Universe Isn't Locally Real - Nobel Prize in Physics 2022

[value]

I'm thinking the studies show that quantum fields are not localised. I expect that we humans feel pretty localised as we hurtle through the cosmos at over two million kms per hour (mostly due to the Milky Way's movement). As others have pointed out, spooky action at a distance has not been observed in larger entities.

Recently scientists claimed to have entangled a complete animal.

(2021) Frozen tardigrade becomes first 'quantum entangled' animal
https://www.livescience.com/tardigrade- ... experiment

(2022) How Big Can Entanglement Get?
Physicists are entangling bigger and bigger objects—not just single particles, but collections of thousands of atoms and even animals.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/h ... ement-get/

Perhaps people in love may experience quantum entanglement.

The experience of falling in love is completely reminiscent of what is called entanglement in quantum physics.

[Sy Borg]

Not all agree with the tardigrade experiment, though:

Other scientists – like Jay Gambetta, who works on quantum computing at IBM – think that the researchers simply placed a very cold tardigrade onto a qubit and it didn’t actually shift the resonance frequency of the qubit; he suggests that perhaps it was the temperature change of the system that changed the frequency.

Either way, we’ll have to wait for peer review. The paper will undergo a rigorous review process by other physicists before it is published in a journal.

[value]

Anyway, the very concept of an objectively indefinite or indeterminate (physical) property makes no coherent ontological sense. To have a property is to have a definite/determinate property; so not to have any definite/determinate property is not to have any property at all, and for a thing to lack properties is for it not to exist at all.

In my opinion the failure in this reasoning is to exclude the observer (manifested as experience) from consideration.

A property can only be considered to have been meaningfully relevant (i.e. be definite/determinate) IN experience. Experience therefore must precede all notions of properties and cannot be of the same kind as a something that has properties while experience cannot be factored out either.

The problem is most clearly visible in the Infinite Monkey theorem. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16601

The idea of intrinsic existence without mind is illogical in my opinion.

What is reality otherwise than that of which can be said to have been observed?

The idea of 'something with properties' to fundamentally underlay 'anything with properties' is absurd.

The concept 'begin' (finitude) provides logical substantiation.

To precede something implies that that something has a begin because that something would necessarily have come into existence AFTER that which preceded it. Thus, at question would be, can the observer have a begin?

By logic, reality has a begin which is introduced by the observer. The opposite is impossible.

[Pattern-chaser]

Only deductively valid arguments are logically conclusive...

Yes, I think — hope — that's what I've been saying all along. Inductive reasoning delivers conclusions that are, at best, probably correct.

[Pattern-chaser]

But, as I said to Mercury some posts ago:

This isn't just pedantry, it's much more important than quibbling over word-meaning. It's about how science functions. Science is an inductive discipline. It cannot be otherwise. It starts from observations or measurements — evidence — and tries to go from these specifics to the general: theories/hypotheses/etc. The universe did not come with a rule book for humans, so this is the only possible way we could ever apprehend the functioning of the universe.

And because science is inductive, it cannot prove anything, but only disprove it by/with a contrary/contradictory example. This is fundamental to science, and therefore to an understanding of science. It matters, even to non-philosophers.

To say that empirical science cannot prove anything is to say that there cannot be any sound deductive arguments in it. But given the deductive-nomological model of scientific explanation, there are proofs in empirical science, even if the premises used aren't a priori axioms but principles based on and inductively derived from experience.

You make my point for me, I think. [See highlighted text.] You can't 'prove' stuff properly — i.e. deductively — if your deductive reasoning depends on induction for its correctness.

[GE Morton]

A property can only be considered to have been meaningfully relevant (i.e. be definite/determinate) IN experience.

Of course, given that "meaning" and "relevance" apply only to experiencing, sentient creatures. But whether a property is meaningful or relevant to someone has no bearing on whether it exists.

Experience therefore must precede all notions of properties and cannot be of the same kind as a something that has properties while experience cannot be factored out either.

Again, of course --- one must experience a property before one can develop any notions about it. But the necessary conditions for there to be a notion of a property are not necessary for the existence of the property.

What is reality otherwise than that of which can be said to have been observed?

Anything imagined which may serve as a cause of that which is observed.

[Pattern-chaser]

You can't 'prove' stuff properly — i.e. deductively — if your deductive reasoning depends on induction for its correctness.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. A steel chain with one link replaced by twine is not as strong as steel, it's as strong as twine.

In this case, a chain of deductive reasoning, based upon an initial idea that is inductively-derived, is as strong as induction, not as strong as deduction.

Deduction, assuming correct premises, etc, is solid and certain. Inductive conclusions, in contrast, are estimated to be somewhere between a-bit-likely and very-likely.

[Pattern-chaser]

The conspicuous absence of a philosophical tradition describing, developing and defending scientific knowledge as proof, as truth, as a moral authority etc, should act as a clue.

Science stands or falls on its own merits. It needs no "philosophical tradition" to defend it. Most people would recognise that science stands, and does not fall, given its impressive history.

Neither science nor philosophy have "moral authority". Only human cultures/societies have such authority, for they create and define morality.

[Consul]

Again, of course --- one must experience a property before one can develop any notions about it.

The physicists have developed the notion of spin without anyone of them ever having experienced this property of particles.

[Consul]

Again, of course --- one must experience a property before one can develop any notions about it.

The physicists have developed the notion of spin without anyone of them ever having experienced this property of particles.

We do have concepts of properties other than experiential/phenomenal properties ("qualia").

[Consul]

Anyway, the very concept of an objectively indefinite or indeterminate (physical) property makes no coherent ontological sense. To have a property is to have a definite/determinate property; so not to have any definite/determinate property is not to have any property at all, and for a thing to lack properties is for it not to exist at all.

It's one thing to say that particles have no definite/determinate spin prior to measurement, and another thing to say that they have no spin prior to measurement. Of course, what has no spin has no definite/determinate spin; but nothing can have a spin without having any definite/determinate spin.

QUOTE>
"Taken by itself and forgetting about the EPR argument, Bell’s result can be called a ‘no hidden variables theorem’. Indeed, Bell showed that the mere supposition that the values of the spin pre-exist to their ‘measurement’ (remember that those values are called hidden variables, since they are not included in the usual quantum description), combined with the perfect anti-correlation when the 1/4 result for the frequencies of correlations when measurements are made along different directions, leads to a contradiction. Since the last two claims are empirical predictions of quantummechanics that have been amply verified (in a somewhat different form), this means that these hidden variables or pre-existing values cannot exist.

But Bell, of course, always presented his result in combination with the EPR argument (…), which shows that the assumption of locality, combined with the perfect correlations when the directions of measurement (or questions) are the same, implies the existence of those hidden variables shown by Bell to be impossible, because their mere existence leads to a contradiction. So, for Bell, his result, combined with the EPR argument, was not a ‘no hidden variables theorem’, but a nonlocality theorem, the result about the impossibility of hidden variables being only one step in a two-step argument.

But what does this mean? It means that some action at a distance does exist in Nature, but it does not tell us what this action consists of. And we cannot answer that question without having a theory that goes beyond ordinary quantum mechanics."

(Bricmont, Jean. "Einstein, Bohm, and Bell: A Comedy of Errors." In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Quantum Interpretations, edited by Olival Freire Jr., 1197-1222. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. p. 1205)
<QUOTE

"Bell showed that the mere supposition that the values of the spin pre-exist to their ‘measurement’…leads to a contradiction."

My point is that if there are no definite/determinate spin-values prior to measurement, then particles have no spin at all prior to measurement—neither a definite/determinate one nor an indefinite/indeterminate one. That is, prior to measurement particles are absolutely spinless.

[Consul]

"Bell showed that the mere supposition that the values of the spin pre-exist to their ‘measurement’…leads to a contradiction."[/i]

My point is that if there are no definite/determinate spin-values prior to measurement, then particles have no spin at all prior to measurement—neither a definite/determinate one nor an indefinite/indeterminate one. That is, prior to measurement particles are absolutely spinless.

The presence of a determinable quantity such as spin requires the presence of some determinate quantity such as some determinate spin-value; so if there is no determinate of the determinable in question, then the determinable itself doesn't exist.

Determinables and Determinates: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dete ... rminables/

[GE Morton]

Again, of course --- one must experience a property before one can develop any notions about it.

The physicists have developed the notion of spin without anyone of them ever having experienced this property of particles.

Oh, no. They didn't develop the notion of spin; it is an experienced property (of planets, gyroscopes, etc.) which they apply (rather gratuitously) to their elementary particles. What they actually observe is just differing deflections of those particles in magnetic fields.

[Consul]

Again, of course --- one must experience a property before one can develop any notions about it.

The physicists have developed the notion of spin without anyone of them ever having experienced this property of particles.

Oh, no. They didn't develop the notion of spin; it is an experienced property (of planets, gyroscopes, etc.) which they apply (rather gratuitously) to their elementary particles. What they actually observe is just differing deflections of those particles in magnetic fields.

Yes, of course, you can see a macroscopic object such as a gyroscope spinning; but you cannot see the (quantum) spin of a single particle (which doesn't actually rotate like a visible gyroscope). So unlike our ordinary concept of spin (or rotation), the quantum-physical concept of spin isn't grounded in the (direct) perceptual experience of quantum spins. And measuring a physical quantity is not the same as perceiving it (directly).

[value]

Well, first, all ontologists are "realists." They differ in what they take to be "real,"

What exactly would an ontologist be? Isn't ontology a term used for a specific type of philosophical inquiry?

The question "What is real?" is evidently applicable within or without experience. Therefore it doesn't seem logical to me that the term 'ontologist' would refer to the same as ontological realist. The nature of ontological inquiry has a diverse spectrum that could include inquiries by for example idealists.

Ontology: "The branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being."

in how they categorize the "real," and in which of those categories they take to be "fundamental," or primitive. Even Berkeley is a realist --- he just contends that only "ideas" are real. Physicalists, or materialists, on the other hand, can be either monists or dualists, holding either that only physical phenomena (matter, energy, and their interactions) are "real," or that, along with physical phenomena, "mental" phenomena are also real, though not fundamental, or primitive.

If it cannot be said that Berkeley's 'ideas' are really real, how is one to pose it? Therefore it seems false in my opinion to assign the category realist to his ideas.

At question when it concerns ontological realism is specifically whether reality is 'really real' on a fundamental level which means 'intrinsic existence without mind'.

You also apparently misunderstand my views on these matters. But first we need to get clear on the meaning of the word "real," and define it in such a way that avoids the evasiveness and circularity in your "whether reality is really real" (above). Following Wittgenstein, we decide the meaning of a word in a natural language by observing how it is used in ordinary conversations. The term "real" is normally used to denote those things which are publicly observable, and which propositions about them are publicly confirmable. E.g., horses are real, unicorns are not; midgets are real, elfs are not; Prince Harry is real, Harry Potter is not, etc. But we would also say that, while unicorns and Harry Potter are not real we'd also say they are real fictional beasts or characters. So the denial that they are "real" in the first sense just means: they are not publicly observable physical entities; the issue is not whether Harry Potter and unicorns exist, but how they should be classified. Prince Harry is a real physical person, Harry Potter is a real fictional character. There are many other categories of "real" things as well. In short, we consider something to be "real," to exist, if it is something we can communicate about, exchange information about, or has some explanatory value. We just have to be careful not to imagine entities of one category as having properties belonging to entities in a different category.

When it concerns the notion 'really real' it concerns the question whether reality can be said to have a nature of intrinsic existence without mind, to stand independent as it were on the basis of the meaning of the term 'real'.

Can you explain why you find the term evasive and circular?

The SA article you cited says "real" means, "objects have definite properties independent of observation—an apple can be red even when no one is looking." That is a bad example --- nothing has colors when no one is looking. Colors are strictly phenomenal effects occurring nowhere except in minds. What he should have said is, "objects emit or reflect light of various wavelengths when no one is looking." But it is correct in essence --- for scientists (and many philosophers) "real" means "exists independently of experience." The tree falls in the forest whether anyone observes it or not. Does it make a sound? Well, if you identify "sound" as atmospheric vibrations within a certain frequency range it does make a sound. If you instead consider "sound" to be the sensations we experience when detect those vibrations then no, it makes no sound if no one hears it.

At question fundamentally is whether a property does or doesn't require an observer BEFORE it can exist.

The indicated observer isn't a human mind but the observer as a general concept (observer per se). The idea 'when no-one is looking' would include the perspective of an atom.

I'm basically a Kantian. I take there to be 3 "first-order" categories of existents, of "real" things. Only one of them is "fundamental," or primitive, i.e., not reducible to the other two or to anything else:

1. Phenomena (the contents of experience), including percepts and their properties, feelings, moods, thoughts, ideas, memories, etc. This is the "fundamental" one, and the only one I'd call "ontologically real" (the other two are only "theoretically real"). Entities in this category are the only ones of whose existence we can be certain pre-theoretically, a priori, i.e., about which we can have no Cartesian doubt. If I see a tree I may wonder what is causing that percept, why I'm experiencing what I'm experiencing, but I can't doubt that I'm having the experience.

A priori applicability of contents of experience is always bound to the space-time continuum within which experience has manifested itself.

While it may be said that one sees no reason to doubt the intrinsic existence of the space-time continuum, experience as being a manifestation within that continuum has merely 'intuition' as basis for a claim about it which is no ground for the claim that experience stands independent from that continuum as being a mere product of an external world, i.e. that physical reality is 'really real'.

"Kant's self-proclaimed achievement is the second main step in his effort to answer the question: “How are synthetic a priori judgments possible?” The first step was the argument offered in the Transcendental Aesthetic, to the effect that space and time are a priori forms of intuition. As such, Kant argued, they make possible judgments (propositions) whose claim to truth is justified a priori by the universal features of our intuitions. Such propositions are thus both synthetic and a priori."
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ab ... 7653EED16E

2. An external realm of existents (which may be singular rather than plural). This is Kant's noumena. This is a postulated realm which, though the postulate is created by minds and thus is dependent upon them, is independent of minds per the postulate. So if we accept the postulate we accept the existence of an independent external world of some sort. We are forced (so to speak) to this postulate because our minds are, per Kant, "programmed" to demand causes for effects --- that is what "explanation" is --- and hence we demand some cause(s) for the phenomena of experience, i.e., for our own existence. Since none is to be found within experience, we must assume some outside cause for it --- an external world of some sort.

In my opinion when it concerns the question into the fundamental nature of the outer world, it doesn't seem valid to assert that one's perceived contents and capabilities of one's own subjective experience provides evidence or a mere clue that that external world is independent from experience per se (or what lays before experience from a philosophical perspective).

3. Conceptual constructs. This one embraces everything else we take to be "real," to exist, everything from rocks and trees and cats and other people to electrons, quarks, and "quantum foam." These are entities we invent in order to usefully explain our experiences (what we observe, feel, remember, and so on), to provide causes for them ---a useful explanation being one which allows us to predict and manipulate those experiences, to control them to some extent, and to communicate about them. In its totality it amounts to a coherent conceptual model of the noumena, a "possible noumena," or of an aspect or portion of the noumena. Though we can never know just how accurately or completely this model represents the noumena, we allow it to "stand in" for the noumena as long as it and the entities it defines prove useful in predicting and controlling experience.

Apodicticly certainty requires an activity before it can be established (philosophical reasoning). The origin of experience is neglected as a factor and therefore such intuition grounded activities provide no basis for the idea of a fundamental certainty that reality is real.

"Kant's definition of apodictical certainty (apodiktische Gewißheit) is the certainty of a knowledge (Erkenntnis) in connection with the consciousness of its necessity. Only a science dealing with the knowledge of reason a priori is able to produce apodictical certainty. These sciences are mathematics and philosophy."

In short, except for phenomena, which are the only existents of which we can be apodicticly certain, "reality" is whatever we say it is --- provided what we say exists has some explanatory or communicative utility.

With mere intuition within the context of experience as ground it cannot be said in my opinion that the idea of apodicticly certainty provides a basis for the idea that phenomena are 'really real' (have intrinsic existence without mind/observer).

So to go back to your claim above: "The idea that reality is really real is based on a magical belief that underlays ontological realism. It is the belief that objective reality is ultimately something non-disputable within any context of thinking."

I have no idea where you think "magic" enters the picture. We have experiences, and we're driven to try to explain them, in order to be able to control them. To do so we postulate, theorize, an external world (or realm or agency) as the cause of them. Historically there have been two broad categories of these theories, "supernatural," or "god theories," and natural, or physical theories. The criteria for a successful theory is how much explanatory power it yields. Supernatural theories have very little; physical theories a great deal.

In my opinion utilitarian value or retro-perspective is not a sufficient ground to rest theory on since it cannot provide evidence that reality is real. It would be utilitarian value, for example 'the success of science', that one would use for the assumption that one can find (a level of) certainty in the idea that the utilitarian value is evident and thus that the 'assumption' of the realness of reality wouldn't be at question.

When it concerns philosophical reasoning however, it is simply not sufficient to rest assured with an idea of certainty based on a mere intuition that is then used as a ground for the idea that an external world is independent of mind and posseses the quality intrinsic existence.

It is clearly magical to use mere assumed intuition to argue that objective reality is non-disputable within any context of thinking, i.e. to subscribe to a belief in ontological realism.

Regarding the experiments testing the Bell inequality: whether the universe is "locally real" (per the "independent of observers" definition of "real"), has no profound philosphical implications. If the idea that certain (theoretically defined) particles are "entangled" despite being separated by vast distances proves useful in explaining or controlling some experiences, then we're justified in revising our conceptual model of "reality" (the noumena) accordingly. It will just be the latest in a long series of revisions. The idea is certainly not an invitation to revert to a "supernatural" model.

The following article provides an insight with regard the potential applicability to philosophy, for example when it concerns concepts such as causality.

(2021) Quantum retrocausality may give us free will
This means a person could actually make a choice that causes their past - or so to speak 'change causality of the past'.

There is no reason to believe that the past is actually fixed and the future is not. It may be just as likely that they are both unfixed as fixed and that the past that we remember in our brains, books, computers, and so on is more of a set of information that is continually being updated in time. This means that causality is not true in time.
https://medium.com/the-infinite-univers ... ed9530509c