Hey Clinton. It is really nice to read from you again. It has been quite a long time. I hope you are fine. I have as usual a few comments on your blog, which I read enjoyably during my breakfast earlier this morning :)
Note that spooky action at a distance from another perspective seems to suggest faster than light (superluminal) propagation of information.
It seems superluminal, but it is of course not. Nothing can violate this golden rule of physics (at least so far). This is in fact what I find amazing. Without knowing or inputting anything about special relativity, we end up with a theoretical framework in agreement with it. Of course, the reason is because we, humans, are sensitive to special relativity when measurements are made and information is transmitted.
In order to trigger some further discussion (you know I like this ;) ), I am not feeling very comfortable when you relate your stranger story to the beginning of the universe. The reason is that at some point, in its very early moment, the universe was so small that it should be subjected to quantum mechanics. This therefore consists in a non-deterministic period. Moreover, we have no theoretical framework to describe what was going on in those times... Therefore, it is an open door to more food for thoughts!
PS: I am tagging @yaziris who wrote recently on this topic here.
Thanks for tagging me to the realization that someone just ruined my planned future posts xD
I'm joking of course, it's lovely and interesting to read other opinions/posts about the subject. And @clinton19's was certainly interesting.
As far as I know, at that point, neither quantum mechanics nor any mechanics that we know of currently are relevant though. So, I'm not sure how you arrived at that conclusion :p
No one is comfortable once we go to the "begining" and certainly that is the main issue with deterministic theories and why they get thrown away and "downplayed". You have to go that far back, and nothing can be proven or disproven once there..
But personally, I do think a hidden variable theory like "superdeterminism" has some merits and makes more sense.
Ahaha, I baited you with my comment :D
In the very (very very very) early universe, the size of the universe was so small that there is no way we can ignore quantum mechanical effects. There is however no option for us to know what to do, as this would require a framework that is compliant with both quantum mechanics and general relativity. If quantum mechanics is around, then determinism is gone, isn't it?
There are non-experimentally-excluded options, if I am correct. This is however a bit far from my domain of expertise and I am afraid I won't be able to comment more.
I appreciate your concern, thanks.
I'm very much okay. I just decided to take some time off and deal with some other stuffs.
I like the last part of this statement (at least so far). Personally I don't think the principles of special relativity presented by Einstein and co is the full story. It seems like they discovered part of it. I suspect that the remaining parts are hiding due to the nature of Maxwell's equations - I have papers that seems to suggest this.
The complete one should predict the quantum mechanical principles naturally (which should include why it appears non-deterministic) and possibly make it easier to unify general relativity and quantum physics when extended to a general relativistic kind of theory- though i don't have a model for this yet.
The kind of universe treated in the Predeterministic part is an hypothetical universe, so therefore, we can describe it as we like. I did not say that's how our universe is/should be.
I may disagree with this from the perspective of size. Quantum mechanics doesn't say the size or scale that we "must observe it". It happens that "currently" experiments shows that it (quantum mechanics) appears very obvious in the small world. And if you go ahead to tell me about Planck's constant, then i can show you a theory that predicts almost everything conventional quantum mechanics predicts, including the general properties of atoms in the periodic table without having to solve Schrodinger's equation or any other valid equation or even take into account Planck's constant, the theory suggests quantum mechanics isn't absolutely fundamental. Planck's constant could take on any value but we would have to go with the one experiment tells us. In essence, quantum mechanics may not be fundamental. We would have to wait for a complete and accurate theory (theory that describes reality both at small scale and large scale) before we can make any conclusions.
I can easily imagine that no one thinks so. There is a vast world to explore beyond the known frontiers. We may get there one day, or not. This is impossible to predict. This is precisely what makes it exciting (IMO).
I do not think what we said is incompatible. Let me explain what I meant.
We have tested quantum mechanics at specific scales and energies up to now. In this regime, we know that it works for sure, and all predictions made from a small set of core principles agree with all data recorded. This of course does not tell us anything about any potentially more fundamental theory, except that this other theory should resemble quantum mechanics in some domain(s).
Now concerning this new theory, there are a few requirements. Does it theory globally do better than quantum mechanics? And there, it is tricky to answer because it is not sufficient to focus on a selected set of observables. We need to consider all of them for which quantum mechanics as something to say, and possibly more (otherwise what is the point of a more fundamental theory if it does not do more?).
In the meantime, there is no way to answer the question about whether quantum mechanics is fundamental or not, as there is a vast domain in which there is just no data points (and in some, not even any theory point). However, it works where it is supposed and known to work. It is already something...
Ook, whatever you say boss.