From: Jack Sarfatti
To: All Msg #5, Jan-29-93 08:13PM
Subject: QM and Precognitive Remote Viewing Claims of SRI and PEAR
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Message-ID:
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.skeptic
Steven Weinberg in Dreams of a Final Theory compares quantum mechanics to a
language (qml). We can also compare it to an operating system in a computer
like Windows 3.1. Different theories written in quantum mechanics as a
general language are like different works of literature in Weinberg's
metaphor or like different applications in the software metaphor.
Even basic ideas of linearity of observable state transformations,
orthonormality and completeness of eigenstates of observables,unitarity of
time evolution between measurements, projection or collapse of state in a
measurement, and locality of dynamics can be dispensed with and we can
still have a quantum mechanical language that is broader than standard
quantum mechanics (sqm) which includes the above conditions. This is a
matter of formalism. The physics is in whether we can find phenomena in
Nature that conform to the different "works" or "applications" like sqm
that are witten in qml.
Quantum connectedness or "entanglement" arises mathematically because of
the tensor product of single particle Hilbert spaces representation of
multi-particle systems subject to classification by the symmetric
permutation group Young patterns as explained in Herman Weyl's classic
book, The Theory of Groups and Quantum Mechanics. Quantum connectedness
leads to the kind of nonlocality first described by Einstein with Podolsky
and Rosen in 1935 (EPR). This was a spin-off of Einstein's debate with
Bohr. The 1935 EPR paper showed that standard quantum mechanics was
incomplete without faster-than-light (ftl) physical action-at-a-distance
(aad) that was essentially different from the action of known local
classical force fields. The "incompleteness" of sqm meant that that the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle for one particle in a connected pair could
be violated unless an objective aad existed.
Although Mike Gallis makes much of the distinction between nonlocality of
the states and nonlocality of the dynamics, this distinction is blurred in
David Bohm's nonlocal quantum potential interpretation of sqm in which the
state is a new kind of nonlocal quantum force field - even for a single
particle in which there is no EPR entanglement. For example, the wave-
particle duality of a single photon passing two slits is described in terms
of the nonlocal coupling of the quantum potential with the slits and screen
which is quite distinct from the coupling of the photon to the electric
charges matter. The nonlocal coupling does not decrease with "distance" of
the photon from the slits and screen. Furthermore, there is a new kind of
wholism in that the coordinates of the particles are not enough to
determine the motion. The shape of the state as a whole, that is the extra-
dimensions of Hilbert space beyond spacetime, influence the motions of the
quantum particles.
Let us consider relativistic quantum field theory (qft). There is a
condition of microcausality imposed. Local field operators create and
destroy quanta of the field at a point in classical continuous spacetime.
Microcausality says that the commutator of field operators vanishes across
ftl spacelike intervals outside the light cone. This condition is then
thought to banish ftl communication and motion. However, that may not be
true, since the entanglement of the tensor representations of the field
quanta in Fock space can impose a Heisenberg uncertainty incompatibility in
the standard deviations of the quantum field fluctuations across spacelike
intervals. Indeed, this effect shows up in the Hawking radiation from
blackholes and in the related fact (i.e. equivalence principle) that an
accelerating charge in vacuum detects thermal radiation that is not
detected by the same charge in uniform motion. Some have objected that this
kind of entanglement incompatibility cannot be used for ftl communication
because the product of the standard deviations at the two spacelike
separated points is state-dependent. In contrast, it is not state-dependent
in the original Heisenberg principle between momentum and position of a
single particle at a single event. However, the logic of that objection is
not self-evident.
Now we come to paranormal phenomena. For example, claims of precognitive
remote viewing (prv) by Puthoff and Targ at Stanford Research Institute in
the 70's and, more recently, by Robert Jahn et-al at the Princeton
University Engineering Anomalies Laboratory. This reported phenomenon, if
real, definitely requires quantum connection communication in the sense of
local decoding of a useful message from the future at the receiver end of a
quantum-connected system without having to correlate receiver data with
sender data. Note that the famous experiment by Aspect in Paris in 1982
showed faster-than-light influence, not in the sense of local decoding, but
only in the weaker sense of correlating data from both ends. This observed
phenomenon may be important in living systems.
It is easy on the formal level to make a toy model in qml that permits
quantum communication from the future if we drop the unitarity requirement
of sqm. The importance of this model is that it shows that we can formulate
the hypothetical quantum communication phenomenon in a precise way in a
model universe, a virtual reality, which may or may not correspond to our
universe. The question is can we build a device which implements the toy
model. This question is still under study.
The toy model transformation is
|1,2> -> |1,2>'
where
|1,2> = (|1+>|2+> + |1->|2->)/rt2
|1,2>' = |1+>(e^i&(1)|2+> + |2->)/rt2
which transforms the locally unpolarized pair correlated light of the
Aspect experiment into locally polarized light at the receiver 2. The
degree of polarization of the receiver light 2 depends on a relative phase
&(1) controlled from the sender apparatus 1 (and also on the relative angle
@ between polarizers of 1 and 2 at the moments each photon passes them. The
degree polarization of receiver light is sin2@cos& - a nice clean
quantitative prediction. The spacetime interval between the detection
events I and II of photons 1 and 2 is arbitrary (timelike, lightlike or
spacelike makes no difference). The sender event I can be in the timelike
future of the recever event II in the "delayed choice" mode. The point of
this exercise, is that on the formal level at least, we can precisely
define what we are talking about when we speak of precognitive local
decoding on the EPR quantum connection as a communication channel in
quantum mechanical language. True, we have relaxed the unitarity condition
of sqm, but we have not violated conservation of probability which is the
main physical reason for the imposition of unitarity in sqm. We have not
had to posit a nonlocal dynamics. This model works for the photon field in
which the matter is treated classically as a first approximation.
=======================================================================
From: Jack Sarfatti
To: All Msg #13, Jan-29-93 11:58PM
Subject: The biophysics of mystical experience?
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Message-ID:
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.skeptic
Topic 93: Biological effects of electromagnetic radiation?
#240: david gotlib (drdave) Thu, Jul 19, '90 (18:28) 56 lines
Here is more stuff I have unearthed from the medical literature on
the link between electromagnetic fields and psi phenomena.
Persinger MA
Increased geomagnetic activity and the occurrence of bereavement
hallucinations: evidence for melatonin-mediated microseizuring in
the temporal lobe?
Neurosci Lett 1988 Jun 7;88(3):271-4
This study was designed to test the hypothesis that common
bereavement apparitions are hallucinatory experiences evoked by
transient electrical instability within the (glucocorticoid)
sensitized mesiobasal temporal lobes. All first hand reports of
'postmortem apparition' experiences were collected from a published
data base. The days on which the experiences occurred displayed
significantly greater (mean increase = 10 gamma) geomagnetic
activity compared to the days before or afterwards. These results
suggest that bereavement apparitions are situation-specific
hallucinations evoked by microseizures within sensitized temporal
lobe structures
Gearhart L Persinger MA
Geophysical variables and behavior: XXXIII. Onsets of historical
and contemporary poltergeist episodes occurred with sudden
increases in geomagnetic activity.
Percept Mot Skills 1986 Apr;62(2):463-6
(similar correlation found here as in article above)
Persinger MA Geophysical variables and behavior: LV. Predicting the details
of visitor experiences and the personality of experients: the temporal lobe
factor. Percept Mot Skills 1989 Feb;68(1):55-65
The visitor experience, a more intense form of the normal sense
of presence, emphasizes the deep belief of personal contact with
an extraterrestrial (or religious) entity. Phenomenological details
of visitor experiences are expected to reflect the functions of
deep temporal lobe structures; common details involve cosmic
meaningfulness, vestibular experiences, flickering, complex visual
sensations and alimentary references. After intense experiences,
interictal-like behaviors similar to religious conversions
(widening affect, sense of personal, desire to spread the word,
concern about Man's destiny) emerge. Normal people who are prone to these
experiences show frequent temporal lobe signs and specific
personality characteristics that include enhanced creativity,
suggestibility, mild hypomania, anxiety, and emotional lability.
Learning histories that encourage the use of right temporal lobe
functions for the consolidation of memory, such as compartmentalization of
beliefs or repression due to early sexual abuse, predispose to intense
visitor experiences. The most frequent precipitants are psychological
depression, personal (existential) stress and proximal exposure to the
focal tectonic strain fields that accompany luminous phenomena. Possible
neuropsychological mechanisms are discussed.
Hmm! Sounds familiar! Now we're getting somewhere.
