evolution operator U entangles the recording of the measurement data with the photon-in-flight. Has such an experiment ever been done or is it simply intuitively obvious that there is no point to doing such an experiment because we understand exactly how the measurement apparatus entangles with the photon in flight?

Though it may sound ridiculous and counterintuitive to you, (QM is known to be counterintuitive), is it possible that the fact that the "measurement apparatus is the source of entanglement" is a reasonable but untested assumption? Simply a belief. The information theory approach to reality (reality is information) might challenge that assumption since it is the information and not the measurement that is key. Whether U represents the measurement or the data produced by the measurement makes no difference to the math analysis. It seems to me that whether we interpret U as representing the 1) the measurement device interaction, or 2) the data/information produced by the measurement devise interaction, is entirely arbitrary since nothing changes in the equations except how we interpret them. So, Chris, Am I just howling at the moon here or do I have a valid point, no matter how far-fetched and heretical to accepted opinion it might sound?



Tom


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom,

You say that I am "Saying that it is not the measurement, but decoherence that "causes" the wave function to collapse to a particle (no diffraction pattern)." I cannot emphasize enough that what I'm saying is that "no diffraction pattern" is not equal to "collapse to a particle." The measurement problem -- the nonunitary dynamics of wave function collapse -- is totally different from the presence or absence of a diffraction pattern, which is ultimately part of the Schrödinger equation.

[Tom: I understand your usage and how you are separating the two concepts, and I agree they are quite different phenomena. The language I use to describe the phenomena is, I confess, not very precise in terms of current physics-speak (in which it appears that I am inappropriately mixing the metaphors of collapse and decoherence) but I am not confused about the difference between the two concepts -- I am just confusing you about what I mean with my terminology]

"Could you not just as easily say that that the state-evolution operator U entangles the recording of the measurement data with the photon-in-flight. Has such an experiment ever been done or is it simply intuitively obvious that there is no point to doing such an experiment because we understand exactly how the measurement apparatus entangles with the photon in flight?"

Well, [I suppose that could be the case, however] there would be a massive problem in doing [the experiment] with photons, namely that it is very hard to count them without absorbing them. You could point a light at two slits while electrons passed through them, though, and then the photons scattering off the electron would potentially be visible at a detector. As for understanding exactly how the apparatus entangles -- well, presumably, we /design/ it to entangle that way. We want to have an apparatus which, starting from a neutral state, gives us 1 if the particle went through 1, or 0 if the particle went through 0. If the apparatus doesn't entangle that way, then it is not prepared to give you a good measurement.

[Tom: Yes, We would design an apparatus which, starting from a neutral state, gives us 1 if the particle went through 1, or 0 if the particle went through 0, but that is exactly the case whether the entanglement comes from the measurement itself or from collecting the measured data.]

Anyway, yes, [I assume that] the light does indeed break the interference pattern of the electron -- as far as I know, even when you switch off the photomultiplier detectors for those lights, though I have not done this experiment myself. If it did not do so, then that would be a significant violation of our current laws of quantum mechanics.

However, of course, the light comes as particles too, and thus there will be a class of results where the electron went through the slits but your counter remained in the neutral state -- no photon got entangled with the passing electron. In this subset of cases, the system would be in the 0n + 1n state, which is separable, and you would again see an interference pattern. This will become more important as you slowly turn off the light source.

-- Chris
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 7:47 PM, Tom Campbell <twcjr@comcast.net> wrote:

Chris: " I cannot emphasize enough that what I'm saying is that "no diffraction pattern" is not equal to "collapse to a particle."

Tom: I must be wearing out your patience and willingness to be helpful -- I apologize for that, but there is something I am missing and I am not sure what. One last try, then I am off to the links you provided.

OK, I must be dense. Here is My logic, where is it that I go wrong conceptually (as opposed to not using the proper terminology): 1) Waves traveling through two slits produce a diffraction pattern. 2) to make it simpler, particles with rest mass (e..g, an electron or neutron) whose position/trajectory is accurately known) must go though one slit or the other like any classical particle and thus do not produce a diffraction pattern. 3) a series of such particles of uncertain position approaching two slits one at a time will eventually produce a diffraction pattern. 4) Insert a measurement device into the experiment (causing decoherence) to detect the particle at a slit. The probability wave collapses to a physical particle (the particle is detected and its position/trajectory is known at a given slit), then like any classical particle, it passes on through the slit, producing no diffraction pattern. 5) From this I conclude that upon measurement, the probability waves of a series (in time) of individual particles collapse to classical physical particles which proceed to pass though the slit as any classical particles would, leaving a spot directly behind the slit rather than producing a diffraction pattern -- in direct contrast to 3 above. Bottom line: classical particles cannot create diffraction patterns but probability waves can (if they remain waves and are not collapsed to physical particles by a measurement/decoherence).


Tom

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Tom,

"I must be wearing out your patience and willingness to be helpful" -- eh, I've just had a bit of a bad day today; no worries.

As for (1) - (5):

"1) Waves traveling through two slits produce a diffraction pattern."

True in general, yes.

"2) to make it simpler, particles with rest mass (e..g, an electron or
neutron) whose position/trajectory is accurately known) must go though one slit or the other like any classical particle and thus do not produce a diffraction pattern."

This worries me for a couple reasons. The most important is that even going through one slit, there is a quantum effect which is not to be neglected[1] -- and if the electron doesn't have enough momentum, both slits will sit within its de Broglie wavelength -- in other words, you can't necessarily "target it" this way.

[Tom: I think what you are saying is that if there is enough uncertainty we move into statement number 3). Yes that is true but I wanted statement 2) to be only those particles that have no overlap: de Brogile wavelength << distance between slits. Any quantum effect in conceptual box 2) should be negligible.]

" 3) a series of such particles of uncertain position approaching two slits one at a time will eventually produce a diffraction pattern."

Well, yes. You measure their position along some axis -- let us call it the y-axis. If an electron went through the first slit, then at the target it would have wave function φ¹(y), and it would have wave function φ²(y) going through the other. The wave function if it is allowed to go through both is just the quantum superposition:

ψ = sqrt(1/2) [φ¹(y) + φ²(y) ]

... and you measure:

|ψ|² = 0.5 | φ¹ + φ² |².

However, you only measure this distribution over y with a set of counters arranged along the y-axis, and those counters only fire one at a time. The particle "makes up its mind" which counter it is going to set off based on |ψ|², by a process which is not unitary and not well-understood. Also, I hope you can see that there is only an effect when φ¹(y) and φ²(y) overlap. This is especially important if you read Feynman's version of QED, since he has a least-action approach and thus assumes that the source and the detector are predetermined, and then sums up the different amplitudes for different paths that go from the source to the detector.

[Tom: I agree fully]

"4) Insert a measurement device into the experiment (causing
decoherence) to detect the particle at a slit. The probability wave collapses to a physical particle (the particle is detected and its position/trajectory is known at a given slit), then like any classical particle, it passes on through the slit, producing no diffraction pattern."

Here is where it gets touchy, and why I included the last formalism: I do not know what you precisely mean by "the probability wave collapses to a physical particle." What you observe due to the decoherence is something very different and wholly classical: when you measure
|ψ(y)|², you ultimately measure:

|ψ|² = 0.5 | φ¹ |² + 0.5 | φ² |².

...due to the decoherence. The difference between these two expressions is of course:

0.5 [ φ¹ (φ²)* + φ² (φ¹)* ]

Which is, if you like, < 1 | 2 > + < 2 | 1 >, and ultimately comes from the off-diagonal terms in the density matrix.

Of course, there is still the same old measurement problem: you have these wide distributions over y φ¹ and φ² -- wide enough that they overlap for a significant portion -- and somehow the particle "makes up its mind" which detector to enter. It's just that it now chooses the state by flipping a coin.

And, also: if you achieved this decoherence by entangling a qubit with the particle's slit-choice, to put them in the | 11 > + | 22 > state, then you may optionally measure this new qubit as 1 or 2. If you do, you will get a set of coincidence measurements (slit #, y-detector #).
The ones which went through slit 1 will have the distribution | φ¹ |², and the ones which went through slit 2 will have the distribution | φ²|². The measurement here is totally optional; the decoherence has
happened whether or not you make this measurement. It also doesn't matter what order you make these measurements in. You could leave these qubits lying around until *after* the y-values are all aggregated and confirmed to look like a classical distribution.

"Bottom line: classical particles cannot create diffraction patterns but probability waves can (if they remain waves and are not collapsed to physical particles by a measurement/decoherence)"

It is absolutely crucial to understand that in quantum mechanics, there is no longer such a thing as a classical particle. Every particle has a de Broglie wavelength and is either a fermion or a boson. When the diffraction pattern appears or disappears, it is ultimately a quantum phenomenon amenable to the laws of quantum mechanics. Classical mechanics gets embedded in the quantum viewpoint by Ehrenfest's theorem. Even when you have | φ¹ |² + | φ² |², the same as you would classically expect, ultimately the prediction is probabilistic, and comes from quantum mechanics.

-- Chris

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT7xJ0tjB4A
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On thur, Aug 5, 2010 at 7:47 PM, Tom Campbell <twcjr@comcast.net> wrote:


OK, I got all that and I fully agree.

It is not so much that 1) through 4) are flat out wrong as it is that they don't tell the whole story, ignore some important details/possibilities/complications and use fuzzy poorly defined terms like "the probability wave collapses to a physical particle."

Given that my talk was at a nontechnical level to a general audience - some of that *might* be forgivable -- From now on, I will try to make my presentations more accurate without sewing any more confusion than necessary among the audience.

As far as that information theory assumption goes -- about the information being more fundamental to the nature of reality than the measurement of the information -- I am now straight that such a position is NOT acceptable to current scientific belief. I say "Belief" because the experiment has never been done. The "reality is information" theorists are gaining respectability slowly - perhaps even enough someday to make it a thought worth considering - an experiment worth doing. Yes, upset the apple cart it would! - like QM upset Newtonian mechanics.

I don't mind being out on the fringe - that is what physicists are for. All paradigm breaking concepts must necessarily start out on the fringe. That being said, I certainly don't want to be spouting off nonsense and saying things that are wrong or misleading - that's counterproductive for everyone. I am serious about my science, and like most serious scientists, I hope one day the core of my work will be considered to be good science - I know, that might take a long, long time.

Chris, you have taught me a few things and set me straight in a way that I needed to be set straight. That has taken considerable time and energy on your part for which I am very grateful. If you read anything above that still sounds off track - please don't be shy about bringing it to my attention. I will try not to abuse your kindness in engaging me this way.

Tom

No reply came

Good work Tom. The story will keep unfolding. Sooner or later, theories converge to truth.

"I never thought of that!" can happen to scientists as well :)

Nice moving forward, another step in the right direction. I like it, thanks for sharing, again. I am getting tired of thanking you :) lol

Clau

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

Thanks for sharing this Tom.

As I have earlier written, my major paper in Gymnasium (below university) was exactly about the double slit experiment and its relation to consciousness (the title of the paper). A major inspiration was Tom's take on the experiment.

When I attended a summer school at a technical university some weeks ago, I closely pursued to meet some kind of quantum physicist and present the problem and the new angle. At the last day I met a quantum optics (I was in the fotonics department) and only had 10 minutes to present my case. Basically, it was not enough time to go deep enough.
In conclusion I asked about an experimental setup to test the underlying assumptions of an objective reality, and how to device such, I was directed to Copenhagen University (I was at a mostly technical/applied physics university).

Tom, this I have to ask; where did you originally learn of the experiment where the slits were left intact and recording, but the information was not available to the observer, resulting in a interference pattern? I have indeed found the same information from http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/chap2.html and http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/kim-s ... ly-web.htm , but I haven't gone through all the several papers cited. If you have a direct credible source, I would like to know for future reference and study.

Regarding the decoherence and wave-function collapse question, this seems to be the best source of knowledge on that:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/ ... 2059v4.pdf I have quickly scanned it (again), and it seems to provide an excellent overview of the question. A decent use of notation I am not familiar with is used, based on your email with Chris, I think you would understand it fine Tom.

When I wrote my paper, I did consider if decoherence was a problem or not, I concluded that it did not conflict with experiments showing apparent reverse causality, which in reality is not reverse causality (all this we have discussed on the board before, but with a PSI example, for physics, see bottomlayer link), but an illogical interpretation based on reality being deterministic and objective, rather than probabilistic and virtual. My then train of thought, was something close to: Physicist ascribe a certain problem in quantum mechanism, with the solution of decoherence, which in fact does not offer a true solution to the problem, but rather covers it with less provocative solution. Simply put, a phenomenon is observed and decoherence is used to "fix it" back to objective reality.

Okay, I have done some searching, and this appears promising.
A Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser

What we must remember is that there are different interpretations of the same data, of the same experiments. The best parameter we have for finding the most correct interpretation, will be the interpretation based on the most logical consistent model of reality, it is thus the underlying assumptions in our current scientific paradigm which provides the basis for the interpretations, and of this, many physicists are unaware. As it so obvious, the most logical model of reality is one congruent to the MBT model, which is vastly different than the current collective scientific belief and outdated model.

If quantum physicists seriously considered the MBT model or just a VR model, some serious progress of understanding would be made, everything would seem less paradoxical and contradicting. That something is considered paradoxical does not make reality paradoxical, the paradox is only within the limited perspective of the mind having the concept. Paradoxes are a symptom of faulty logic and understanding of reality. A good example would be the EPR paradox and the general contradiction between QM and relativity. As Brian Whitworth so beautifully said:

"These two great theories contradict because each debunks an objective reality assumption the
other still clings to. Quantum theory challenges the objective reality of foreground objects, but still
assumes a fixed background. Relativity theory challenges space and time as objective backgrounds,
but still assumes fixed foreground objects. Both theories rebelled against the idea of objective
reality in different ways, so each exposes the other's conceptual baggage but ignores its own.
To reconcile, both theories must abandon entirely all objective reality assumptions, i.e. reject
objective space, objective time, objective existence, objective movement and any other ideas that
imply independent substantiality." - Simulating Space and Time

This is only one anomaly within the current paradigm explained by the MBT/VR model, one of many. Others are, but not limited to: The measurement problem, invariance of speed of light, relativistic effects (function of computational processing), and possibly my personal solutions the dark energy phenomenon explained by grid nodes (the fundamental fabric of empty vacuum and space) and the accelerated expansion of space due to the proportion of dark energy (grid nodes with energy density) in relation to ordinary mass-energy shifting to one side over time. Another less MBT depended solution to a theory of gravity would be one based on entropy as a fundamental force that create gravity, to enforce a lower energy state, it's just applying second law of thermodynamics to gravity, in effect making entropy a broader concept, as already done by MBT. Just be creative! :-)

This is ONLY the physics solutions coming from the MBT/VR model, adding the metaphysical and philosophical solutions takes this to a whole other level. The most important subject of all this model solves/explains, is consciousness, and by explaining consciousness, all else are derived logically.

Oooops, where did the time go? :)

Wouldn't "deterministic and objective, rather than probabilistic and subjective" be a closer comparison. :)

I can almost follow all this, I must have been a physicist before.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Tom,

A lesser man would not have been so quick to share this. It is just one more proof to me (not that I needed additional proof) that you truly walk the walk and not just talk the talk. Thank you for sharing. I liked your summary but am still trying to follow the conversation. The unfamiliar terminology slows things down for sure! I get the gist of it though.

Take care,
Ramon

Evidence RAM, evidence. People and proof, proof's for alcohol. :)
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Does this mean, that it is quantum decoherence, or, the interaction with a larger system that causes the wave function collapse, and not a conscious observer? Maybe this helps account for PMR evolution prior to the introduction of fully conscious participants.

Seven

Ramon, Claudio, SS, Bette, and Seven,

This exchange with Chris has turned out better than expected. If I lived in Denmark, I would give SS a big hug and take him out for beer -- his links (http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/chap2.html and http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/kim-s...ly-web.htm ) turned out to lead to a treasure trove of top quality support for MBT

As it turns out my history of the double slit experiment was right on target -- no changes are necessary -- if anything, I could strengthen my claims a bit. SS's links show that indeed the experiment in question in my first post [is it interaction with the apparatus (environment) or the creation of information about the particle that destroys the diffraction pattern created by a nonphysical virtual particle (probability distribution) passing through two slits at once] has already been done many times by the same top physicists who invented quantum mechanics (QM). And the clear result is that the existence of a physical particle depends entirely information brought into PMR and has nothing to do with any interaction with the environment. Here is a recently done experiment that explicitly proves this assertion: http://grad.physics.sunysb.edu/~amarch/ Because it removes any interaction with the environment - the "which way" measurement (measurement to determine which slit the particle goes through) is performed without "touching" the particle (no environment ever interacts or couples with the particle) yet the result is the same.

The odd thing is that I was given that link by Chris as a demonstration that :

Chris: "Indeed, quantum eraser experiments are really where your original view is proven wrong. [By "your original view" I mean the consciousness-relative view, where the salient question is whether the measurement result "reaches" our conscious experience.]"

I explained that "my view" was about information being created that a consciousness could view and had nothing to do with whether the consciousness actually viewed it or not. The original inventors of QM were puzzled (see SS's first link) that at some later time one could look at the information and thus change the result. I quote:
"So it seems that an arbitrary choice (represented by the politician who has no personal interest in the experiment) made hours, days, months, or even years after the experiment is "complete," will change the result of that completed experiment. And, by changing the result, we mean that this arbitrary, delayed choice will affect the actual location of the electron hits as recorded by the electron detector at the back wall, representing an event that was supposed to have happened days, months, or even years in the past. An event that we suppose has taken place in the past (impingement of the electron on the detector) will turn out to be correlated to a choice that we make in the present. Imagine that. "

Of course, the QM guys were just confused -- no result is ever changed. Results simply don't exist until the measurement is made because the same probability/uncertainty/measurement rules apply in the macro world. Evidently they did figure out what was happening, they just didn't (and still don't) know why:

Quoting the same source:

" It turns out that, so far as experimentalists have been able to determine, the difference is not whether electrons were run through an electron detector at the slits. It turns out that, so far as experimentalists have been able to determine, the difference is whether the analysis of the results at the back wall is conducted when information about the electrons' positions at the slits is available, or not."

Tom: Here is why I want to buy SS a beer. I came to the conclusion that the history of the double slit was as it is, and as I reported it, through logical deduction, not by reading the history. That the result of the double slit experiment centered on information, as I described it in the video, was the only way, from my understanding, that the double slit experiment COULD work. And since Wigner and others made statements like those I quote in my presentation (Consciousness is the ultimate reality, etc) then they must have known that it worked this way. Thus I presented what logically must be true. When Chris stated the contrary, and because he was a contemporary physicist well studied in the current views of physics on the double slit experiment, I figured that my seemingly inescapable logic must have been faulty - I mean Chris should know what physicists think about the double slit, after all, he is one well studied in that very subject. He indicated that physics would refute that information, rather than "coupling to an environment" was the key to quantum entanglement/decoherence - and that this was always the case. I was dismayed that contemporary physics was on the opposite side of my sense of how the world worked. Then along comes SS with a link that one hundred percent reinforces and supports every word I have ever uttered about the double slit experiment and where does this information come from: Only the most prestigious physicists in the field of QM (indeed the creators of QM themselves) publishing in the most prestigious physics journal - the physical review. This is the bedrock, the foundation of QM - everything since has been applications and calculations.

In fact a telling remark by Chris explains all:
Chris: "Perhaps this helps you understand Feynman's view that a physicist interested in the philosophy underlying quantum mechanics should "shut up and calculate". Without understanding the /algebra/ of quantum mechanics, you don't really understand the phenomenon of coherence and decoherence, and you are utterly stuck when you try to explain it. The consciousness-relative view not only can't explain why the system decoheres when we couple "which slit?" to "what is its polarization?" without ever observing that polarization, but it also can't explain why the system recoheres when we rotate and measure qubit #1 from a distance of 50 meters away, but discard the result." [the experiment he is referencing is attached to the link Chris gave me that I showed above http://grad.physics.sunysb.edu/~amarch/)]

Actually, MBT explains (predicts the results of) this experiment perfectly. Chris, lost in the computation of QM does not understand how or why QM works. Indeed from his comment above it is clear that he and Feynman have given up altogether on understanding QM - they believe that such an understanding is impossible - and that the way forward for physics is to "shut up and calculate." -- and that is exactly what they have taught Chris and the last two generations of Physicists. As a result, physicists today are decidedly more ignorant about why the double slit experiments works as it does than they were 100 years ago. They have irradicated from their minds and generated "cover stories" to paper over the seminal experiments done by the "founding fathers" that created QM in the first place (the knowledge SS unearthed in his first link). QM has dumbed down to the point where QM theory is no more than the theory of calculating right answers. To that end they have created many descriptive constructs such as "decoherence" and "environment coupling" that are hand waving interpretations of the "physical significance" of their calculating tools. For these same reasons, Chris and contemporary physicists use fuzzy phrases learned in school that indicate that QM scientists have no idea what is actually going on. For example:

"you couple some environment to the photon going through the two slits"

"As for understanding exactly how the apparatus entangles -- well, presumably, we /design/ it to entangle that way."

"The particle "makes up its mind" which counter it is going to set off based on |ψ|², by a process which is not unitary and not well-understood."

" .. and somehow the particle "makes up its mind" which detector to enter."

Tom: Clearly, the mind set is: forget about it , such things are impossible to know. Just do the calculations that we know work.

In fact, they are correct from their perspective. QM is absolutely impossible to understand if you are dedicated to forcing a view of objective causality upon a virtual probabilistic reality. It's those belief traps that get you. every time.

At least this is how it looks to me this morning. Thanks to SS, a very different view from yesterday.

A Confession: I know, I should have looked all that stuff up myself in the beginning -- and indeed I should. But I tend to derive EVERYTHING from first principles -- that is the way I work -- and experience has shown me that most of the time the "expert" opinions floating around "out there" have not been derived from first principles and add more confusion than clarity -- that is why I have always been a one man band marching to my own rhythm. Such an attitude filters out tons of junk but also occasionally bites you in the butt ..... then the LCS has to send someone like SS along to point out what you missed. In return, if possible, you always buy them a beer.

Tom

This is great Tom! You rock and SS, you rock n roll, my friend!!! Wasn't this a demonstration of synchronicity?

We were talking in a thread about one of Tom's radio interviews where Tom said he was going to be in Denmark. I posted, jokingly to SS, that he was actually going there to meet him. I joked but I got a feeling. Again in an email I told SS he was going to meet Tom. I hope SS likes beer! lol

Later guys. I'll read those links when I find some time. It's so easy to get trapped in beliefs. Good to have mind openers experts like Tom :)

Clau

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

Tom, you can hug SS in October. Please give him one from me, as well :)

Unfortunately, The large international conference I was going to in Sweden (I was invited to give a paper) was canceled about a week ago. After the conference I was going to fly over to Denmark to give a little talk, do some interviews, meet some wonderful people, see some sights..... I was really looking forward to it. So the whole trip is postponed until business once again sends me to Europe.

Bummers! Beer stains on an airmail envelope just wouldn't be the same would it?

Tom

That's too bad, I'm sorry to hear it.

Thanks for the update Tom. I could practically feel your happiness over that find while I read about it. Couldn't help but smile. : )

If SS could come here, I think we all would buy him a beer. He would be one very drunk Dane.

Ramon

I'm making this reply after taking hours to read this from Tom, and before seeing any other replies as I didn't sign back in first.

First thing is if someone says, "what, this Tom guy doesn't ever make mistakes, I can say, yeah, one time he thought he was wrong, but he was mistaken. :)

SS, you are a Rock Star too. ROCK STAR, the more the merrier.

Thank you for including me specifically in the reply Tom, I like physics.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Bette,

I have always been amused with that joke -- but it dosen't apply to me. I make plenty of mistakes -- just ask Pamela. :-)

Tom