Non-separability Does Not Relieve the Problem of Bell’s Theorem

Brandon Fogel

Gregor Weihs

Eric G. Cavalcanti

In light of a recent reformulation of Bell's theorem from causal principles by Wiseman and the author, I argue that the conflict between quantum theory and relativity brought up by Bell's work can be softened by a revision of our classical notions of causation. I review some recent proposals for a quantum theory of causation that make great strides towards that end, but highlight a property that is shared by all those theories that would not have satisfied Bell's realist inclinations. They require (implicitly or explicitly) agent-centric notions such as "controllables" and "uncontrollables", or "observed" and "unobserved". Thus they relieve the tensions around Bell's theorem by highlighting an issue more often associated with another deep conceptual issue in quantum theory: the measurement problem. Rather than rejecting those terms, however, I argue that we should understand why they seem to be, at least at face-value, needed in order to reach compatibility between quantum theory and relativity. This seems to suggest that causation, and thus causal structure, are emergent phenomena, and lends support to the idea that a resolution of the conflict between quantum theory and relativity necessitates a solution to the measurement problem.

Bryan Sanctuary

Under the quaternion group, Q8, spin helicity emerges as a crucial element of the reality of spin and is complementary to its polarization. We show that the correlation in EPR coincidence experiments is conserved upon separation from a singlet state and distributed between its polarization and coherence. Including helicity accounts for the violation of Bell’s Inequalities without non-locality, and disproves Bell’s Theorem by a counterexample.

Guang-Liang Li

The experimental test of the CHSH inequality confirms the quantum-mechanically predicted perfect correlation between two spatially separated photons. By interpreting the correlation non-locally as the so-called entanglement, Bell's theorem denies the existence of definite polarizations possessed by photons in the absence of measurement. The denial amounts to refuting Einstein's argument for defending his local-realist world view based on his separability principle and his ensemble interpretation of ψ-functions in the Einstein-Bohr debate on the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. This paper shows that Bell's theorem is incorrect and presents an explanation of the correlation based on Einstein's argument. The correlation is deterministic. A formal analysis supporting Einstein's explanation is also presented.