On Thu, Nov 21, 2019 at 7:18 PM Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:
*>>> I can provide many references which claim that Bell did assume >>> counterfactual definiteness, and this is the reason why his theorem does >>> not apply in many-worlds theory. One prominent example is a paper by >>> Baylock (arXiv:0902.3827).* >>> >> >> >> The abstract says "*The view presented in this paper is that the >> minimal assumptions behind Bell's inequality are locality and >> counterfactual definiteness*", so if Bell can derive his Inequality from >> those assumptions but exparament proves that the Inequality is not true >> then one or both of those assumptions must be false. That was Bell's entire >> point, he proposed an exparament to determine if the assumptions were true >> or not. It turned out they were not. >> > > *> But my point was that Bell did not assume counterfactual definiteness.* > That was your point?? You just said "*I can provide many references which claim that Bell did assume counterfactual definiteness*"! > > *All he *[Bell] *assumed was that any possible hidden variables were > local. So it is locality that is disproven by the experimental results. > Nothing about counterfactual definiteness or realism, since Bell did not > assume either of these things*. > You and Maudlin may believe that but it is certainly a minority viewpoint: *"The dependability of counterfactually definite values is a basic assumption, which, together with "time asymmetry" and "local causality" led to the Bell inequalities. Bell showed that the results of experiments intended to test the idea of hidden variables would be predicted to fall within certain limits based on all three of these assumptions"* Counterfactual definiteness <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_definiteness#Many_Worlds> >> Bell knew exactly what he was assuming, and Baylock's paper came out 10 >> years ago but it might just as well have fallen into a Black Hole for all >> the effect it had on the physics community. It wasn't exactly earth >> shattering. >> > > > *Yes, Baylock's paper has not received much attention -- basically > because it is obvious nonsense.* > Then why the hell did you reference it?! Why did you have me waste my time reading the abstract if you think it's "obvious nonsense"? > > *You are entitled to your own opinions. But you are not entitled to > your own facts. Physicists do not use the term 'realism' to mean > 'counterfactual definiteness'.* > If by "realistic" physicists don't mean that an object can be in one and only one physical state both before and after an interaction, if they don't mean the ability to speak meaningfully of the results of a measurement that has not been performed, then what in the world do they mean by "realistic? > * > As Maudlin points out, such abuse of Bell's argument has led to > endless stupidity in these discussions.* > Maudlin says "*If I had my druthers, 'realist' and 'anti-realist' would be banned from these foundational discussions*", and that strikes me as a remarkably silly thing to say. Regardless of what ones philosophy may be the FACT remains that a word is needed to express the idea that things can be in one and only one physical state both before and after an interaction, and a short easily spelled word like "realistic" seems to fit the bill pretty well, although philosophers like lawyers generally prefer long Latin phrases for simple ideas. I also think it's very strange that Maudlin's book on quantum physics has the very word "Philosophy" in its title and yet it spends virtually no time on the measurement problem, perhaps the greatest philosophical mystery of all in Quantum Mechanics. Why does the act of measurement seem to override the evolution of Schrödinger's wave function, and what exactly does a "measurement" even mean? Many Worlds is the only interpretation that can give a credible answer to that question. Maybe that's why Maudlin never asked the question. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv36RgGFDwTqQyhUn%3D8zk1js5tNx0QKKQ79GdqcqONWXmQ%40mail.gmail.com.
