I never believed the Shannon view of information ever since way back when I studied Information Science, Mathematics and Physics at university. That type of “information” is not real-world information: the Shannon view only applies to computer systems. However, the world clearly IS a system.
I agree with mathematics and physics that, at its foundations, the world is differentiated into categories, relationships and numbers (represented by variables, equations and number symbols). But these are entirely static entities: they cannot constitute a system by themselves.
Clearly, information is one of the other necessary aspects of a system: information is what differentiates the differentiation. It is logically impossible for a differentiated system to exist without the system being able to differentiate (discern difference in) itself: to exist, a system needs to differentiate its own categories, relationships and numbers. To represent differentiation, you need to use Boolean and algorithmic symbols, including TRUE and FALSE.
The other necessary aspect of the world is that a system needs to move and change itself: to exist, a system needs to change its own numbers. To represent the world changing its own numbers for its variables, you need to use Boolean and algorithmic symbols. This number change has flow-on effects, due to the “law of nature” relationships.
(Real-world numbers are necessarily relationships, just like the laws of nature are relationships, but numbers are relationships where the numerator and denominator categories cancel out; real-world numbers can’t be Platonic entities or strings of dots.)
We need to think of the world as a system.
"I never believed the Shannon 'view of information'..."
That much is obvious...
And yet you nevertheless persist in believing that your cell phone and all other modern, wireless technologies, whose functionality is
entirely dependent upon the validity of Shannon's "view of information", will actually function, in your "real-world", whenever you wish it to...
Like the physicists you are disparaging, you fail to see the irony in your perverse beliefs;
Your present world of technology, could not possibly even exist, if Shannon's "view of information" was not believable.As Arthur C. Clark once observed, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Shannon's "view of information" may seem to you to be unbelievable magic, at best, but it is actually just a technology that has advanced beyond your present understanding of such things. But it is not "rocket science" Lorraine, you are quite capable of understanding it, if you would just try; forget about all your numbers and variables and equations and all the other
irrelevant things that you have been talking about and start thinking about exactly why
those things really are irrelevant, to
a system based upon the auto-correlation and cross-correlation properties, of entire, random sequences, rather than just the values of individual variables within a sequence. Stop staring at each individual tree, and look at the entire forest; it is the correlation properties of an entire sequence of observations, taken as a whole, not the properties of each individual observation or variable, that is the
only thing that actually matters, in the recovery of information.
Rob McEachern
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Rob,
After being a computer analyst and programmer for more than 20 years etc. etc., I can tell you that computers and communications use human-devised SYMBOLS of information. Due to human ingenuity, electrical circuits, voltages and transistors have been ingeniously arranged to re-represent our human symbols: equations, Boolean and algorithmic symbols, numbers, binary digits, words etc. The electrical circuits, voltages and transistors are used as symbols; the electrical circuits, voltages and transistors are used to represent equations, Boolean and algorithmic symbols, numbers, binary digits, words etc.
There are no such things as binary digits in a computer: circuit designers use various higher and lower voltages to REPRESENT binary digits. Depending on the requirements for the circuit, the higher voltage may be used to represent the binary digit one or TRUE, or the lower voltage maybe used to represent the binary digit one or TRUE.
So from the base up, from binary digits to equations, Boolean and algorithmic symbols, numbers, and words etc., what the electrical circuits, voltages and transistors represent depends on what human beings want them to represent.
As far as real-world information goes: the low-level physics of electrical circuits, voltages and transistors is where the REAL information is happening. The REAL information is low-level stuff. The electrical circuits, voltages and transistors don’t know anything about the high-level uses that human beings are using them for. As always, human beings, with their conscious perception and ability to move things, are an integral part of a computer system.
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Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 4, 2021 @ 12:19 GMT
"Local slit-geometry and scattering cannot account for these coincidence results..."
When you change the nature of the detector, you will also change the nature of what is being detected.
Whenever a particle passes though the
same location within a slit, it induces the
same electrical field around the slit, that subsequently causes the particle to scatter off that...
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"Local slit-geometry and scattering cannot account for these coincidence results..."
When you change the nature of the detector, you will also change the nature of what is being detected.Whenever a particle passes though the
same location within a slit, it induces the
same electrical field around the slit, that subsequently causes the particle to scatter off that field, in the
same deterministic manner. Reproducing the
same geometry on the "other side", will reproduce the
same deterministic pattern.
As you have correctly stated, that pattern will be obscured, when you send many different particles through the slits, with different incident geometries and/or energies, but if you use a coincidence detector to eliminate
every single one of those other particles except for the one that passes through the other slit with
exactly the same geometry at
exactly the same time, then the same deterministic pattern will emerge from the analysis.
It is just like using a strobe light to make a movie of a rotating, spoked-wheel; you can "freeze" the apparent rotation of the wheel (the observed pattern), and thus subsequently observe a different pattern, that was created by the
joint behavior of the coincidence detector and the wheel it is observing, and not just the wheel by itself. When you change the detector, you change what will be detected.
As I stated on the page that you linked to; "Information about that geometry is merely being modulated onto the "carrier" passing through the slits..." When you change the detector (the demodulator), you change the information subset to be extracted from that carrier, but not the information that was being carried in the first place. If you place a colored filter between yourself and a white light, you will no longer see the white light; what is detected depends upon
both the nature of the input to a detector and the nature of the detector itself.
Rob McEachern
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Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 4, 2021 @ 14:06 GMT
Lorraine,
"what the electrical circuits, voltages and transistors represent depends on what human beings want them to represent."
Physical entities "represent" themselves, to other physical entities, by merely BEING themselves - they are what they are.
Hence, Shannon's point was, humans, such as yourself and every physicist on Earth, should never have expected to be...
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Lorraine,
"what the electrical circuits, voltages and transistors represent depends on what human beings want them to represent."
Physical entities "represent" themselves, to other physical entities, by merely
BEING themselves - they are what they are.
Hence, Shannon's point was, humans, such as yourself and every physicist on Earth,
should never have expected to be capable of reliably detecting the existence of such entities (at any specific location in both space and time), unless you first
already know, apriori, EXACTLY what type of detector MUST be employed - a perfect MATCH (copy) of the entity itself.
You, and every physicist on Earth, have been deluding yourselves, by naively assuming, that you ought to be able to
correctly detect entities, that exist in the real world (rather than in some idealistic thought experiment), even when you do not know
exactly what you
need to be looking for.
As Shannon proved, there are situations in which nature, will
never allow that to happen. If you do not know EXACTLY what to look for, then you are just "s... out of luck." (Hence the difficulties with detecting "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy) What humans either want, or expect things to "represent", is not
necessarily what they
actually do represent; A crappy drug-test will never
correctly indicate that the drug being tested for, is
actually present. And a crappy test for a "bit of information" will never correctly detect such a bit.
Entities existing in the real-world,
"represent" their very existence, to other entities, by simply, merely BEING themselves: "It takes one, to know one!" and it takes one, a perfect
matched filter, to reliably detect the mere existence of one.
In other words, Shannon proved that their are situations, in the real-world, in which it is
impossible, even in principle, to "measure" something and then
reliably deduce/determine/infer what it was, that you just measured, from those self-same measurements; because,
there is nothing there to ever be reliably measured, in the first place! there is no INFORMATION present. Such problems have nothing directly to do with a small physical size, as has been incorrectly assumed for over a century; the problem has to do with a small, TINY (one single bit) information content.
Rob McEachern
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Lorraine Ford replied on Sep. 4, 2021 @ 23:07 GMT
Just to clarify a paragraph from Lorraine Ford replied on Sep. 4, 2021 @ 02:48 GMT :
There are no such things as binary digits in a computer. Circuit designers use different ranges of higher and lower voltages to REPRESENT binary digits. Depending on the requirements for the circuit:
1) One of the voltage ranges will be selected; and
2) The higher voltage in the range may be used to represent the binary digit one or TRUE (the lower voltage in the range would then be used to represent the binary digit zero or FALSE),
OR
the lower voltage in the range maybe used to represent the binary digit one or TRUE (the higher voltage in the range would then be used to represent the binary digit zero or FALSE).
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Stefan Weckbach replied on Sep. 4, 2021 @ 23:16 GMT
Robert,
you wrote on https://www.quantamagazine.org/famous-experiment-dooms-pilot
-wave-alternative-to-quantum-weirdness-20181011:
“There is no interference - it is just discrete scattering, as Bohm demonstrated, like the balls in an old bin-pall machine, striking obstructions in the field (playing surface) at discrete locations.”
and
“A skier encountering...
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Robert,
you wrote on https://www.quantamagazine.org/famous-experiment-dooms-pilot
-wave-alternative-to-quantum-weirdness-20181011:
“There is no interference - it is just discrete scattering, as Bohm demonstrated, like the balls in an old bin-pall machine, striking obstructions in the field (playing surface) at discrete locations.”
and
“A skier encountering moguls on a ski-slope, might be a better metaphor, for the particle/Gibb-phenomenon interaction, within a slit. The point is, that although you do not "see" the moguls looking at the slits themselves, as Bohm demonstrated, a tiny skier passing through a slit, will encounter the Fourier transform of the slit, whose band-limiting will ensure that any skier passing through a slit, will encounter some very big moguls in the field there.”
No double-slit aperture has the exact same microscopic surface as another. Hence what you replied by writing
“Whenever a particle passes though the same location within a slit, it induces the same electrical field around the slit, that subsequently causes the particle to scatter off that field, in the same deterministic manner. Reproducing the same geometry on the "other side", will reproduce the same deterministic pattern.”
is inconsistent. Even if all double-slit apertures would be exactly identical, you cannot explain the result of the experiment I brought up.
Why should one and the same location within a double-slit have anything to do with what happens at the other double-slit to produce an interference pattern? Nothing is “reproduced” at the other side! What you ascribe to a detector's ability to sample an interference pattern only when there are coincidence counts at another detector is just a wild and confused fantasy of yours.
You wrote
“When you change the detector (the demodulator), you change the information subset to be extracted from that carrier, but not the information that was being carried in the first place."
Man, this is so damned silly what you wrote and I wonder that is indeed you that wrote it. The “carrier” is one bit of information – as you rightfully stated a million times before here and elsewhere. Nothing has been “carried in the first place”!
“If you place a colored filter between yourself and a white light, you will no longer see the white light;”
Deep insight! Needs a Genius to arrive at that conclusion...
“what is detected depends upon both the nature of the input to a detector and the nature of the detector itself.”
Again deep insight, and again meant ironically... I think you should take your personal filters (your model about detectors, filters and the nature of detections) away from your eyes for being able to discuss the experiment objectively and scientificly.
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Lorraine Ford replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 00:16 GMT
Rob,
Re Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 4, 2021 @ 14:06 GMT:
With computer programming, you can NEVER miss a step. You can’t just wave your hands and hope it will all work out. Your saying: “Physical entities "represent" themselves, to other physical entities, by merely BEING themselves - they are what they are” is hand-waving. You have missed a step.
In fact:
It is logically impossible for a differentiated system (i.e. the world) to exist without the system being able to differentiate (discern difference in) its own categories, relationships and numbers.
A system can’t exist without this “consciousness”/ differentiation aspect, so it is necessary to symbolically represent the “consciousness”/ differentiation aspect.
This logically necessary aspect of a system (differentiation) can only be represented using Boolean and algorithmic symbols, including TRUE and FALSE.
But as opposed to real-world information, computers and communications use SYMBOLS of information. Controlled by the computer program and other software, the symbols are represented using ingenious arrangements of electrical circuits, voltages and transistors. Similarly controlled by the computer program and other software, the symbols are differentiated using ingenious arrangements of electrical circuits, voltages and transistors. But the differentiation is a different step.
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Stefan Weckbach replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 08:59 GMT
Robert,
I like to better explain why I find your answers so silly. Let's recap the experiment:
1) A light source sends out particle pairs. For every pair the source sends out the two particles in opposite directions.
2) At side A (left side) there is a double-slit with a fixed detector behind it at a certain location.
3) At side B (right side) there is a double-slit...
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Robert,
I like to better explain why I find your answers so silly. Let's recap the experiment:
1) A light source sends out particle pairs. For every pair the source sends out the two particles in opposite directions.
2) At side A (left side) there is a double-slit with a fixed detector behind it at a certain location.
3) At side B (right side) there is a double-slit with a detector behind it which has to scan the detection plane step by step to make the interference pattern appear.
You explain a double-slit interference pattern by a scattering process at the surface of the slits. Tiny moguls on these surfaces should lead each particle to its place such that there are dark and light stripes as a result (interference pattern).
Now you wrote
“Whenever a particle passes though the same location within a slit, it induces the same electrical field around the slit, that subsequently causes the particle to scatter off that field, in the same deterministic manner.”
If that assumption would be correct, then the detector on side A should always click when a particle passes through the same location within a slit. Maybe there are also other “locations” within those slits that cause this particle to also end up in detector A every time a particle hits such a location. The main point here is to assume that this would be the correct explanation and then to ask why at side B these “moguls” should be located such that they built up an interference pattern for the detector at side B to detect – whenever detector A at side A clicks.
One now can assume that even if detector A does not click but only detector B, that the counts of detector B alone can establish the interference pattern on side B. But that is not the case. Only the coincident counts make the interference pattern appear.
So is that interference pattern simply a filtering result out of many overlapping interference patterns? As tempting as this answer may be, before subscribing to it as the result of your scattering processes one had at first to explain why the myriads of tiny “moguls” of two independently manufactured double-slits coincide such that at side B an interference pattern can be detected. Keep in mind that the source sends out particle pairs such that the two particles fly in opposite directions. Hence each and every of the respective locations a particle pair passes through at one side must be mysteriously correlated with its 180 degree counterpart at the other side such that the result is always the detection of an interference pattern at one side – no matter if we fix detector A at location X in the detection plane or slightly off that location (say at location Y).
Be it double-slits or two roughly identical pencils or screws, I see no rational and scientific reason why two different objects should coincide concerning their microscopic surface properties in such an orchestrated way. I also see no reason why “the nature of the detector” should be responsible for the interference pattern at side B because one can also use a photographic plate and according to your theory that pattern then merely is hidden within different impact locations of other particles. But that does not explain why independent “moguls” on each side TOGETHER lead at all to an identifiable interference pattern instead of leading to any other pattern – or to no pattern.
Hope that the reader and you can now better trace my arguments.
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Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 17:38 GMT
Stefan,
You asked: "Why should one and the same location within a double-slit have anything to do with what happens at the other double-slit to produce an interference pattern?"
The answer is trivial: Because YOU introduced a KNOWN correlation in the detection statistics between the two sides, when YOU choose to employ a coincidence detector, that deliberately extracts, a completely NON-RANDOM sample, from the "other side", before computing the detection statistics.
You also said: "Only the coincident counts make the interference pattern appear." That is not true. It is also critically dependent on the fact that YOU KNEW (but "Mother Nature" does not) that YOU have arranged the whole experiment, to send SYNCRONIZED particle pairs through the slits.
Try repeating your same SYNCHRONIZED detection experiment, when you have not also arranged for the SYNCHRONIZED arrivals of particles at the two different sides, and see what happens then.
The "weird" correlation statistics between the two sides, exist, precisely because YOU choose to unwittingly inject them into the experiment, before it was even begun.
I am sure you are familiar with the concept in quantum theory, that "What the observer does, has an impact upon the resulting observations." The point I am trying to get through to you, is that the reason this happens to be true, has nothing to do with "quantum weirdness", but is being caused precisely because the observer is choosing (by choosing the detection scheme) what to observe and what to ignore. Unfortunately, as Shannon demonstrated, when you ignorantly employ an inappropriate INFORMATION RECOVERY scheme, you are sure to end up fooling yourself, in regards to the significance of your results; you are not reliably detecting what you THINK you are detecting.
Rob McEachern
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Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 18:10 GMT
Lorraine,
You stated that: "Circuit designers use different ranges of higher and lower voltages to REPRESENT binary digits."
But in communications systems, that is no longer true; that simple-minded technique, has been obsolete since the 1950s, because in the 1940s, Shannon discovered that an
entirely different approach, yields vastly superior performance. And "Mother Nature" appears to have figured-out the very same thing, eons before Shannon did.
Consequently, "Mother Nature" also does not "represent" INFORMATION about itself, it does not "work", in anything like the unsophisticated, obsolete manner, that you and physicists have assumed that it MUST work. Thus, it is not surprising that neither you nor they, have been able to successfully "decode" (understand) the language that Mother Nature has been speaking, for billions of years. In effect, you are all still trying to use an old, obsolete, AM radio receiver, to recover all the information, intended to be recovered from within a modern cell-phone transmission - it does not work. It never will. And Shannon discovered why.
Rob McEachern
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Stefan Weckbach replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 21:17 GMT
Robert,
I tell you how I see the issue:
Only in your mind you correlate some locations of some “moguls” for side A of the experiment with some locations of some “moguls” for side B of the experiment to get the known results. You correlate them such that if some moguls on side A lead some particles to detector A, then some moguls on side B lead some particles to detector B...
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Robert,
I tell you how I see the issue:
Only in your mind you correlate some locations of some “moguls” for side A of the experiment with some locations of some “moguls” for side B of the experiment to get the known results. You correlate them such that if some moguls on side A lead some particles to detector A, then some moguls on side B lead some particles to detector B (but surely not all of them).
I don't know how these assumptions can lead in all cases to the observed results. “All cases” means that there are a plethora of double-slit manufactures, surely all with moguls at different locations. You take it for guaranteed that each combination of two double-slits has the right internal “mogul-combination” to enable the measured results – no matter how weird these combinations may be.
All we know is that in the experiment there are less coincidence clicks in destructive areas as are in constructive areas for side B. For at all obtaining clicks at detector A one should not place this detector in areas where there is maximal destructive interference. So we selected a “mogul-location” for detector A with maximum constructive interference after the double-slit. According to your assumptions, that location depends on at least one mogul that leads every particle deterministically to the same location after it passed the slit with the mogul, provided that every such particle hits this mogul.
At which incoming angle the particles hit all the moguls an how this does affect / enable the end result is another open question for me. Another open question is whether or not there are many differently located moguls in one double-slit that could lead all the particles that pass these moguls deterministically to one and the same location (for example to detector A). These complications multiply by not only considering them for one side, but for both sides in combination.
Somehow you seem to believe that once we defined the right place for detector A, then all the differently located moguls in both double-slits together with all the different momenta for the particles that pass the slits can guarantee that there will be less coincidence clicks in destructive areas as are in constructive areas for detector B.
Additionally you also bring a detection statistics into play what reminds me of your assumptions about the necessity to wipe away the false counts from these statistics to get a proper picture of reality. So additionally we also have to consider these false counts (and non-counts?) that coincide with all the other already mentioned coincidences to obtain the “realistic picture of what is really going on”.
Maybe after the experiment we should redo the experiment, but with an exchange of the double-slit at side B. If we change that double-slit with another appropriate one, we change the locations for the moguls in that slit – unless you believe that every double-slit of the same kind must have the same moguls at the exact some locations.
What do you think, will there be changes in the frequencies of coincident clicks at certain former locations at side B?
I do not mind if you don't answer that question, but then a further discussion makes no sense to me.
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Lorraine Ford replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 22:47 GMT
Rob,
Re Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 4, 2021 @ 14:06 GMT (continued):
There are no such things as binary digits in computers or communications [1]. Binary digits are a very useful concept, created by people. But there are no such actual things as binary digits, except as a human idea, represented by human-created symbols.
Re information:
Information has nothing to do with what people and other living things “expect”. That would be a waste of time and effort. Information has everything to do with the actual situation confronted by living things, where light and sound waves interact with the senses, and are logically analysed by living things to ascertain the ACTUAL situation.
The basic information that a living thing acquires from their senses, before further analysis, can be represented in the form: “variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 AND … AND variableN=numberN IS TRUE” . The basic information, and the analysis of this information, can only be represented by Boolean and algorithmic symbols.
It is only in computers and communications that “expected” situations and reliability need to be anticipated and dealt with.
1. Lorraine Ford replied on Sep. 4, 2021 @ 23:07 GMT
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Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 22:55 GMT
Stefan,
You seem to be utterly confused:
"(but surely not all of them)." Of course not all of them - your coincidence detector makes sure of that.
"there are a plethora of double-slit manufactures, surely all with moguls at different locations." It has little to do with the manufacturing of the slits. The "moguls" are created, within the
induced electromagnetic field around the slits, at the very instant that anything passes through the slit. That is what an induced electromagnetic field IS. Whenever you pass the SAME thing, in the SAME way, through each slit, it will induce the SAME field, with the SAME "moguls"; the term "moguls" just means that the induced field is not perfectly smooth - motion through the slit, produces ripples, in the field, just as a boat moving though a water surface produces ripples; the ripples only appear when the boat moves and the location where they appear, depends upon where the boat is. So every time the boat moves in the same way, it will induce the same ripples. Those ripples interact with the boat, and slightly change how the boat moves (if nothing else, they dissipate energy, producing drag on the hull, which is why the people that design boat-hulls, attempt to create designs what will minimize such effects.) You can effectively observe these electromagnetic ripples, in a "straight edge diffraction pattern", but ONLY after you send something past the edge, because that is what INDUCES the pattern to appear.
Thus, changing the slits, as you suggest, will not change the results. But changing the SYNCHRONIZED behavior of either the coincidence detector, or the SYNCHRONIZED arrivals of the paired-particles, at each slit, will.
Rob
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Lorraine Ford replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 23:11 GMT
Rob,
My above reply (Lorraine Ford replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 22:47 GMT) also applies to your reply: Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 18:10 GMT.
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Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 23:27 GMT
Lorraine,
You persist in reversing cause and effect.
You stated that: "Information has everything to do with the actual situation confronted by living things."
Information exists independent of "living things"; Its existence is what made "life" possible, in the first place.
"It is only in computers and communications that “expected” situations and reliability need to be anticipated and dealt with."
All living things have had to deal with “expected” situations and reliability, long before any computers, communications or even humans ever existed; if our ancient ancestors could not "expect" to find water and food, in the same old "reliable" locations that they habitually "expected" to find it, they probably would have perished and we would not even exist.
"The basic information, and the analysis of this information, can only be represented by Boolean and algorithmic symbols." So how was it represented in the things your senses "sense"? If there was never any information
there, to ever be "sensed" in the first place, until
after your senses created
their "representation" of the information, then your senses would have necessarily had to create their "represented information" ex nihilo:
One more example of the "then a miracle occurs" logic, common to all "effective theories."
Rob McEachern
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Stefan Weckbach replied on Sep. 6, 2021 @ 08:57 GMT
Robert,
let me tell you how I see all this.
Concerning the experiment, we are talking about a subset of all the particles that manage to get through the slits and to the detection plane, independent of whether or not they will be detected there by some apparatus.
The only difference between you and me here is that I do not correlate the word “subset” automatically to a...
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Robert,
let me tell you how I see all this.
Concerning the experiment, we are talking about a subset of all the particles that manage to get through the slits and to the detection plane, independent of whether or not they will be detected there by some apparatus.
The only difference between you and me here is that I do not correlate the word “subset” automatically to a mechanical, deterministic filtering process. I do not automatically associate “subset” with “filtering”. It is a subset in relation to the whole set, independently of how the whole set or the subset got into appearance / existence. So I am not confused, I just try to understand how you explain the formation of the whole set / subset.
Now you have given an explanation scheme in terms of electromagnetic ripples and diffraction. If an electromagnetic field is something physical, it has to consist of some kind of matter. Your metaphor with the water and the boat is enlightening. The boat is a huge amount of times larger than the “atoms” the water is composed of. On the other hand, the “atoms” of an electromagnetic field – if such a field is really a real physical entity – is composed of myriads of photons of the same size as the photons that later hit the detectors. Surely one can assume that this field is composed of much smaller “atoms” then photons are. But I think that would be a too great leap into the unknown.
So let's assume the electromagnetic field is composed out of myriads of photons. If we think in terms of scattering (little balls bumping into each other and changing each others locations and momenta) I see no straightforward way that these myriads of photons can lead a single photon of the same size reliably to ever the same location whenever it passes the same location at a slit. It is not a boat sitting on classical water waves that are much smaller than the boat. Additionally photons are defined to travel with a very high speed, they do not hover around the same area.
Moreover, unlike the “classical” double-slit experiment with single photons where the source is such that we know with certainty one of the space coordinates the photon came from (always straight from the left side for example), the situation in the experiment we discuss here is different: each photon that passes the slits could have had a slightly different impact angle.
Now, what is true here is that all these different impact angles for each particle pair are indeed correlated, since the particle pairs are always send out from the source in opposite directions. Leaving aside the nature of the electromagnetic field for a moment (many photons in a small area), we then can say that whenever the source sends out a particle pair in exactly the same directions, it logically should hit the same spots at the slits and should encounter the same scattering angle.
But besides the issue with the electromagnetic field, there is now another issue. Namely that coincidence counts are only valid when detector A clicks (of course also detector B). If detector A does only click when the source has send out the particles in only one allowed direction (in the direction such that the end result of this deterministic billiard chain is a click of detector A), then it can only hit one allowed location at the slits and the deterministic result would be only one allowed place at the detection plane to arrive for it (namely detector A).
Since the same exclusive behaviour is then logically mandatory also for particle B, the logical result in this case would be that particle B also can only arrive at one and the same allowed spot at the detection plane. Since this is not what has been registered, we are forced to conclude that there necessarily must be much more than one spot at the slits that allow a photon to arrive at detectors A and B.
But we also know that there must be spots at the slits that do not allow both twin particles to arrive at the detectors A and B. And we also know that there must be spots at the slits where only one of the twin particles is allowed to arrive at a detector. Whereas this behaviour could be intuitively explained by the correlated impact angles for each particle pair, the conservation of that correlation of their momenta before they hit the slits and after they have hit the slits is not a guaranteed thing.
That conservation of correlation is nothing other than the fact that there are less coincidence clicks in destructive areas as are in constructive areas for side B.
The issue here is that at the one hand we talk about real particles that fly off the source (billiard balls) and at the other hand these billiard balls should fly through myriads of other billiard balls (the electromagnetic field) and at the end are guaranteed to produce less coincidence clicks in destructive areas as for constructive areas at side B (or in other words, produce a distinctive pattern instead of a chaotic, homogenous mix). Even a highly orchestrated “dance” of these myriads of billiard balls in the electromagnetic field does not alter the picture that it then needs an unbelievably complex orchestrated behaviour for all these balls to govern one photon reliably such that the interference pattern can establish. What is already a non-trivial task on an ordinary billiard table with a dozen of balls gets astronomically magnified when thinking of the electromagnetic field as composed of myriads of photons.
On the other hand, if we give up thinking of photons as material objects, what then remains of your deterministic explanation scheme with all the interactions being strictly local and working perfectly together like geared wheels? Additionally we necessarily need many different locations in a double-slit that all result in the same impact location for a detector. Together with the myriads of interactions within the sea of electromagnetic photons I see no way to perfectly orchestrate / correlate all these variables to obtain at all a distinct pattern instead of just a chaotic, homogenous impact mix.
You wrote
"Information about that geometry is merely being modulated onto the "carrier" passing through the slits..."
If a photon is “one bit of information” as you repeatedly asserted here and elsewhere, how then is it able to being “modulated” such that it deterministically reaches its destined location at the detection plane? Your answer is that the “carrier” is the electromagnetic field with its myriads of photons. But each of those photons again have only “one bit of information”, each of them can't even “carry” or “represent” where in 3D-space they themselves should be located and with what momenta they should move. I think you strictly have to differentiate a model of the world as a computer program where the nature of the entities (and even the nature of 3D space, whatever it is) is negligible from the model of the world in physical 3D-space where the nature of each of the material entities plays a crucial role for any local and deterministic explanation.
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Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 6, 2021 @ 12:47 GMT
Stefan,
"Your metaphor with the water and the boat is enlightening." Good.
"I see no straightforward way... " Because you have incorrectly assumed that the induced EM field is being caused by the "water", when it is in fact caused by the huge structure of the nearby slits, which are many, many, many orders of magnitude larger than the "boats".
To continue with the...
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Stefan,
"Your metaphor with the water and the boat is enlightening." Good.
"I see no straightforward way... " Because you have incorrectly assumed that the induced EM field is being caused by the "water", when it is in fact caused by the huge structure of the nearby slits, which are many, many, many orders of magnitude larger than the "boats".
To continue with the metaphor:
The "water" is not in an open ocean, it is in a narrow channel, with huge, nearby walls and the "boats" are not all going EXACTLY down the center-line of the channel. Hence boats that are nearer to one side-wall than the other, induce a different EM field (
caused by the walls, not the water) than a boat moving down the center-line of the channel. The resulting "ripples" interact with both the boat and the walls, so they are no longer exactly symmetrical along the center-line and thus deflect the boat slightly, to one side or the other, in a deterministic pattern, that depends upon how much off-center, each boat was while passing through the channel. At a great distance from the slits, these deterministic deflections "add up" to a deterministic pattern - the interference pattern observed.
"If a photon is “one bit of information” ..., how then is it able to being “modulated” such that it deterministically reaches its destined location at the detection plane?"
The photon itself, the boat, is
not being modulated, it is not being altered. Only its induced
behavior, how it is deflected (or, if it even is deflected!), by the asymmetrical, induced EM field, is what is being modulated; by the fact that there can be no modulated, altered behavior at all, when, in effect, the boat cannot even detect that such ripples even exist - the boat is simply too insensitive to the ripples. That "test for existence", is what "information" detection/recovery IS, it is not about making "measurements", and the outcome of that test, is what is being altered/modulated. Whenever one entity cannot recover that one, single bit of carried (within the induced field) information, being "caused" by the existence of a second entity, that MEANS that it has totally failed to detect the very existence of the second entity - hence, it cannot "trigger" any interaction at all. That is what "quantum" is all about; either you detect that "something" else exists and consequently modulate/alter your behavior, or you fail to detect that "something" exists and therefore behave just
as if nothing exists to ever cause a change in behavior.
As another metaphor, instead of thinking about boats interacting with walls, think of two submarines, each weighing thousands of tons, that are, by design, difficult to detect; when they each actually do fail to detect that the other exists, when they pass near each other, neither's behavior will be "modulated", they will behave just
as if the other does not even exist. They are both inducing changes in the behavior of the water around them, but neither is sensitive enough to those changes, to detect the other's existence. The point being, that such behaviors have nothing directly to do with small, physical size. It is the small information content of the induced "signal" (only one recoverable bit, indicative of only two possible states; "trigger some interaction" or "do not trigger any interaction at all"), not small physical size, that
determines (AKA
causes) such "quantized" behaviors. That is what "quantum" behavior is all about. That is what "information" is all about. Physicists have been confusing themselves, and every one else, for an entire century, by naively assuming that "information" is about making "measurements". It is not. It is about detecting existence itself.
"the nature of each of the material entities plays a crucial role for any local and deterministic explanation." Not quite. A boat traveling through a sea of oil, rather than a sea of water, would still "make waves"; the question is "Would waves in oil, deflect the boats in an observably different pattern than waves in water?" Or would boats made of one type of plastic, induce waves/ripples that differ from those induced by boats made of a different type of plastic. As another metaphor to consider in this regards, the "father" of Quantum Field Theory, Paul Dirac, pointed out that how chess pieces are moved, how they
behave, is independent of the nature of the material they are made of, and the same seems to be true in quantum theory; we can only actually observe how entities, such as electrons and photons behave, not what they are made of. And how they behave when they encounter each other, seems to be "triggered" in exactly the same manner that the process of "information" recovery" triggers observable changes in behaviors.
Rob McEachern
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Stefan Weckbach replied on Sep. 6, 2021 @ 15:31 GMT
Robert,
sorry but I cannot make much sense out of what you wrote.
Much worse that you ascribe the EM field to the nearby slits. Thousands and thousands of fast flying photons aka billiard balls should reliably lead another single billiard ball to ever the same location whenever it passes the right distance between the slits. Call that “water” or give it another name which coincides with your channel metaphor, for me its only a metaphor, not a reliable mapping of what is really going on.
Even much worse that all these flying photons have the same effect on the nearby environment (not to speak of their backreaction onto the huge slits and the slits' EM back-backreaction onto the flying photons and so on!) as our single photon has and thereby rendering the whole scenario being an unimaginably complex and chaotic many-body problem. To think that the end result of such a complex scenario should inevitably lead to the right spots at the detection plane to establish an interference pattern in my opinion is nothing but wishful thinking - lightyears away from first practicing a little bit by solving some “easy” three-body problems.
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Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 6, 2021 @ 21:45 GMT
"rendering the whole scenario being an unimaginably complex and chaotic many-body problem."
A good description of the real world. Reality is what it is. You can either accept that fact, or not.
Rob McEachern
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Lorraine Ford replied on Sep. 6, 2021 @ 23:08 GMT
Rob,
Re Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 5, 2021 @ 23:27 GMT :
The law of nature relationships between categories (like frequency, mass, position) structure the world. People use equations and variables to symbolically represent these law of nature relationships between categories.
But these equations can’t be used to represent the particular situations of particular matter (like particles, atoms). A situation refers to the particular numbers for particular variables. To represent a particular situation for particular matter, people need to use Boolean and algorithmic symbols e.g.: “variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 IS TRUE”.
People create and use the symbols; symbol use is an advanced, high-level ability. But clearly, the Boolean and algorithmic symbols represent a different aspect of the world (i.e. an information aspect of the world) to the aspect of the world represented by the law of nature equations and variables, BECAUSE you need to use different types of symbols.
So I agree with you that information “is what made "life" possible, in the first place”, but I’m saying that information is an aspect of the world that people can only symbolically represent in the following type of way: “variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 IS TRUE”.
(Similarly, people can only represent the jumps in the numbers, that apply to the variables in particular situations, by using Boolean and algorithmic symbols: equations can’t do it.)
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Stefan Weckbach replied on Sep. 7, 2021 @ 06:56 GMT
Robert,
it is good that you accept this.
The large amount of photons of your EM field should cause a large amount of collisions among them (and also with our photon send out from the source). So already for the interference experiment with just one double-slit (no coincidence counts needed) a fair amount of photons from the EM field should collide such that they impinge the photographic plate also on destructive areas. The many photons of the EM field do not dissolve into thin air after a photon from our source has passed a slit. They must go somewhere and I see no reason that they all do not impinge what we call destructive areas.
That we nonetheless see a distinctive interference pattern seems to be proof for you that the sum of all interactions simply prevents all these impacts for the sake of obtaining the needed dark areas on the screen. This reasoning then seems to reassure to you that there is indeed that EM field in play. As you may have guessed I do not share this logic.
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Robert H McEachern replied on Sep. 7, 2021 @ 14:24 GMT
Lorraine,
I agree with your statement that: "I’m saying that information is an aspect of the world that people can only symbolically represent..."
My point is, that "physics" is not about trying to figure out how people, do what they do. It is about trying to figure out how "elementary" entities, do what
they do.
Until people figure out how "elementary" entities...
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Lorraine,
I agree with your statement that: "I’m saying that information is an aspect of the world that people can only symbolically represent..."
My point is, that "physics" is not about trying to figure out how people, do what they do. It is about trying to figure out how "elementary" entities, do what
they do.
Until people figure out how "elementary" entities represent and process information, they will never understand the nature of reality.
I am not disputing your claims, about the way most "people" deal with what they consider to be "information." I am merely trying to get those very same people, to understand, that the
only people that have learned to process information, in a manner
anything like the way "elementary" entities process it (which appears to be extremely different from the methods that you describe) are the people that design communications systems - the people that created "Information Theory", precisely for that purpose. Physicists have yet to figure that out. But it is about time that they try.
As described towards the end of this
Article about Shannon's Information Theory, what Shannon discovered was a way to do the one thing that
everyone thought was a logical impossibility, "the one Fano called 'unknown, unthinkable,' until Shannon thought it."
Shannon discovered a way to create highly complex systems, that work
PERFECTLY, in spite of being constructed entirely out of maximally IMPERFECT PARTS! Every single "bit" being used to build the system can be deeply flawed, but nevertheless, the entire complex system built from those highly corrupted "bits" will still function PERFECTLY - no errors whatsoever!
It is the HOLY GRAIL of reality! It is what enables complex systems, like "life" to exist, in the first place. As the article states: "(In technical terms, it was a promise of an “arbitrarily small” rate of error: an error rate as low as we want, and want to pay for.)": PERFECTION is just a matter of cost, not a logical impossibility. And the cost of "near-perfection", turns out to be surprisingly affordable - which is why we humans exist.
Rob McEachern
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Lorraine Ford replied on Sep. 9, 2021 @ 00:12 GMT
Rob,
I’d say that the world is not like a computer. In a computer, people have to turn the law of nature relationships into a procedure (mathematical calculations). But I’d say that the law of nature relationships do not imply that the world is doing a procedure (mathematical calculations). And similarly, I’d say that information does not imply that the world is doing a procedure (taking steps to represent itself, or something like that).
The foundational aspects of the world are not procedures, i.e. a series of steps: instead, the foundational aspects of the world are what make steps possible. So for example, categories (i.e. the law of nature relationships) are mathematically fundamental. Equally fundamental is information.
I’d say that information is a bit like a verb; information is differentiation (discerning difference). That’s why information can only be symbolically represented in the following type of way: “variable1=number1 AND variable2=number2 IS TRUE”.
Information is a necessary aspect of a system. A differentiated system (differentiated into relationships, categories and numbers) can’t exist unless the system differentiates (discerns difference in) its own relationships, categories and numbers. Furthermore, differentiation is the necessary foundation stone of consciousness.
However, there is low-level discerning of difference (differentiating relationships, categories and numbers); and there is high-level discerning of difference that requires the further analysis of the low-level information (e.g. discerning food or danger).
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Lorraine Ford replied on Sep. 10, 2021 @ 01:54 GMT
(continued)
Rob,
When people do calculations, with pen and paper or with a computer, everything is converted into steps.
But I’d say that, in the real world:
1) The laws of nature, though they are represented by equations, are actually relationships; i.e. the laws of nature don’t involve steps;
2) Information is merely the discerning of difference, a fundamental and necessary aspect that can’t be broken down into steps;
3) Number change, for the numbers that are assigned to the variables, is the only bit that involves steps (where numbers are plausible entities, i.e. numbers are relationships, just like the laws of nature are relationships, but numbers are relationships where the numerator and denominator categories cancel out).
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