Michael Prescott's Blog

A quantum of solace

Interesting news from November 30 about a new experiment testing quantum entanglement (nonlocality). It's increasingly hard to deny that a particle can directly influence its entangled partner regardless of distance. 

Regular readers know that I think the Virtual Reality Interpretation of quantum mechanics looks promising as a way of making sense of all this.

Caveat: I'm not a physicist, so my opinion may be entirely worthless. 

Measure for measure

Reading a multipart discussion of quantum physics at Ross Rhodes' excellent website The Bottom Layer, I understood an important point for the first time.

For years I was under the impression that observation is the factor that causes the quantum probability wave to resolve itself into a single point (a particle). But in an endnote to "Chapter Two: The Double Slit Experiments," Rhodes clarifies things. In order for the quantum unit to express itself as a particle ...

It is not necessary to see or comprehend the information that is available. The experimenter cannot make information go away by not looking at it. If the information is available, it will [be] reflected in the measurement outcome.

He gives a series of simplified examples of double-slit experiments, showing that in all cases, the outcome doe not hinge on the experimenter actually being aware of the measurement that was taken; what counts is simply whether the measurement was taken and whether the information is still available.

Since I quoted a long passage from Rhodes in my previous post, I don't want to include another lengthy excerpt. Those who are interested are urged to read the chapter for themselves.

Why is this important? It gives us a clue about the nature of reality. New Age books often claim that we bring objects into existence simply by looking at them, and they point to quantum physics (and the Copenhagen interpretation) for support. But physics does not say that the experimenter manifests the particle by looking at it. In fact, the experimenter need not be looking at all. All that matters is that the experimenter has constructed a test that produces the relevant information - i.e., the measurement. Even if no one ever looks at the measurement data, the fact that the measurement has been obtained and is still available to be viewed is sufficient to affect the outcome of the experiment and determine whether the quantum unit behaves like a particle or a wave.

The words "is still available to be viewed" are italicized because they are key. If the measurement is taken but then erased, without ever having been seen by a sentient observer, and if the behavior of the quantum units is only analyzed after the erasure, then the quantum units will behave as if no measurement had ever been taken. But if the measurement still exists, even if it has not been seen, then the quantum unit will behave as if a measurement had been taken.

The availability of the information, regardless of whether or not it is actually viewed, is the determining factor. Rhodes sums up,

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....

If we demand to know which slit the particle went through, then a particle must appear at one slit or the other so that we will have an answer to our question; and so our curiosity has caused there to be a particle at one of the slits, and now there is a particle; and if there is a particle at one slit or the other, it must obey the rules for particle motion, and so it does.

Conversely, if we do not demand to know which slit the particle went through, no particle need appear at either slit; and so we have not caused there to be any particle, and now there is no particle; and if there is no particle at either slit, the system remains free to roam the universe in whatever form seems most pleasing to itself.

And all of this is determined at the time we demand the knowledge, not at the time we institute any mechanical processes for obtaining the information.

So it is our "demand" for knowledge that determines how the quantum unit behaves. And this demand can take place after the experiment has been completed, when we decide whether or not to retain the measurements (keep them available) or erase them (make them unavailable). And this after-the-fact decision on our part determines how the experiment was run in the first place.

Which makes no sense at all in the context of physical objects moving in space. In the context of information processing by a Cosmic CPU, on the other hand, it's pretty much what we might expect.

Bingo!

I'm increasingly intrigued by the idea that the paradoxes of quantum physics can largely be resolved by analogizing the universe to a virtual reality simulation. As wacky as this idea sounds (and it certainly struck me as nutty when I first heard it), the more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense.

In the past I've tried to explain how the VR idea could resolve the long-debated paradox of wave-particle duality. My efforts along these lines were decidedly poor. But today, rereading an entry from the Web site The Bottom Layer, I realized that the author, Ross Rhodes, had presented this idea as clearly and concisely as possible.

Wave-particle duality involves the fact that a subatomic entity like an electron, when observed, behaves like a particle, but when unobserved, behaves like a wave. As Rhodes points out, it doesn't behave like a physical wave, but more like a set of mathematical potentialities which can be loosely described as a probability wave. Observation, it is said, "collapses the wave-function" down to a single point - a particle. Once observation ceases, the particle expands back into a smear of potentialities distributed along a probability curve.

This is all very odd if we think of reality as consisting of physical objects moving through space. But if we think of reality as being, in essence, information and information processing, then the paradox disappears and things operate in a very logical way.

Here's how Ross Rhodes explains the situation in his online paper "A Cybernetic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics." When I read it today, I said, "Bingo!", which is not quite as respectable a response as "Eureka!", but I'll take it.

As John Gribbin puts it, "nature seems to 'make the calculation' and then present us with an observed event." [In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, 111.] Both the "how" and the "why" of this process can be addressed through the metaphor of a computer which is programmed to project images to create an experience for the user, who is a conscious being.

The "how" is described structurally by a computer which runs a program. The program provides an algorithm for determining the position (in this example) of every part of the image, which is to say, every pixel that will be projected to the user. The mechanism for transforming the programming into the projection is the user interface. This can be analogized to the computer monitor, and the mouse or joystick or other device for viewing one part of the image or another. When the user chooses to view one part of the image, those pixels must be calculated and displayed; all other parts of the image remain stored in the computer as programming. Thus, the pixels being viewed must follow the logic of the projection, which is that they should move like particles across the screen. The programming representing the parts of the image not being displayed need not follow this logic, and may remain as formulas. Calculating and displaying any particular pixel is entirely a function of conveying information to the user, and it necessarily involves a "change" from the inchoate mathematical relationships represented by the formula to the specific pixel generated according to those relationships. The user can never "see" the programming, but by analysis can deduce its mathematical operation by careful observation of the manner in which the pixels are displayed. The algorithm does not collapse into a pixel; rather, the algorithm tells the monitor where and how to produce the pixel for display to the user according to which part of the image the user is viewing.

The "why" is problematical in the cosmic sense, but is easily stated within the limits of our computer metaphor. The programming produces images for the user because the entire set up was designed to do just that: to present images to a user (viewer) as needed by the user. The ultimate "why" depends on the motivation of the designer. In our experience, the maker of a video game seeks to engage the attention of the user to the end that the user will spend money for the product and generate profits for the designer. This seems an unlikely motivation for designing the universe simulation in which we work and play.

The key points, I think, are as follows:

• Particles are analogous to pixels, and, like pixels, they are rendered only when under observation (i.e., on the screen, or in the field of awareness).
• Unobserved entities are left in the form of "inchoate mathematical relationships" to conserve processing power. They "remain stored in the computer as programming," i.e., formulas.
• The so-called collapse of the wave is not a collapse at all; "rather, the algorithm tells the monitor where and how to produce the pixel for display to the user according to which part of the image the user is viewing."

Other quantum paradoxes that seem to be resolved by the VR approach include nonlocality (a change in the calculation of the value of particle X will instantly change the calculated value of particle Y, no matter how far apart they are in physical space); quantum leaps and quantum tunneling (the pixels, or particles, never actually move, but only assume different positions as the calculations change; these changes in position occur each time the "screen" is refreshed); and the quantum Zeno effect (continuous observation seems to cause the screen to stop refreshing, thus freezing the pixels and preventing any change, i.e., any decay).

The implication of this hypothesis is that the physical universe is, at heart, information, and that all physical things are expressions of this information as it is processed by a sort of Cosmic CPU.

A related analogy involves the three-dimensional image of a hologram, which is projected out of a two-dimensional pattern of wave-interference. The wave-interference pattern is essentially encoded information, and the beam of coherent light that passes through the holographic plate is the processor that constructs the image out of this information.

Getting to the bottom of things

A couple of times I've posted about an idea put forward by some freethinking physicists -- namely, that our universe might be best understood as a virtual reality simulation.

What I didn't know is that there's a neat little Web site devoted to this idea, with some well-written essays that explain the concept in refreshingly nontechnical language.

It's called The Bottom Layer.

If  this kind of ontological speculation appeals to you (as it does to me), check it out.

Ether or ...

A hundred years ago or more, when trance mediumship was in its heyday, many of the purported spirit communicators talked about the "ether" as a key to the nature of reality. At the time, the idea of the ether - often styled the luminiferous ether - was universally accepted by physicists and was well known to educated members of the public. The consensus was that some sort of extraordinarily subtle and uniform substance, as yet undetected, permeated the universe and served as a conducting medium for light waves, gravitational fields, etc.

In the years since, however, the ether has fallen out of fashion. Attempts to measure the ether proved fruitless. The consensus now is that the ether, at least in its original meaning, does not exist.

So what are we to make of the mediumistic communiques? How could the "spirits" get it so wrong? Were all the references to the ether merely products of the mediums' subconscious minds? If so, how much of the rest of the communications are similarly flawed?

Before we give up on the ether entirely, we might consider the possibility that the general idea was right, but the details assumed by physicists of the time were wrong. This is the tack taken by physicist Brian Whitworth in his recent paper Simulating Space and Time (PDF), which Ben recommended to me.

Whitworth earlier wrote a paper (PDF) arguing that the universe can be understood as a virtual reality simulation. In his new paper he expands on this idea by suggesting ways in which space and time could be created in a virtual world.

First, Whitworth posits the existence of a "grid," which he describes as "the processing screen that creates the pixels, where ... the directions of space reflect grid transfer connections [and] the passage of time reflects grid processing cycles."

The "pixels," in this scenario, are light ("cyclical patterns passed between processing nodes"), matter ("information pattern tangles that stay in a node"), and energy ("the amount of processing in any transfer").

The "nodes" in the grid are comparable to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) on the Web. As the universe expands, new nodes are added, meaning that the universe is "scalable" like the Internet. In each case, "new nodes that increase network load also add more processing. As network supply rises in tandem with network demand, the system can grow indefinitely. Scalability also shares control, which is why the Internet has no 'control centre'.... [S]haring control lets systems evolve better."

But what does all this have to do with our old friend, the ether? In Whitworth's view, the grid is the ether.

He writes:

The idea of an ether that is physical like the objects it contains was shown false by the Michelson–Morley experiment, but the idea of a non-physical ether has never been contradicted:

"Since 1905 when Einstein first did away with the luminiferous aether, the idea that space is filled with invisible substances has waged a vigorous comeback."

The traditional argument against an ether is that a thin, transparent jelly-like substance permeating all space would give a standard frame of reference to all movement, which by Einstein doesn't exist. However a non-physical ether, such as the grid, is compatible both with quantum theory:

"The ether, the mythical substance that nineteenth-century scientists believed filled the void, is a reality, according to quantum field theory."

And with relativity:

"According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light , but also no possibility of ... space and time..."

If the physical universe is a virtual reality, the new ether is the grid-screen that processes it.

When we view empty space we see nothing, just emptiness. This could mean nothing is there, as objective reality supposes, or that it is a processing host that perfectly transmits all light and matter, as proposed here. When one looks out a perfectly transparent window, the glass transmits the light from objects behind it. One sees the message of light the window passes, but not the glass medium that sends it. One only knows a glass window is there by its imperfections, by its frame surround, or by touching it.

Now imagine a world filled by a perfect transmitter with no imperfections so it can't be seen, that is all around so it has no boundary, and that transmits matter so it doesn't repel touch. If physics is information, then this is not impossible. If this medium filled every direction, one couldn't see around it. If it passed on all light perfectly, it would itself be unseen. And if we moved into it, it would just pass on the matter of our bodies on as it does light. Yet it could be known by logical inference, as is done here.

In the virtual reality conjecture, the grid is like a perfect diamond that completely fills the universe, continuously and flawlessly reflecting the images within it. Empty space then is quite "full", and the idea of “nothing” is just a figment of the human imagination. [pp. 239-240]

In other words (as I read it), the ether exists, but it is not a physical substance suffusing the cosmos. Rather, it is a grid of information-processing nodes - a network of information transfer and storage.

There is much more of interest in Whitworth's paper. I certainly didn't follow all the details on a first reading, and I intend to go back for a deeper look.

But in the meantime, it's tempting to speculate that maybe the "spirit communicators" of a hundred years ago weren't so far off, after all.