[ExI] Demonstration of Bell's Inequality

[Adrian Tymes]

On Thu, Nov 24, 2016 at 9:44 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
> Your ball is red so
> you are certain about one thing
>
> there is 1 chance in 1 the other ball is blue, but there is only 2 chances
> in 8 the other ball is blue AND heavy. The 2 balls were picked at random
> from a pile of 8 balls and put into sealed packages.

These statements contradict.  If you know the other ball is blue, then
you know there are only 4 things it could have been, not 8.  (Assuming
the pile of 8 balls had 1 of each of the 8 cases, which you seem to be
implying: if you know the first ball is red, then you know 4 balls the
other ball could not be, so they can and should be excluded from
computing the odds of what the other ball is.)

Put another way: there are 2 chances in 8 the other ball is blue and
heavy if you know nothing about the first ball.  The fact that you
know the first ball is red, and therefore that the other ball is blue,
changes this to 2 chances in 4 (the 4 blue cases) the other ball is
blue and heavy.

> Do
>  you
> seriously
> think you are the first to see something clearly that all physicists since
> 1964 have
> been confused about
> , or do you think it's possible that maybe just maybe it is you that is
> confused
> ?

I am not the only one who has seen this.  It is not the case that "all
physicists since 1964" have been in lockstep agreement on this.  (For
one, many physicists deal in other aspects of physics entirely, and
have not stated an opinion on quantum anything.)  Heck, even
Wikipedia's page on this -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement - leads off by
noting that you can't describe this by assuming two completely
independent pieces, but rather that you need a quantum state for the
system as a whole.

However, I do think it is entirely possible that many see financial or
social incentive in saying, "This is SPOOKY and MYSTERIOUS so it needs
indefinite amounts of attention and research funding but must never
actually be explained!", and that it is entirely possible that the
naysayers are disincentivized from speaking up.  I've seen this
pattern elsewhere - for example, in space technology (or, more
recently and blatantly, space law) and the phenomena it is intended to
deal with.

Further, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem notes that it
is possible to continue with hidden variables if one assumes that all
quantum entanglements are programmed at their start - which would seem
to preclude the possibility of free will, and thus was rejected not
for being physically impossible, but merely being too horrible to
contemplate.  Strictly speaking, "too horrible to contemplate" is an
invalid objection.

(Also, it does not in fact preclude free will, though this delves out
of the realm of the apparently-testable, and thus is irrelevant to
science aside from providing a socially acceptable explanation.  Even
if every choice your brain makes is predetermined from at least the
moment that all underlying quantum transactions have been completed,
it is possible that the spiritual "you" with "free will" that people
wish to preserve, acts by setting up these transactions in the first
place even if not consciously aware of it, the way one is usually not
consciously aware of one's own heartbeat unless one is specifically
paying attention to it.  Put another way: free will can be considered
an ultimate quantum entanglement, pieces of which fall apart when
observed, but one can never observe the whole thing - or even a
significantly large fraction of it, practically - so free will can
never be completely rooted out, and like a contagion it can sneak
right back in to affect any previously-observed space.  With this
settled, we can return to discussing the actually observable and
testable.)