The rejection of realism has logical consequences. In general, a variable has no definite value before I measure it; then measuring it does not mean ascertaining the value that it has. But then what does it mean?

Erwin Schrödinger, 1935
 
 


 
 

Abstract

It is conjectured that a quantum correlate of Platonic ideas, called 'John' (also remnant from the cat), can be of help for solving the measurement problem in quantum mechanics and elaborating an error-free theory of mind-brain relations on the basis of a universal time arrow matching the psychological time arrow.
 

D. Chakalov, [email protected]

First web version: 25 September 2000
Latest update: 22 May 2003
 

There is a profound mystery in Schrödinger's 1935 "Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik" [Ref. 1], particularly in the phrase "then measuring it does not mean ascertaining the value that it has." The meaning remains still elusive, as it was to Erwin Schrödinger sixty-seven years ago.

Suppose you chase somebody on the street (let's call him John), and any time you catch him, he leaves his jacket in your hands. You can't catch John. Just his jackets. You also know that he has a set (or is it strictly a set?) of jackets with different probability-for-catching, and you deeply believe and hope that this set can be normalized, i.e., the sum of probability-for-catching his jackets is unity. This elusive John does not ware any jacket by default (i.e., the concept of "possessed values" finds no place in proper physical reasoning [Ref. 51]). Neither before nor after you catch his "current" jacket. John is simply a Platonic idea.

Does he have a quantum correlate? I hope he does, or else we have to consider the possibility that time does not exist (as suggested by many theoretical physicists), and also that our psychological time arrow is an effect of some immaterial ghost operating in our brain while being fully detached from the physical world. The other option, which I strongly support, has been clearly presented in 1952 by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli [Ref. 2]. The idea is not new, it can be traced back to Raymond Ruyer's potentiel [Ref. 3] and Henry Margenau's latent observable or Onta [Ref. 4]. I can only suggest a new term, trialism, stressing that it is neither monism nor dualism.

On the practical side, the idea about John's jackets suggests that quantum computation [Ref. 5] can not be implemented with any inanimate device, but we can extend our brain to cover the quantum reality of John and to control his jackets, just like we control our body. The phrase "the whole is more than the linear sum of its parts" means that John is not in the Hilbert space. Never been, never will. He has been totally erased from the outset, right from the linear decomposition of his jackets.

To explain this, let's suppose John has two jackets only, their classical projections are denoted by  |0>  and  |1> , and superpositions are [alpha]|0> + [beta]|1> , where  [alpha]  and  [beta]  are complex numbers satisfying  |alfa|2 + |beta|2 = 1, in line with the normalization procedure. The jackets  |0>  and  |1>  represent an orthonormal basis of a two-dimensional Hilbert space. Where is John, then? He has been deleted from the Hilbert space by the normalization procedure. The latter does not refer to the genuine superposed state of the two jackets but to some stripped classical shapes |alfa|2 and |beta|2. With inanimate devices, we can observe stripped classical jackets only. Not John wearing two jackets in a superposed state or entangled state [Ref. 6; Ref. 26; Note 1 ]. Hence we can not employ John to do some "quantum computing" [Ref. 7]. All questions we could ask about what John might be doing "during" the "time" of wearing two superposed jacket(s) are just meaningless -- there are no time operators in quantum mechanics. Even more: time is not an observable [Ref. 8]. Also, there is no such thing as "perfect clock" [Ref. 9].

All I could say at this point is what would be the wrong way of thinking about John's jackets. We can infer from classical physics that reality can be independent from observations: there is a chair behind me, no matter if I see it or not. Reality could also be totally subjective, for instance, if I want to think of a chair, I can evoke it in my imagination. These two extreme cases, objective and subjective reality, are not applicable to John's jackets. John is something like "a bit of two", being just in the middle between possibility and objective reality. Since we don't know the very nature of reality, this intermediate case of quantum reality -- call it quantum propensity [Note 2] -- cannot be rejected on theoretical grounds (which also means that theoretical discussions about the feasibility of quantum computing cannot be productive until the issue of John's jackets is sorted out by a complete theory of quantum gravity). There are some preliminary results suggesting that the task of describing this special case of quantum reality may not be insurmountable [Ref. 10]. I'm trying to show a cautious optimism here, because I think the ultimate test of any hidden-variable theory is building a quantum field theory which, in the case of [Ref. 10], is still out of sight.

Cutting the long story short, I need a full-blown theory of quantum gravity [Ref. 11] to see if there is a pattern in all physical interactions resulting from the basic idea of trialism -- a universal time arrow placing 'John' in the global time, and his 'jackets' in their reference frames, which may be scattered across the entire Universe. All interactions are considered strictly local; it is postulated that the effects of John are "inserted" between all spacetime events, but are physically unobservable due to the peculiar "speed" of light: any time we look at John's jackets, we observe his jackets left in the past, just like when we look at the Sun, we see how the Sun might have looked about 8 minutes ago, but not at the instant of observation, as recorded with our physical clock. Also, what I imply by 'physics of cognition' is how matter interacts with matter, i.e., with itself. There are no "mind-matter" or "mind over matter" postulates here, nor anything like "action at a distance" or even "passion at a distance" (A. Shimony). Just local matter-matter interactions, as is in the case of the human brain: we think about our brain, with our brain. I can not use quantum mechanics to model the human brain, however, because the non-commutativity of the algebra of observables and the irreversibility of measurement do not hold in the case of our brain. On the other hand, the Kochen-Specker theorem seems to be compatible with John's jackets, at least to the extent to which the latter distances from 'objective reality out there', being simply a quantum propensity [Note 2]. A summarization of this crucial point is here (quantum_brain.zip, 10 KB). The reader can verify this claim with her/his brain. Please note that the phenomenon of 'cat states of the human brain' may hold for both two possible results of a single observable (Schrödinger's cat) and two different observables (the product rule). The latter would imply negative probabilities [Ref. 12], which is yet another reason to suspect that quantum mechanics is essentially incomplete to describe the human brain (as well as Humphrey Maris' electrinos [Ref. 13], although that's a bit different story).

The crux of the problem is undoubtedly the measurement (macro-objectification) problem [Ref. 14]. I believe the idea of John's jackets offers a very powerful conceptual solution: John is a special quantum-propensity state of the whole Universe, in which everything is ONE.

Why do we need this ONE state? To determine which one of the classically allowed state or 'jacket' will be actualized: God casts the die, not the dice (A. Einstein). Today's quantum mechanics is a theory of choices without a chooser. This ONE state is the 'chooser', in both the human brain and the quantum world. In the latter case, the negotiation process (cf. Note 2) is nothing but quantum gravity which is gradually transformed into classical gravity, upon narrowing the quantum die (A. Einstein) to hold no more than one jacket, as in classical physics. In fact, the reason why we have 'objective reality out there' in classical physics is that the 'volume' of quantum die (John) is negligible, i.e., the Planck constant can be safely ignored [Ref. 42]. (By expanding the volume of quantum die, we approach the other limiting case of infinite virtual jackets, corresponding to some absolute vacuum and its mental correlate (qualia), the ultimate Platonic idea.) The point is that, by placing the Schnitt (cut) between John and his jackets, we have a true quantum reality which does not depend on what is created by it. Otherwise in quantum cosmology we run into a ridiculous Catch 22 type logical contradiction.

Hence to solve the measurement problem, we should  (1)  describe a QM object somehow "extended" in time [Ref. 28], i.e., as residing in some 'timeless' or atemporal medium [Ref. 29; Ref. 23], and  (2)  execute the projection postulate, within appropriate boundary conditions, to shrink the QM object to some point-like value (jacket), which is physically observable (=gauge independent, cf. Ref. 30).

We must always remember, however, that any physically observed 'jackets' can not provide a complete description of the extended quantum system (John) because of Heisenberg relations [Ref. 8; Ref. 42]. With inanimate measuring apparatus, we can only observe physical, point-like jackets of either John's "position" or John's "momentum", and hence a complete and point-like presentation of John's jackets would imply infinite values of the complementary 'jackets', in line with Heisenberg relations [Ref. 8; Ref. 42]. This is the new interpretation of Heisenberg relations which, in the framework of John's jackets, can be interpreted as flexibility, not "uncertainty", for casting jackets from John in the quantum realm 'out there'. Again, it is very important to stress that, with inanimate measuring apparatus, we are inevitably restricted to observing only one of the two complementary (non-commuting) sets of jackets. Had we been able to extend measurements in time, we might have observed the quantum reality of John, much like we observe two complementary 'jackets' with our brain while keeping their John ('remnant from the cat') very much alive and kicking.

Very briefly, the problem #1 is to include what Hoyle and Narlikar call "response of the universe" [Ref. 31; see also Ref. 32 and Ref. 33], which is "the only truly isolated system" [Ref. 34, p. 155; cf. also Sec. "The Idea of Entanglement"]. The latter is, however, a totally unphysical ONE entity, which is somehow lingering over each and every extended quantum object.

Perhaps the difficulties are inevitable due to the very description of 'dynamical evolution' in physics: you can work with a singular snapshot (or 'jacket') only, and provide just counterfactual statements about its evolution in the "future" and (consistent?) history in the "past". I can't see how this could be avoided, because in physics you must use boundary conditions and apply the normalization procedure, which inevitably confines you to a singular 'jacket' -- a finite and static section of the Universe. Hence by employing a singular-time snapshot, you are ultimately restricted to Heisenberg relations [Ref. 8] and inevitably lose the Berry phase in QM [Ref. 35], and also obtain two totally disjoint, separated worlds, material and tachyonic [Ref. 36; see also Ref. 37 and Ref. 38]. Needless to say, in the framework of this singular snapshot picture, it is simply impossible to comprehend the Hellwig-Kraus reduction [Ref. 39] nor Cramer's TI [Ref. 29]. It is not at all clear why should we apply time-asymmetry in quantum mechanics, nor what might be the final stage of gravitational collapse (if any) [Ref. 43; Ref. 44; Ref. 45; Ref. 46; Ref. 47].

In the quantum realm, however, an extended quantum object should somehow include EVERYTHING that is incompatible in the framework of the singular-time picture, such as, for example, co-existence of position and momentum. The fact that we can't observe them with inanimate apparatus might be an artifact from the misleading singular-time picture (recall that the apex of Minkowski cone can not hold more than one event), in which time runs in both directions and is therefore completely canceled [Ref. 29; Ref. 33].

The best way to explain how John's jackets fit in quantum mechanics is in the context of Everett interpretation (cf. "instruction sets" in Ref. 48), bearing in mind that all conceptual difficulties from counterfactual statements about the outcome of possible measurements (unperformed measurements yield no results, Asher Peres; see also quant-ph/0002009) are due to the singular snapshot picture, as explained two paragraphs above. In the context of the universal time arrow suggested here, the singular snapshot picture is entirely different, because it involves two kinds of time, global (unphysical and absolute) and local (physical), and all possible 'jackets' are postulated to exist as a new kind of reality, quantum propensity (cf. Note 2), which always stays in the potential future of the universal time arrow. Another way to grasp the meaning of John's jackets is offered in the two-state vector formalism of quantum mechanics [Ref. 49], which too requires two states of the quantum system: non-physical state, in the form of John residing in the global (unphysical and absolute) time, and a physical state, in the form of John's jacket, providing a snapshot picture in the local (physical) time, as read with a physical clock in the corresponding inertial frame. See also a recent effort for reviving Machian General Relativity [Ref. 50].

To the best of my knowledge, the possibility for two kinds of time has not been explored for solving the problem of relativistic description of the so-called collapse of wave function, a problem well-known since 1931.

Now, how can we solve problem #1, bearing in mind that there must exist some 'projection mechanism' (problem #2) creating a (continuous?) chain of snapshots in terms of spacetime foliations? None of them is unique or 'preferred' [Ref. 40], and yet there must be something -- the Universe as ONE entity -- which can bind them, or else we should not perceive neither time nor space. We should instead be soaring in some spaceless atemporal medium, -- if there is no time, there is no space either, due to the full reparametrization invariance of general relativity.

Psychologically, we can't imagine this ONE entity, simply because there is nothing "next to it" with respect to which this ONE entity could acquire meaning and become comprehensible. Physically, we could speculate that this ONE state is what one could "see" if riding a photon, with the "local" time rate being totally frozen [Ref. 15]. It is a numerically finite but physically unattainable boundary of the whole physical world, just like Planck scale or absolute zero "temperature". We may eventually think of it as some transcendental tachyon which is absolutely everywhere and therefore does not move, just because there is no place left to go to. Or as a mathematical point stretched to the dimensions of the whole Universe, in which case the metric tensor (or rather Weyl tensor) of this ONE state would be tending asymptotically toward zero. Or we may just label it with 'absolute vacuum', bearing in mind that this ONE state could be the source of everything. (Read an explanatory note here.)

Next, we examine a relatively simple living creature, say, a centipede, and ask a question: how does it walk, if described quantum-mechanically? The poor little thing doesn't know anything about the measurement problem in QM, and yet can provide a very simple hint: since the wave function propagates with the "speed" of light, every quantum-mechanical interaction of its legs can be regarded, in the reference frame of the centipede, as propagating on null surfaces [Ref. 15; Ref. 23].

By "inserting" John "between" each two successive points from its footpath -- which is a very difficult task known since the time of Zeno! -- we can say that each state of its legs, as observed in the past (cf. the example with the Sun above), has been EPR-like correlated with the rest possible states of centipede's legs. The act of EPR-like "negotiation" on the states of all legs, much like the famous game '20 questions' played by Wheeler [Note 2], looks like 'quantum interaction on null surfaces' [Ref. 15]. Physically, the duration of negotiating process is zero, because it has been 'filtered' through the apex  0  of spacetime cone (that's my interpretation of von Neumann's projection postulate). For this reason, John is wiped out from the actual walk of the centipede: any physical observation of the state of the legs shows just John's jackets left in the past. (It's a very important issue whether we can learn to feel with our brain the quantum propensity of John and anticipate the explication of his virtual jackets -- going entangled with John is not an easy task. Though it would be certainly less expensive than hunting for some "quantum computing" or Higgs bozon.)

The point here is that John can cast his jackets without "collapsing", and I believe the reader can easily verify it with her/his brain (see quantum_brain.zip). If so, we could explain not only the absence of superposed states of cats, tables, and chairs in our macro-world, but also the emergence of this world from some primordial quantum stuff. In the example with the centipede, every act of choosing the state of a leg (we can model it with a dice as well) resembles the creation of the physical Universe -- a creative, non-unitary transition from a totally symmetric six-dimensional space [Ref. 23] to our asymmetric world with four fundamental interactions and three families of particles. Without John, all this looks like a miracle [Ref. 25]. Well, I don't like miracles.

For instance, we could perhaps describe the non-unitary transition above as information gain occurring in every moment 'now' from the putative universal time arrow, hence making the enrichment of the Universe irreversible. If we run this creative universal time arrow backwards, we may see how the Universes is dropping off its physical content (information loss) up until it reaches the point of Pure Math (also known as [John 1:1]). Needless to say, this absolute cosmological time could be "measured" in the absolute reference frame of John only, which is why the measurable cosmological time, in any reference frame of John's jackets, runs indefinitely both to the "beginning" and to the "end". I believe all this sounds very familiar.

By 20 February 2001, I had sent information about this project to more than 220 physicists (well over 350, by the end of September 2001), and posted the basic ideas at four discussion groups on brain science and psychology. I intend now to drop all sophisticated issues and prepare a general-audience version of my manuscript Physics of Human Intention on CD ROM, which can be read with any web browser. I plan to include a short video presentation of PHI (hence the use of Greek letter 'phi') to demonstrate what I believe should be regarded -- to avoid even the thought that the first principle of thermodynamics could be violated -- as brain-controlled plasma states or shortly BCPS (currently known as PK and spoon bending, cf. Note 3). I believe John's jackets can open a fantastic avenue of research and exploration, particularly in medical sciences and natural healing by [Mark 5:30], provided we can learn to feel John as part of our body, and get entangled with his virtual jackets [Note 2], hence altering the latter in line with the Law of Reversed Effort (A. Huxley). Bending spoons may be a very intriguing BCPS effect (Note 3), but learning to cure cancer [Ref. 52] and AIDS is far more important [Ref. 53]. Briefly, I would like to offer an alternative to the so-called psi healing by PHI healing, hoping that one day PHI will be related to "psi" like astronomy to astrology.

I welcome all questions, critical comments, and suggestions, especially about  (i)  how one could extend the geometrical QM [Ref. 16] to cover gravity, and  (ii)  how might the human intention change the state of a physical system by altering spacetime curvature [Ref. 27] or in some other way resembling negative mass effect [Ref. 41]. This is not possible in the framework of a singular-time picture, because there is nothing to attach the human mind to. We need 'John', the propensity-state of the whole Universe, which in turns requires an extended (not point-like) quantum system (cf. above). Hence the quest for quantum gravity might not be entirely academic, because if we know where the mass/energy of elementary particles comes from [Ref. 11; Ref. 17], we might learn to harness the so-called negative gravitational mass [Ref. 18] and develop a warp drive [Ref. 19]. Perhaps some people have already done it [Ref. 20]. Why shouldn't we try [Ref. 21]?

What if our brain can somehow run the nullification of positive and negative mass [Ref. 18] backwards, or produce temporal phase-shifts [Ref. 22]? Do we know how the time runs in six-dimensional space [Ref. 23]? Do we know what time is, to begin with?

Many theoretical physicists believe that time is an illusion, but at the same time, for some strange reason, would consider themselves 'real'. Other would claim that, according to quantum cosmology, "long time ago there was a period of time during which there was still no time at all" (Yakov Zel'dovich, private communication, 8 April 1986). Given the lack of consensus on how to build quantum gravity [Ref. 24], such bizarre statements are hardly surprising.

Nobody had explained the mystery of time better than St. Augustine: "How can the past and future be when the past no longer is and the future is not yet? As for the present, if it were always present and never moved on to become the past, it would not be time but eternity."

Can we solve this mystery? I believe we can. Raffiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist Er nicht! (Albert Einstein).
 
 
 
 
D. Chakalov, [email protected]
Box 13
Dragalevtsy
BG-1415 Sofia, Bulgaria

First web version: 25 September 2000
Latest update: 22 May 2003

 

| dead cat > + | live cat > « CAT See my centipede The brain we think with

References and notes
 

1. E. Schrödinger. (1935). Die gegenwärtige Situation in der Quantenmechanik. Naturwissenschaften, Bd. 23, S. 807-812; 823-828; 844-849. Available online at
http://www.emr.hibu.no/lars/eng/cat/Default.htm
 

2. H. Atmanspracher and H. Primas (1997). The Hidden Side of Wolfgang Pauli. Journal of Scientific Exploration 11(3) 369-386; cf. Sec. VI. Matter and Psyche as Two Aspects of One Reality, p. 381.
 

3. R. Ruyer (1946). Element de Psycho-biologie. Paris: P.U.F.; R. Ruyer (1967). Evolution and cybernetics. Annee Biol. 6(9) 557-572. Available from BioMedNet http://www.bmn.com
 

4. H. Margenau (1940). Reality in Quantum Mechanics. Philosophy of Science, 16, 287-302; cf. p. 297.
 

5. E.H. Knill, M.A. Nielsen (2001). Theory of quantum computation.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0010057

(Short review article on quantum computation accepted for Encyclopaedia of Mathematics 2001, Supplement III.)

See also:

M.A. Nielsen, C.M. Dawson, J.L. Dodd, A. Gilchrist, D. Mortimer, T.J. Osborne, M.J. Bremner, A.W. Harrow, and A. Hines (2002). Quantum dynamics as a physical resource.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0208077

Michael A. Nielsen et al.: "While promising preliminary results have been obtained, it is clear that an enormous amount of work remains to be done".

M.A. Nielsen (2002). Quantum information science as an approach to complex quantum systems.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0208078

Michael A. Nielsen: "In quantum mechanics we're like chess players who've just learnt the rules of the game, and are still trying to figure out all the emergent properties those rules imply [21]."

6. A. Steane (2000). A quantum computer only needs one universe.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0003084

Andrew Steane: "This is a good illustration of the fact that the essential element in quantum (as contrasted with classical) computing is not superposition but entanglement. It is the entanglement in the right hand side of  Link{fx} which makes the quantum state computationally useful, and it is entanglement which is hard to express succinctly in mathematical notation.
.....
"A quantum computation can be efficient at generating the specific result desired, because quantum superposition is an efficient way of representing possibilities without fully realising them, and quantum entanglement provides a means to interpret such superpositions (that is, extract information from them) in ways more general than a simple extraction of one term in the superposition."
 

Note 1. Take four entangled particles, A, B, C, and D, prepared with Molmer-Sørensen technique [Sackett et al., Nature 404, 256-259 (16 March 2000)]. To assign probabilities to A as "50% chance for UP and 50% chance for DOWN", I believe we somehow have to include B, C, and D.

If that is what we should do, I have a problem, because I can't define positive probabilities by assuming that in the case of A, there is a 50% chance for UP, provided that B, C, and D have ALREADY definite but UNKNOWN to particle A states; and that also there is a 50% chance for DOWN, provided that B, C, and D have ALREADY definite but UNKNOWN to particle A states.

See also:

Michel I. Dyakonov (2001). Quantum computing: a view from the enemy camp.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cond-mat/0110326

"The list of similar problems could be easily enlarged. However, there is a more fundamental reason why in practice the postulate 4 will be violated. So long as the energies of states |0> and |1> are different, which is the case for two-level atoms or spins in an external magnetic field, the general superposition in Eq. 4 will not remain unchanged, even if there is no relaxation and no quantum gates are applied. The reason is simple: (...).
...
"The fashion of quantum computer building will gradually die away, the sooner, the better. Research in atomic and spin physics is interesting and useful on its own and need not be justified by irresponsible projects and promises."

Subhash Kak (2001). Are Quantum Computing Models Realistic?
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0110040

Subhash Kak (2002). Uncertainty In Quantum Computation.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0206006

Subhash Kak: "In the present paper, we consider the problem from a slightly different perspective, where the quantum register is supposed to have already been used for the solution of some problem. The task now is to prepare this register to start a new computation. The standard quantum algorithms require that the register be in a definite superposition state with, at worst, an unknown global phase."

Subhash Kak (2002). Can Qubit Errors Be Corrected?
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0206144

Subhash Kak: "Since quantum calculations are sensitive to the phase values, they can have uncontrollable effects.

"Only discrete quantities to which small values of noise are added can be corrected, and noise added to an analog variable cannot be removed; quantum phase is an analog variable."

Subhash Kak (April 10, 2003). Three Paradoxes of Quantum Information.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0304060
 

Kent A. Peacock, Brian S. Hepburn (1999). Begging the Signalling Question: Quantum Signalling and the Dynamics of Multiparticle Systems.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9906036

Guillaume Adenier (2001). Representation of Joint Measurement in Quantum Mechanics. A Refutation of Quantum Teleportation.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0105031

Guillaume Adenier: "The joint eigenvalue representation allowed to solve the inconsistency pointed out within Quantum Mechanics which was originating in the correlation degeneracy representation. This allowed to question the use of entangled states as eigenvectors, and to demonstrate that entangled  vectors are not eigenvectorsand that as such they cannot be used as basis vectors. Quantum Teleportation, which is based on the use of such a basis of entangled vectors, was thus demonstrated to be irrelevant to Quantum Mechanics."

My problems with understanding how one could manipulate entanglement locally are also explained here. I believe the main problem is that we still don't have a relativistic quantum theory of measurement, as stressed by Erwin Schrödinger seventy years ago.
 

7. J. Baez (21 July 2000). It's a Quantum World.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/quantum.html

John Baez: "What about 'quantum computation'? Well, Bohr and Heisenberg also found that when you DON'T measure something, it remains indeterminate. The classic example is Schroedinger's imaginary experiment involving a cat that's both alive and dead until you actually look at it. Now people are using this idea to design 'quantum computers': gadgets that do several computations simultaneously in a ghostly superposition, only merging again when you look at the answer at the end. So far only toy models have been built: it's hotly debated whether full-scale quantum computers will ever be practical."

(Impressions from the 13th International Congress on Mathematical Physics [ICMP 2000, Imperial College, London], written by John Baez for The London Times Higher Education Supplement.)
 

8. J. Baez (March 11, 2000). The Time-Energy Uncertainty Relation.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/uncertainty.html

John Baez: "In other words, there is no time observable! I leave it as a puzzle to prove this theorem starting from some physically realistic assumptions."

See also:
Paul Busch (2001). The Time Energy Uncertainty Relation.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0105049
 

9. W.G. Unruh and R.M. Wald (1989). Time and the Interpretation of Canonical Quantum Gravity. Phys. Rev. D40, 2598-2614.
 

10. D.A. Slavnov (2001). Quantum mechanics with the permitted hidden parameters.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/quant-ph/0010069
 

11. J. Baez (25 August 1999). What's the Energy Density of the Vacuum?
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/vacuum.html

John Baez: "Reconciling answers 1) and 5) is one of the big tasks of any good theory of quantum gravity."

See also:
Serge Reynaud, Astrid Lambrecht, Cyriaque Genet, Marc-Thierry Jaekel (2001). Quantum vacuum fluctuations.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0105053
 

12. J.L. Cereceda (2001). Local hidden-variable models and negative-probability measures.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0010091

José Luis Cereceda (p. 8): "Otherwise, the LHV model could yield joint detection events which, by assumption, never happen."
 

13. M. Chown (2000). Double or Quit. New Scientist 168(2260) 24 (14 October 2000).
http://www.newscientist.com/features/features_226015.html

Marcus Chown: "A lone researcher says he can cut an electron in two. If he's right, quantum physics is dead."
 

14. A. Bassi, G-C. Ghirardi (2000). A General Argument Against the Universal Validity of the Superposition Principle.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0009020

Angelo Bassi and GianCarlo Ghirardi: "The very possibility of performing measurements on a microsystem combined with the assumed general validity of the linear nature of quantum evolution leads to a fundamental contradiction."
....
"This final state is an entangled state of the microscopic system and of the apparatus, and it is well known that (if one assumes that the theory is complete, i.e., that the wave-function contains all the information about the system) in the considered case it is not even in principle legitimate to state that the properties associated to the states  |M_m>  or  |M_l>  are possessed by the apparatus (the same holds true for the microsystem): as a consequence, the apparatus is not in any macroscopic definite configuration. This is the essence of the quantum measurement problem."

See also: GianCarlo Ghirardi, Luca Marinatto (2002). Entanglement and Properties.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0206021

GianCarlo Ghirardi and Luca Marinatto: "Up to this point we have confined our attention to quantum systems considered as a whole. However the phenomenon of quantum entanglement makes the situation much more puzzling when consideration is given to composite quantum systems and one raises the problem of the properties of their constituents. As we will see, in such a case it is very common to meet situations (most of which arise as a consequence of the interactions between the constituents) in which the constituents themselves do not possess *any property whatsoever*. This is a new feature which compels us to face a quite peculiar state of affairs: not only must one limit drastically the actual properties of physical systems (being in any case true that the system as a whole always has some properties), but one is forced also to accept that the parts of a composite system can have no property at all. In this way the quantum picture of the universe as an "unbroken whole", or as "undivided", emerges."
 

15. K.S. Brown. Quantum Interactions on Null Surfaces.
http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath238.htm
 

Note 2. John A. Wheeler described, in a symposium held on the occasion of the centenary of Einstein's birth, a game of twenty questions, which he had played with a group of people at a dinner party. When it was his turn to be sent from the room so that all guests could decide what object should be identified with no more than twenty questions, a sudden change of rules was secretly decided upon by the rest of participants. The story, as told by John and Marry Gribbin (In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, London: Black Swan, 1998, p. 209), goes as follows: "There had been a plot not to agree on an object to be guessed, but that each person, when asked, must give a truthful answer concerning some real object that was in his mind, and which was consistent with all the answers that had gone before." With only one question left, John Wheeler guessed: "Is it a cloud?" The answer was "Yes!".

Obviously, the answer "cloud" was created by the process of questioning, for it had not existed up until the last question. By the same token, one could claim that the option "cloud" had in fact existed as a virtual jacket worn by our John. If you stick to Kochen-Specker theorem, take the first option. If you don't, take the second one, with the kind of a 'realist' flavor. In both cases, you'll be right.

As Werner Heisenberg said, "The wave function represents partly a fact and partly our knowledge of a fact". Replace 'knowledge' with 'propensity-state in the global time mode', and you will get the nature of quantum reality. Quantum computing might look very promising, but only to the extent to which the wave function represents a fact. The unitary transformations in QM can "encode" their John-state for one instant of time only, as read with a physical clock. To make a quantum compurter, one has to be able to keep the non-normalizable John-state alive and kicking for an indefinite period of time.

This is the essence of quantum-propensity reality, an intermediate case between purely objective and purely subjective reality. The fact that we understand it is the ultimate proof that this kind of reality does exist. Is there any other proof of reality?
 

16. A. Ashtekar, T.A. Schilling (1997). Geometrical Formulation of Quantum Mechanics.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9706069

Ashtekar & Schilling: "The geometric formulation shows that the linear structure which is at the forefront in text-book treatments of quantum mechanics is, primarily, only a technical convenience and the essential ingredients -- the manifold of states, the symplectic structure and the Riemannian metric -- do not share this linearity."
 

17. Ya.P. Terletsky (1968). Paradoxes in the Theory of Relativity. New York: Plenum, Ch. VI. (Very important and rare book, available from Direct Textbook only.)
 

18. R.L. Forward (1990). Negative Matter Propulsion. Journal of Propulsion and Power 6(1) 28,
http://www.whidbey.com/forward/TechPubs.html

Robert L. Forward (p. 36): "Nullification would be a mutual particle destruction process similar to the annihilation process that occurs when an antimatter particle physically contacts a normal matter particle. In antimatter-normal matter annihilation, the two particles are destroyed and their combined rest mass is released as energy. In negative matter-positive matter nullification, the two particles would be destroyed, but since their combined mass is zero, no energy would be released."
 

19. M. Alcubierre (1994). The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0009013

Miguel Alcubierre: "The spaceship will then be able to travel much faster than the speed of light. However, as we have seen, it will always remain on a timelike trajectory, that is, inside its local light-cone: light itself is also being pushed by the distortion of spacetime. A propulsion mechanism based on such a local distortion of spacetime just begs to be given the familiar name of the "warp drive" of science fiction. 

"The metric I have just described has one important drawback, however: it violates all three energy  conditions (weak, dominant and strong)."

See also:
Jose Natario (2001). Warp Drive With Zero Expansion.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0110086
 

20. March 13, 1997: UFOs in Arizona. USA Today, 18 June 1997,
http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/newse/june/arizona.html

See also: William J. Birnes and Harold Burt. Unsolved UFO Mysteries. Warner Books, New York, 2000. Ch. 1, p. 23: "Whether some of the Phoenix Lights were flares or flying triangles, the response of the State of Arizona, the U.S. Air Force, and the Department of Defence has been silence."

21. J.B. Hasted (1981). The Metal-Benders. London: Routledge & Kegan.
 

Jinchuan Shen and Chulin Sun (August 25, 2002). Solid Evidence of Psychic Power: Materiality of Consciousness (Sixteen Years Research on Sun Chulin Phenomena). Human PSI Forum, Makuhari, Chiba, Japan, August 22-27, 2002. (Contact info: Prof. Jinchuan Shen, 1-1707, Xuezhi Garden, Xueqing Road No.16, Beijing 100083, China; email: [email protected], phone: +86-10-62953109/+86-10-82327807.)

Jinchuan Shen and Chulin Sun: "Based on the phenomena mentioned above, two key ideas appeared and hovered in our mind:
"1. Most of Psi phenomena are closely related to consciousness, so consciousness actually can be considered as a kind of matter, but more microscopic, in higher level, with more complex forms of movements. Interactions between mind and body, mind and matter could be thought as interaction between matter to matter in a broad sense.
"2. Most of Psi phenomena are also closely related to different intelligence, universe is unlimited, according to the result of astronomy research , there are over 150 billion stellar system in our galaxy and at least one billon galaxy in the universe, obviously  we are not (solitary )stand alone in our universe, so there must be a large amount of HIIPC ( High Intelligent Information Processing Centers ) in universe and psychic persons or qigong masters are capable of communicating with the various kinds of HIIPC more efficiently than the average person can."

J. Mishlove (October 2000). The PK Man: A True Story of Mind Over Matter.
http://www.williamjames.com/pkman.htm

Kenneth A. Kress. Parapsychology in Intelligence: A Personal Review and Conclusions. Winter 1977 issue of Studies in Intelligence, released to the public in 1996.

http://www.parascope.com/ds/articles/parapsychologyDoc.htm

Kenneth A. Kress: "A man was found by Targ and Puthoff who apparently had psychokinetic abilities. He was taken on a surprise visit to a superconducting shielded magnetometer being used in quark (high energy particle) experiments by Dr. A. Hebbard of Stanford University Physics Department. The quark experiment required that the magnetometer be as well shielded as technology would allow. Nevertheless, when the subject placed his attention on the interior of the magnetometer, the output signal was visibly disturbed, indicating a change in the internal magnetic field. Several other correlations of his mental efforts with signal variations were observed. These variations were never seen before or after the visit."

S. Padfield (1980). Mind-Matter Interaction in the Psychokinetic Experience. In: Consciousness and the Physical World. Edited proceedings of an interdisciplinary symposium on consciousness held at the University of Cambridge in January 1978. Ed. by Brian D. Josephson and Vilayanur S. Ramachandran. London: Pergamon Press, pp. 165-175.

Suzanne Padfield: "In the case of psychokinesis I am also aware of a sequence of possible events, as it were, in stages which I feel myself to be exploring. It differs from psychometry in that I am aware of the possibility of future events which are open to me and I am able to choose one of them, which becomes the actuality. In the case of the light mobile system it is the new position it will occupy" (p. 176).

"During the experimental session I was able to produce excursions of the beam through angles of say 45 degrees, at will, every few seconds for as long as I was asked. In circumstances like these I would hardly bother with probability calculations, but they would be there for sticklers on experimental protocol" (p. 172).

"... you had to feel a part of the whole system and process... " (p. 175).

B. D. Josephson and V. S. Ramachandran, Editorial note: "Psychokinesis is explained as a process  of first creating an image of a future possibility for the object out of a structure within the object which encodes that possibility, and then interacting with that structure so as to trigger off a causal chain (Sic! - D.C.) leading to that possibility being realized. (...) The  explanation she gives would be quite conventional if one were to accept the idea that an external object could by some mechanism function as part of a person's nervous system, a possibility which is difficult to deny on purely logical grounds" (p. 171).

See also: Eric W. Davis, Teleportation Physics Study, Special Technical Report, AFRL-PR-ED-TR-2003-0034, AFRL/PRSP, August 2004,
http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/teleport.pdf
(1,709,941 bytes)

Eric W. Davis, pp. 55-59: "PK phenomenon was also explored in the Remote Viewing program. Col. J. B. Alexander (USA ret.) credits professional aerospace engineer Jack Houck for "capturing PK phenomenon and transitioning it into an observable form" (Houck, 1982, 1984a, b; Alexander  et al., 1990; Alexander, 2003). During the past three decades, Houck (along with  Alexander) held a number of PK sessions, whereby attendees are taught the PK induction process, and initiate their own PK events using various metal specimens (forks, spoons, etc.). Individuals were able to completely bend or contort their metal specimens with no physical force being applied whatsoever. Numerous government science advisors and senior military officials took part in and/or witnessed these events, which took place at the Pentagon, at officers’ or scientists’ homes, and at one quarterly INSCOM retreat attended by the commanding general and a group of colonels and generals commanding INSCOM units around the globe. Spontaneous deformation of the metal specimens was observed at the PK session conducted during the INSCOM retreat, causing a great deal of excitement among those present. Other notable trained observers were also present at this session, and they critically reviewed the events.

"Psychic Uri Geller (1975) is the original model for demonstrating PK metal bending. During a talk that he gave at the U.S. Capitol building, Uri caused a spoon to curve upward with no force applied, and then the spoon continued to bend after he put it back down and continued with his talk (Alexander, 1996). Jack Houck continues doing extensive experimental work and data collection on micro- and macro-PK phenomena.
...

"One of the more interesting examples of controlled experiments with Uri Geller was one in which he was able to cause a part of a vanadium carbide crystal to vanish (Hasted et al., 1975). The crystal was encapsulated so it could not be touched, and it was placed in such a way that it could not be switched with another crystal by sleight of hand. A more spectacular series of rigorously controlled (and repeatable!) laboratory experiments occurred in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). In September 1981, an extraordinary paper was published in the PRC in the journal Ziran Zazhi (transl.: Nature Journal), and this paper was entitled, "Some Experiments on the Transfer of Objects Performed by Unusual Abilities of the Human Body" (Shuhuang et al., 1981). The paper reported that gifted children were able to cause the apparent teleportation of small objects (radio micro-transmitters, photosensitive paper, mechanical watches, horseflies, other insects, etc.) from one location to another (that was meters away) without them ever touching the objects beforehand. The experiments were operated under exceptionally well-controlled conditions (both blind and double-blind). The researchers involved included not only observers from various PRC colleges and medical research institutes, but also representatives from the PRC National Defense Science Commission. Because of the involvement of the latter, it was deemed necessary that an unclassified Intelligence Information Report be prepared by the DIA (see Shuhuang et al., 1981), which included a detailed English translation of the article.

"Additional research carried out by the Aerospace Medicine Engineering Institute in Beijing was reported in the July 1990 issue of the Chinese Journal of Somatic Science (Kongzhi et al., 1990; Jinggen et al., 1990; Banghui, 1990), which was also translated into English by the DIA. Reported in several articles are experiments involving the videotaping and high-speed photography of the transfer of test specimens (nuts, bundles of matches, pills, nails, thread, photosensitive paper, chemically treated paper, sponges dipped in FeCl3, etc.) through the walls of sealed paper envelopes, double layered KCNS type paper bags, sealed glass bottles and tubes with sealed caps, and sealed plastic film canisters without the walls of any of these containers being breached. All of the Chinese experiments reported using gifted children and young adults, who possessed well-known extraordinary PK ability, to cause the teleportation of the various test specimens.

"In all the experimental cases that were reported, the test specimens that were teleported were completely unaltered or unchanged from their initial state, even the insects were unaffected by being teleported. The experiments were well controlled, scientifically recorded, and the experimental results were always repeatable.
...

"... -- it was discovered that there was a definite correlation between the change in strength (i.e., radical frequency shifts were observed) of the monitored radio signal and the teleportation of the test specimen, such that the weak or absent signal indicated that the specimen was "nonexistent" (or in an altered physical state) during teleportation (note: the monitored signal amplitude and frequency of the micro-transmitter specimen were stable before and after teleportation);

" the experimental results were all repeatable 
...

"The discovery of p-Teleportation already commenced in the 20th century, so let us continue the discovery and create a new physics paradigm for the 21st century."
 

Lu Zuyin (1997). Scientific Qigong Exploration. The Wonders and Mysteries of Qi. Malvern: Amber Leaf Press. (To order the book from Amazon.com, click here.)

Xin Yan et al. (1999). Structure and property changes in certain materials influenced by the external qi of qigong. Material Research Innovations, 2(6) 349. (Read the abstract here.) 
 

Note 3. Excerpts from http://www.demo.technocom.co.uk/hpnet/aftereffect.htm

Professor John Hasted (University of London):

"We possess four numbered and weighed brass Yale keys which were bent through angles of between 10 and 40 degrees under light stroking action by Mr. Geller. If, under symmetrical four-point loading, force pulses of the order of 500N (say 50Kgs of weight) had been applied to the keys, similar bends would have been produced. No loss of surface brightness or change of weight, within the supernatural error of 1mg was observed. Mr. Geller applied a light, stroking action between forefinger and thumb, or by forefinger, with key placed on the table. In all cases, several witnesses watched the entire operation intently from within 1 metre. In one case, the key was not stroked but was simply, held under a cold water tap. In all cases the bending took a time of the order of minutes to complete, and it usually appeared to continue for a short while after the stroking had been terminated. No physical, or chemical explanation of these phenomena is readily apparent. The mean grain size at the bent surface has been compared with that in unbent and mechanically bent specimens by x-ray reflection and electron micrograph. No significant change in grain orientation or size was noted."

Dr. Kit Pedler (Head of the Electron Microscopy Department, University of London):

"I have personally witnessed and experienced on two occasions the metal bending abilities of Uri Geller. These experiments were conducted under rigorous laboratory conditions. In these two experiments the thick steel rod I was holding and observing carefully bent, and continued to bend, in my own hand. One rod bent to 90 degrees during a period of approximately six minutes while I was holding it. The other steel rod bent after Uri Geller stroked it and continued bending on a glass table without anyone touching it. The steel rods were provided by myself. I consider the Geller effect to be a phenomenon which should be studied seriously by science."

Eldon Byrd (Former scientist at the American Naval Surface Weapons Center, Maryland, USA):

"The metal Uri bends is not subjected to force. I have seen the electron microscope photos of several items Uri has bent without force--the grain structure is very even; whereas, like items bent by force had a chaotic grain structure both at the margins and internally. I had a shadowgraph done of one of the Nitinol wires Uri touched while I was holding both ends. He altered the shape memory at the molecular level and caused it to go to an angle so acute that a similar piece broke when an attempt was made to bend it to such an acute angle. Also, an electron microscope photo of the wire at the bend revealed that stress marks were apparent along the wire due to the extrusion process by which the wire was made; however, there were no stress lines apparent longitudinally at the bend. A density analysis showed that the material in the wire was more dense on TOP of the bend where stretching should have occurred, not underneath as one would expect where compression occurred. I not only have seen many items continue to bend after Uri had touched them (mostly knife blades and forks that he had stroked with ONE finger); I have also had cutlery in my hand spontaneously bend and continue to bend over a five or six second period while Uri was across the room and had never interacted with the item."
 

22. B.T. Guay (1999). About Charge Density Wave for Electromagnetic Field-Drive.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/physics/9911061
 

23. K.S. Brown. Spacetime Mediation of Quantum Interactions.
http://mathpages.com/rr/s9-11/9-11.htm

Kevin S. Brown: "An interesting feature of this interpretation is that, in addition to the usual 3+1 dimensions, spacetime requires two more "curled up" dimensions of angular orientation to represent the possible directions in space. The need to treat these as dimensions in their own right arises from the non-transitive topology of the pseudo-Riemannian manifold. Each point  [t,x,y,z]  actually consists of a two-dimensional orientation space, which can be parameterized (for any fixed frame) in terms of ordinary angular coordinates  q  and  f . Then each point in the six-dimensional space with coordinates  [x,y,z,t,q,f ]  is a terminus for a unique pair of spacetime rays, one forward and one backward in time."

See also: http://www.mathpages.com/home/iphysics.htm
 

24. J. Baez (1999). Higher-Dimensional Algebra and Planck-Scale Physics.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9902017

John Baez: "To make matters worse, experts often fail to emphasize the difference between experimental results, theories supported by experiment, speculative theories that have gained a certain plausibility after years of study, and the latest fads. Philosophers must take what physicists say about quantum gravity with a grain of salt."
 

25. L. Smolin (2001). Three Roads to Quantum Gravity. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Ch. 14, "What chooses the laws of nature?", pp. 205-206.
 

26. Guang-jiong Ni (2001). What Schrödinger's Cat is Telling.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0103064
 

27. J. Baez (2001). The Meaning of Einstein's Equation.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0103044

John C. Baez: "Similarly, in general relativity gravity is not really a 'force', but just a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime. Note: not the curvature of space, but of spacetime. The distinction is crucial. If you toss a ball, it follows a parabolic path. This is far from being a geodesic in space: space is curved by the Earth's gravitational field, but it is certainly not so curved as all that! The point is that while the ball moves a short distance in space, it moves an enormous distance in time, since one second equals about 300,000 kilometers in units where  c=1 . This allows a slight amount of spacetime curvature to have a noticeable effect.
......

"We promised to state Einstein's equation in plain English, but have not done so yet. Here it is:

"The rate at which a small initially comoving ball of freely falling test particles begins to shrink is proportional to its volume times: the energy density at the center of the ball, plus the pressure in the  direction at that point, plus the pressure in the  direction, plus the pressure in the  direction."

See also a note by John Baez on background-independent theories (April 5, 1997) at
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge12.html

John C. Baez: "I won't try to define a "background-independent theory" here. It's easier to start with the main example of such a theory, namely general relativity. Normally we imagine running an experiment and timing it with a clock on the wall that ticks along merrily regardless of what's going on in the experiment. In general relativity it's known that this is not strictly true. This has to do with how gravity affects spacetime.

"Very roughly speaking, if you move an object, you change the gravitational field in the room and inevitably affect the rate of ticking of the clock. So if you run an experiment and ask "what did the voltage meter read when the clock said it was 5:30 pm?" you have to recognize that the experimental setup has affected not only the oscilloscope but also the clock. To put it rather floridly, you can't treat the spacetime measured by clocks and rulers as some sort of fixed grid upon which events play out while remainingly loftily unaffected by these events; instead, it interacts with them.

"For most purposes these effects are small enough that we can either ignore them or treat them as small corrections. The fun starts when we try to figure out how to do physics while taking them seriously. In one approach, one decides to treat everything relationally. In particular, one treats clocks as just another part of the physical world with no privileged status: instead of asking what the voltage meter reads when the clock says it's 5:30, one could equally well ask "what did the clock say when the voltage meter read 217 V?".

"Taking this viewpoint to the extreme, one can argue that the laws of physics don't describe how things change "as time passes": instead, they just express correlations between various observed quantities (Sic! - D.C.), like meter readings. This is what's meant by the "disappearance of time" in background-independent theories."
 

28. M. Toller (1997). On the Quantum Space-Time Coordinates of an Event.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9702060

Marco Toller: "The argument given above, discussed by Wightman [Wightman A.S. (1962). On the Localizability of Quantum Mechanical Systems. Rev. Mod. Phys. 34, 845-872], is an immediate generalization of a well known argument due to Pauli [Pauli W. (1958). Die allgemeinen Prinzipien der Wellenmechanik. Handbuch der Physik, edited by S. Flügge, vol. V/1, Berlin: Springer Verlag, p. 60] concerning the time observable  T , namely the quantity obtained by reading a quantum clock. It satisfies the commutation relation

{dT\over dt}=i[H,T]=1,

where  t  is the usual time parameter, measured by a classical external clock. If T  is self-adjoint this equation contradicts the fact that the spectrum of the Hamiltonian  H  is bounded from below."
 

29. J. G. Cramer (1986). The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.
Rev. Mod. Phys. 58, 647-687,

http://mist.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/tiqm/TI_fig_04.html

http://mist.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/tiqm/TI_fn.html#f14

See also: J. Gribbin, Solving the quantum mysteries,
http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/Home/John_Gribbin/quantum.htm#Solving

John Gribbin: "Cramer does this by effectively standing outside of time, and using the semantic device of a description in terms of some kind of pseudotime. (...) Whether the signals are travelling backwards or forwards in time doesn't matter, since they take zero time (in their own frame of reference), and +0 is the same as -0  --  and all the quantum probability waves do travel at the speed of light."

See also [Ref. 15] and [Ref. 36, Footnote 4].
 

30. H. Lyre (2001). The Principles of Gauging.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0101047

Holger Lyre: "Only gauge-independent quantities are observable"
...
"Usually physicists think along these lines. They do consider gauge potentials as real entities because of topological effects in field theories. This view is supported by some kind of a common-sense indispensability argument: First, gauge potentials -- and matter-fields -- are the genuine objects in the fiber bundle formulation of gauge theories. They are clearly indispensable for the mathematical formulation (as being the connection forms). Also, they are indispensable for the physical formulation of quantum field theories, since both the coupling structure (vertex structure) as well as the quantization procedure itself are represented on the level of potentials and not the field strengths. How, then, are we to do physics without potentials?

"As Michael Redhead (2000) has pointed out, the situation is even worse, since no matter whether we consider potentials real or not, we will always face ontological problems. Quite generally, such problems seem to arise in theories with a certain mathematical surplus structure. Here we have a mathematical structure  M'  which is larger than the structure  M  needed for a direct correspondence (i.e. isomorphism) to the observable physical structure  P . The complement of  M  in  M'  might be called surplus structure. Gauge potentials are an example of surplus structure in gauge theories. Now, "Redhead's dilemma" looks like the following: On the one hand the reality of gauge-dependent potentials implies a mystic influence from non-observable physical beables to observable ones. This, in fact, is a version of the famous hole argument -- and this first horn of the dilemma leaves us with indeterminism. [Footnote: For a discussion of the bundle space hole argument see Lyre (1999)].

"The second horn is that once we assert the non-reality of gauge potentials, this implies a "Platonist" role for mathematical elements to influence physical beables."
 

31. F. Hoyle and J. V. Narlikar (1995). Cosmology and action-at-a-distance electrodynamics. Rev. Mod. Phys. 67(1), 113-155.

F. Hoyle and J. V. Narlikar, pp. 153-154: "The discussions of [earlier parts of their paper] tell us that it is not proper to talk of a probability amplitude for a local microscopic system. The correct description of the physical behavior of the system follows from the probability calculation that includes the [future] response of the universe.... This may explain the mystery that surrounds such epistemological issues like the collapse of the wave function. What is missing from the usual discussion of the problem is the response of the universe... We suggest this idea as a way of understanding many other conceptual issues of quantum mechanics. It may well be that the real nonlocal "hidden variables" are contained in the response of the universe."

See also:
G. Burbidge (2001). Quasi-Steady State Cosmology.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0108051

G.F.R. Ellis (2001). Cosmology and Local Physics.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0102017

and

T. Padmanabhan (2001). Combining general relativity and quantum theory: points of conflict and contact.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0110046

T. Padmanabhan: "All energies gravitate thereby removing the ambiguity in the zero level for the energy, which exists in non-gravitational interactions. This feature also suggests that there is no such thing as a free, non-interacting field. Any non-trivial classical field configuration will possess certain amount of energy which will curve the spacetime, thereby coupling the field to itself indirectly. Gravitational field is not only nonlinear in its own coupling, but also makes all matter fields self-interacting."
 

32. John Moffat (1997). Quantum Measurements, Nonlocality and the Arrow of Time.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9710019
 

33. J. F. Woodward. Killing Time. Found. Phys. Lett. 9(1), 1996,
http://chaos.fullerton.edu/~jimw/kill-time

James F. Woodward: "All is well. We have not had to suppress any solutions as unphysical or invoke a "causality" postulate. But the future exists and inertial reaction forces are naked advanced signals from that "already" actualized future.
...
"The obvious comment to make is that the quantum mechanical vacuum must be the aether of our era. If it really did exist, I would not have written this, and you would not be reading it. The universe would be curled up into an idiotically small ball because of the incredibly large energy density of the vacuum. (For a review of the various attempts to deal with this problem chiefly in the context of relativistic quantum field theory and quantum cosmology see Weinberg [1989].) How then do we account for its predicted and observed effects? As advanced effects [and thus seemingly instantaneous and local] from the distant matter in the universe. Oddly enough, quantum vacuum effects may well be evidence for the correctness of Mach's principle, not for a real, seething structure to emptiness.
...
"So an excited atom cannot radiate until the absorption by another atom of the photon to be emitted is irreversibly established. Radiation reaction, it follows, is not a local process involving emission of radiation only, it is determined by the spatio-temporally removed absorber whose effects, nonetheless, are felt instantaneously because they are communicated by advanced waves. Put another way, radiation reaction is another of the weird (but neat) non-local effects most obviously encountered in quantum measurement theory. And since the complete absorber is of cosmic dimensions, we once again encounter Mach's principle, albeit in a situation far removed from any Mach would have anticipated.
...
"Local vacuum fluctuations are not consistent with the reality in which we exist (unless they are exactly balanced by negative energy density of unknown origin to a part in many, many orders of magnitude). And (gravitational/)inertial reaction forces are naked advanced effects in the advanced interpretation. If they occur in gravity, as they evidently do, it would seem unlikely they would be absent in electrodynamics."
 

34. C.J. Isham (1995). Lectures on Quantum Theory: Mathematical and Structural Foundations. Singapore: World Scientific.
 

35. C. Anastopoulos, K. Savvidou (2001). Quantum mechanical histories and the Berry phase.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0007093

Charis Anastopoulos and Ntina Savvidou: "In the single-time description of a quantum system the geometric phase is lost. Hence it is rather difficult to understand its physical meaning in standard quantum theory."

36. M. Tegmark (1997). On the dimensionality of spacetime.
http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/dimensions.html
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9702052

Max Tegmark, Footnote 4: "The only remaining possibility is the rather contrived case where data is specified on a null hypersurface. To measure such data, an observer would need to "live on the light cone", i.e., travel with the speed of light, which means that it would subjectively not perceive any time at all (its proper time would stand still)."

See also: D.D. Rabounski, L.B. Borissova (2003). Particles here and beyond the Mirror.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0304018

"These areas are referred to as our world, where time flows into future and as the mirror Universe, where time flows in past. The areas are separated with a space-time membrane, referred to as zero-space, where observable time stops. (...) From viewpoint of a regular observer zero-particles move instantly, thus they can realize zero-transportation."
 

37. R.H.A. Farias, E. Recami (1997). Introduction of a Quantum of Time (chronon), and its Consequences for Quantum Mechanics.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9706059

R.H.A. Farias and E. Recami: "There are three equations, -- retarded, symmetric, and advanced Schrödinger equations, all of them transforming into the (same) continuous equation when the fundamental interval of time (that now can be called just tau) goes to zero."

E. Recami, Ruy H.A. Farias (2002). A simple quantum equation for Decoherence and dissipation (through interaction with the environment).
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0206117

Erasmo Recami and Ruy H.A. Farias, p. 4: "This theory postulates the existence of a universal interval  (tau0)  of  proper  time, even if time flows continuously as in the ordinary theory. When an external force acts on the electron, however, the reaction of the particle to the applied force is not continuous. The value of the electron velocity  u  is supposed to jump from  u [(tau)- (tau0)]  to  u (tau)  only at certain positions sn along its world line; these "discrete positions" being such that the electron takes a time  (tau0)  for travelling from one position sn-1 to the next one sn.
...

"Thus, the reduction to the diagonal form occurs, provided that  (tau)  possesses a finite value, no matter how small (...).
...

"Let us repeat that the introduction of a fundamental interval of time in the description of the measurement problem made possible a simple but effective formalization of the state reduction process (through a mechanism that can be regarded as a decoherence caused by interaction with the environment [2]) only for the retarded case.
...

"Second: the new discrete formalism allows not only the description of the stationary states, but also a (space-time) description of transient states."
 

38. Erasmo Recami (2001). Superluminal motions? A bird-eye view of the experimental situation.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/physics/0101108
 

39. R. Srikanth (2001). Observables in Relativistic Quantum Mechanics.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0103070

R. Srikanth: "A corollary of backward-time reduction is that the present wavefunction of a system already contains influences due to future measurement outcomes. Since these outcomes are random, we cannot immediately know how the state we have prepared has been modified. The future  measurement will let us reconstruct the past, but is in turn subject to other future measurements.Since the present state of the system should contain influences from all future measurements, some of which can be part of a measurement program, but not all of which can be predicted, the present state of any system is, strictly speaking, uncomputable. Therefore, the complete state of the quantum system is unknowable."

40. J. Christian (1998). Why the Quantum Must Yield to Gravity.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9810078

Joy Christian: "In Einstein's theory of gravity, general covariance -- i.e., invariance of physical laws under the action of the group Diff(M) of active diffeomorphisms -- expressly forbids a priori individuation of the points of a spacetime manifold as spatio-temporal events."
 

41. J. G. Cramer (1985). Anti-Gravity and Anti-Mass.
http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw14.html

John G. Cramer: "There is a curious corollary of this result, which Bondi pointed out in his paper. Consider a pair of equal and opposite positive and a negative mass placed close to each other. The negative mass is attracted to the positive mass, while the positive mass is repelled by the negative mass. Thus the two masses will experience equal forces and accelerations in the same direction (in violation of Newton's third law) and the system of two particles will accelerate, seemingly without limit. The negative mass will chase the positive mass with constant acceleration."
 

42. M. J. W. Hall (2001). Exact uncertainty relations.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0103072

Michael J. W. Hall, Sec. IV: "A second related consequence worth mentioning is a simple proof that any well-localized state, i.e., one for which the position distribution vanishes outside some finite interval, has an infinite energy (at least for any potential energy that is bounded below at infinity). (...) Note that this "paradox" of standard quantum mechanics (that there are no states which are both well-localised and have finite energy) is a consequence of the simple external potential model, rather than of some deep incompleteness of the theory. Note also that this property is purely quantum in nature, since the divergent term vanishes in the limit  \hbar  -->  0."
 

43. Stuart L. Shapiro and Saul A. Teukolsky (1991). Formation of naked singularities: The violation of cosmic censorship. Phys. Rev. Lett. 66(8), 994.
 

44. Pankaj S. Joshi (2000). Gravitational Collapse: The Story so far.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0006101
 

45. Eric Poisson (1997). Black-hole interiors and strong cosmic censorship.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9709022
 

46. Robert Budzynski, Witold Kondracki, Andrzej Krolak (2000). New properties of Cauchy and event horizons.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0011033
 

47. Andrzej Krolak (1999). Nature of singularities in gravitational collapse.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9910108
 

48. Mark A. Rubin (2001). Locality in the Everett Interpretation of Heisenberg-picture quantum mechanics. Found. Phys. Lett., 14, 301-322 (2001).
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0103079

Mark A. Rubin [Sec. "Bell's Theorem and Counterfactual Reasoning"]:

"That is, if the analyzer directions are the same, we find that whenever a particle is deflected in one direction by one of the analyzers, its partner is deflected in the opposite direction by the other analyzer. We find that the correlations persist even when we consider only cases in which the analyzer orientations come to be parallel by chance, because they've been chosen at the last possible moment before the particles arrive by some random process (delayed-choice experiment). We are thus compelled to pose a "bothersome question" (Mermin, 1990a): What is the mechanism which brings about these correlations? In answer, we adopt what seems the only explanation open to us: Each particle, even before its spin is measured by the analyzer, carries with it information -- "instruction sets," as termed by Mermin (1990a) -- determining what its response will be to the analyzer in every possible orientation.

"Having accepted this explanation, our doom is sealed. For if this explanation holds, it is a well-defined notion to talk about what would have happened if an analyzer had been oriented other than as it actually was in any given experiment.
.....
"Since one cannot argue for the existence of counterfactual instruction sets, the conditions of Bell's theorem do not apply. Had angles other than those that actually were used been chosen for the analyzer magnets, copies of each observer carrying labels appropriate to those angles would have resulted. There are indeed "instruction sets" present; but they determine, not the results of experiments which were not performed but, rather, the possibilities for interaction and information exchange between the Everett copies of the observers who have performed the experiments.

"Bohr's reply to EPR can also be reinterpreted in the present context. Regarding correlations at a distance, Bohr (1935) states that "of course there is in a case like that just considered no question of a mechanical disturbance of the system under investigation during the last critical stage of the measuring procedure. But even at this stage there is essentially the question of an influence on the very conditions which define the possible types of predictions regarding the future behavior of the system." The Everett splitting and labeling of each observer constitutes just such an influence, determining the possible types of interactions with physical systems and observers which the observer can experience in the future without in any way producing a "mechanical disturbance" of distant entities.

"The Everett interpretation in the Heisenberg picture thus removes nonlocality from the list of conceptual problems of quantum mechanics. The idea of viewing the tensor-product factors in the Heisenberg-picture operators as in some sense "literally real" introduces, however, a conceptual problem of its own. [Footnote 4: The fact that the precise details of representation of the Heisenberg-picture operators depend, e.g., on the choice of initial time  t_0  (d' Espagnat, 1995, Section 10.8) should not be a problem in viewing them as "real," any more than, e.g., the fact that the components of the electromagnetic stress tensor depend on the choice of Lorentz frame.]  Entanglement via the introduction of nontrivial "label" factors is not limited to interactions between two or three particles; each particle of matter is labeled, for eternity, by all the particles with which it has ever interacted. 

"What is the physical  mechanism by means of which all of this information is stored?"

Mark A. Rubin. Locality in the Everett Interpretation of Quantum Field Theory.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0204024

"As for the label-proliferation problem, quantum field theory provides no explanation of the manner in which this information is recorded. (...) But, be it quantum-mechanical or quantum-field-theoretic, a single quantum operator is capable of carrying an unlimited amount of information regarding past interactions. (Footnote 7: Kent ["Locality and reality revisited," quant-ph/0202064] presents a hidden-variable model in which "every hidden particle trajectory carries a record of its past history -- which particles it was originally entangled with, and which measurements were carried out on it --  arbitrarily far into the future." This is precisely the information which, according to quantum theory sans hidden variables, particles do indeed carry with them. See also [51]."
 

49. Yakir Aharonov, Lev Vaidman (2001). The Two-State Vector Formalism of Quantum Mechanics.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0105101

Comments: 41 pages, 5 eps fig. To appear in "Time in Quantum Mechanics", edited by J.G. Muga, R. Sala Mayato, and I.L. Egusquiza.

Yakir Aharonov and Lev Vaidman: "One of us (YA) is not ready to adopt the far reaching consequences of the MWI. He proposes another solution. It takes the TSVF even more seriously than it was presented in this paper. Even at present, before the "future" measurements, the backward evolving quantum state (or its complex conjugate evolving forward in time) exists! It exists in the same way as the quantum state evolving from the past exists. This state corresponds to particular outcomes of all measurements in the future."
 

50. Robin Booth (2001). Machian General Relativity: a possible solution to the Dark Energy problem, and a replacement for Big Bang cosmology.
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0106007

Robin Booth: "In Section "Time", an alternative spacetime structure was described, which potentially allows processes to occur 'simultaneously', but at different time coordinates. (...) The spacetime structure also offers the intriguing possibility that processes operating in the cosmological reference frame, i.e. across the whole Universe, can occur in the same time as local processes occurring in the atomic reference frame. If this were to be the case, then it provides a mechanism for explaining the apparent paradox of action-at-a-distance and non-locality associated with Quantum Mechanics."
 

51. Zae-young Ghim and Hwe Ik Zhang (2001). Bell's inequality and a strict assessment of the concept of "possession".
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0102080

52. M. Sue Benford (2001). Comment on "The effect of the 'laying on of hands' on transplanted breast cancer in mice" by W.F. Bengston and D. Krinsley. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 15(1), 125-128. Available online at
http://www.homestead.com/newvistas/jousciexplorationltr.html
 

53. Daniel J. Benor (2001). Spiritual Healing: Scientific Validation of a Healing Revolution. Healing Research, Volume I.

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