merlin wood

Well, I cannot insist strongly enough that what is most crucially and, indeed, most tragically lacking in human knowledge is an understnding of the universe that includes life on Earth that requires a detailed, thorough and methodical account that sufficienty justifies and describes enough properties of a nonlocally acting cause, and from its many and various effects in addition to those of the known forces or interactions. Wonder where my posts keep going to? Something to do with having little fascist piglets as moderators here, perhaps?

Well, having given the problem rather a lot of thought over the years, I've concluded that the development of such a general theory of natural organisation is possible given the universal action of a nonlocal and extradimesional cause, and as deduced initially from a causal hidden variables quantum hypothesis. But then who'd take any notice of an old crank like me with no academic physics qualification at all, and who would proposes a complete revolution in theoretical physics and comology? But then, for a start, one could ask does cosmological inflation sound like a very sensible theory really? Prof. Roger Penrose certainlt doesn't think so, anyway.

A requiremt for a theory of everything could be that it should explain, in terms of cause and effect, how the universe is of a certain form as radiant energy, atoms and molecules of the elements and compounds of matter, species of living organisms, galaxies of stars and planetary systems, and groups, clusters and walls of galaxies around cosmic voids. Also, given that the universe has expanded over some 13.7 billion years from a very small and dense ‘Big Bang’ origin, the theory should account for how this expansion and its measured acceleration occurred, and how the universe evolved into its form as astronomically observed. Does any recognized theory in physics look like it could achieve this?

Forget about it. I've other irons in the fire

I'm saying I'm not concerned about what happens after measurement How do you know? Quantum entanglement describes the correlation at a distance between quantum objects and can describe this correlation in terms of the relationship between particular forms of behaviour of quantum objects. So that eg the measurement of the property spin-up in one quantum component requires the other component to be in the spin-down direction. While experimental test results upon photons with regard to their polarised properties of behaviour can be considered to indicate that the entanglement effect can occur without varying at distances up to 144km at least. So you can ask how is it that this correlation can be measured? Is quantum entanglement an effect without a cause? Why shouldn't one insist that for this quantum behaviour correlation to be measured there needs to be something that acts so as to maintain this quantum object behaviour reationship? Could any measurement or mathematical calculation describe enough details of such a cause from effects that have no measured strength? If not, how could could the action of such a "spooky" or nonlocally acting cause be described or represented? It may not look like it at all, but perhaps there is larger scale observable evidence that clearly supports an appropriate non-local causal quantum hypthesis. And the justification for and development of this appropriate quantum hypothesis could be essential to any general theoretical argument.

I suggest that the quantum entangled connection pre-exists in the real world prior to any measurement, and there's no definite argument that can prove me wrong. Although, of course, there's no such argument to prove me right either - or at least, not from any evidence of quantum behaviour alone.

I'm basically asking why should quantum entanglement be measured in the first instance? So why shouldn't eg. electrons possess spin-up/spin-down entanglement in atoms before any measurement?

But then what of the entangled composite states of the subatomic components of atoms and molecules, that is, as they remain as the components of atomic and molecular systems?

So physicists may insist that quantum entanglement is an effect without a cause. But you could ask is it really though? So you've got, fo example, the spin up/spin down correlation at a distance between atomic components that include electrons. And, for one thing, you could ask: for this correlation to be measured so that the spin up to spin down relationship to be retained between two components, sureky shouldn't the be something that acts at a distance so as to maintain this relationship? And so that this would be an invisible cause that acts in a quite different way to any of the forces so as to produce the entangled effect?

And then in David Bohm's two 1952 "hidden variable" papers there was intoduced an invisible cause that he called the quantum potential, and which led to experiment to test the properties that could described of an effect at a distance called quantum entanglement. This being an effect that could be measured and mathmatically described from objects that included electrons as components of atoms, but could not be measured and mathematically desctibed in terms of its strength.

For a change. --------- [edit] One can say that, on the one hand, there are physiological, biochemical and electrochemical states of the brain which can be observed or directly detected, and on the other hand there are states of mind as thoughts, emotions, sensations and perceptions which, just as subjectively experienced, can't be observed or directly detect by examining anything in the body at all. Although, from the physiological evidence of the brain, it could be assumed that for every mental state there is a corresponding brain or bodily state that produces it. But then you can ask how do brain states get to being mental states? So how can any brain process that may produce the smell of coffee be transformed or translated into the smell of coffee itself? And also while you may able to detect and identify the brain process that produces the coffee smell you can ask where in the body is this smell that one has of coffee, just as a mental state? Or where is the experience of the colour red, the pain in the foot, the feeling of optimism or despair and so on? So for such reasons that neither mental states nor, indeed, anything the may be called the mind, self or experiencing subject that may possess these states, can be observed or directly detected anywhere in the body, it can be the thought that there at least needs to be something invisible and immaterial that makes the states of mind possible, and so is not itself a bodily state. There is, however, a quite simple argument against any idea that there is anything invisible and immaterial in addition to the body that accounts for any states of mind or conscious experience in general. So the above idea is that there would need to be something that can’t be observed because it’s not made of matter, and would need to have a certain distinct general property or some such properties so that brain states are changed into mental states. But then it can be pointed out that there are already such things that are unobservable, just as such, and so that they can only be described from their effects, which may be called forces that act at a distance or fundamental interactions. And as generally described from their effects these forces each only has one identity. So it doesn’t make sense to say there are many forces of gravity or of electromagnetism. Yet it would need to make sense to say there are many immaterial minds in each of many individual human beings or other creatures. Then even if it is supposed that each immaterial mind could have a property that is unique to each individual it can be pointed out that essential to there being many minds is that each individual has at least a unique perception as a particular point of view upon the external world, so how could this be explained by individually differing immaterial mental properties? One could, however, consider the evidence detected of matter and the energy it radiates on the very small scale. as described by quantum mechanics especially, and where the behaviour of objects have been measured and described that differ from any effects that could be explained by or just by the known properties of the action of forces such as gravity and electromagnetism. Then, however, it also needs to be assumed, firstly, that the quantum mechanical description of the behaviour that can be uniquely described of quantum objects, which include photons of radiant energy and subatomic components reflect, in some way, the hidden behaviour of these objects beyond any observations from experimental results And then secondly, that at least some of this hidden quantum behaviour can be coherently described and visualised in representations of the defined trajectories of objects in motion. And these representations need to be entirely consistent with the observed and measured results of experiments. However, until 1952, or some 26 years or so after the first successful quantum mechanical descriptions were devised it was assumed by almost all physicists that the second of the above requirements could not be achieved by any means. For the quantum mechanics described fundamental characteristics of behaviour that could not be coherently represented as the behaviour of objects in motion…

I've now changed the format on the Blog page with the abstract at the top (as it was originally in fact). But then, having re-read the cosmological argument for the first time after a year or so, I think it could do with a bit of an overhaul...

Well I do have such a hypothesis on my blog, Sayonara, which I've linked to several times on this thread. But no one seems prepared to consider what it says except for the fact that it contains no mathematical calculations. But this is an 18,000 word paper that considers the findings of quantum physics as well as an existng, mathematically justified causal interpretation of quantum mechanics. Then the paper justifies and then postulates visual diagrams representing a nonlocally acting cause from its effects that would produce quantum entanglement and the quantum wave property. A universal verbally desribed nonlocal causal property is then also justified and described. And such a cause of quantum entanglement would not, in any case, have any properties that could be described by calculation to definitely show that the cause acts in the world at all. For, unlike those of all the forces, the effects of quantum entanglement can't be measured and calculated to have any strength. The causal diagrams are thus an essential key to the whole theoretical argument. The causal diagrams in the quantum interpretation or hypothesis are then related to evidence of living organisms with respect to certain basic properties that could be descibed of the mind and consciousness and which have been much discussed in modern academic philosophy. And the verbally described causal property is related to certain general characteristics of the behaviour of living organisms, and both these aspects could apply to the nature and behaviour of human beings. I then consider the quantum wave property in relation to a possible Big Bang cosmological theory and postulate and then diagramatically represent a more detailed nonlocal cause of the quantum wave. This causal representation is then considered in relation to the formation and form of galaxies, galaxy clusters and cosmic voids and how the nonlocal cause could act together with gravity. And it is considered how the spiral structure of galaxies and their rotation curves could be a nonlocal effect, rather than the yet to be directly detected WIMP dark matter. I've also thought how the cause could assist in the formation of stars and planetary systems and contribute to stellar energy output (so, in particular, there can still be considered a problem in explaining the extreme heat of the sun's corona in present theory). I also propose a possible experiment that might more sensitively detect neutrinos to see whether there could be a shortfall in solar output at lower energies than have so far been detected. This could indicate that not all the sun's energy is caused by nuclear fusion. This paper is the briefest possible summary I could manage of what a general theory of a nonlocally acting cause could be like. And I have since considered other arguments that could support a nonlocal theory of living organisms. I have also read about other astronomical evidence that could support the cosmological theory. The whole theory could easily be of book length but I could not possibly write it alone especially since, for one thing, I don't have the mathematical skills to develop the cosmology (and I'm really too old to start learning the appropriate maths, having not been particularly good at it at school, anyway). But I can conceive the general theory could generate whole new branches of science. My blog account really needs to be seriously considered as a whole to assess the empirical validity of its argument, that's why I'm reluctant to have just parts of it pulled to bits on a forum thread. But the whole argument could be summarised by the folowing thought: The universe has been found to be of a particular organised form on the small scale as the various atoms and molecules of the elements and compounds and then the species of living organisms; then on the astronomical scale there are the galaxies of stars and planetary systems, and galaxy walls and filamentary clusters around vast cosmic voids. So why assume that all this natural organisation is just the result of the push or pull causes that are the known forces? Then, however, there's the problem that all the evidence indicates that the cosmos, as perceived in three dimensions of space, only contains the known forces as these act universally...

Well OK but then what comes after death? And I was just thinking of the unpredictability of human beings and what could be said on any forum thread. But then there are aspects of mind one could imagine might be simply described in a causal theory. So what if an invisible cause of quantum entanglement was essentially the same thing as an invisible something that mskes consciousness possible and in addition to what can be found in the brain or anything else in the body?

But who knows what the future might bring?