Local realism reduces to the proposition that local determinate reality is the necessary and sufficient cause of every physical effect. By any standard account, quantum theory requires that local realism is false, because it embeds the famously spooky premise that some physical effects require causes that are instantly effective from arbitrarily far away. Nonetheless, quantum theory has replaced local realism as the foundation of science because, whereas local realism allegedly cannot violate the Bell inequality, quantum theory is taken to do so in accord with experiments. Here we prove, however, that an epistemic contextual model of local realism solves a puzzle about independent random measurements of local hidden variables in a way that causally explains observed Bell violations. We also reveal exactly how the Bell inequality fails to represent the local realistic prediction. Finally, we show that any theory that denies local realism comprises an unfalsifiable causal claim that is freely adjustable to make arbitrary predictions, which thus provide no validation of its causal claim. Results revitalize the hypothesis that local realism prevails. Keywords: Local Realism. Bell Violations. Photons. Entanglement. Quantum Physics.
Local realism reduces to the proposition that local determinate reality is the necessary and sufficient cause of every physical effect. By any standard account, quantum theory requires that local realism is false, because it embeds the famously spooky premise that some physical effects require causes that are instantly effective from arbitrarily far away. Nonetheless, quantum theory has replaced local realism as the foundation of science because, whereas local realism allegedly cannot violate the Bell inequality, quantum theory is taken to do so in accord with experiments. Here we prove, however, that an epistemic contextual model of local realism solves a puzzle about independent random measurements of local hidden variables in a way that causally explains observed Bell violations. We also reveal exactly how the Bell inequality fails to represent the local realistic prediction. Finally, we show that any theory that denies local realism comprises an unfalsifiable causal claim that is freely adjustable to make arbitrary predictions, which thus provide no validation of its causal claim. Results revitalize the hypothesis that local realism prevails. Keywords: Local Realism. Bell Violations. Photons. Entanglement. Quantum Physics.
Local realism is causation by ordinary causal signals. What we mean by ordinary is this. First, these signals have fully determinate properties, whether measured or not. Second, they can only cause effects precisely at the spacetime locality of their physical existence. By contrast, as Einstein famously observed, quantum causal signals are spooky because they can cause effects where they do not in fact exist. Indeed, the only evidence that quantum causal signals possess any physical existence at all is that they seem to explain every effect you could ever measure. Unless you think about it. Take the simplest case: One photon, one spin measurement, up or down. The quantum explanation is essentially that we draw the answer from a bag that contains no answers such that physical reality obtains precisely from its own absence. This is known as the problem. But the problem is obviously not measurement. The problem is that quantum theory has literally no explanation for any specific measurement result. On the other hand, local realism does. Spin Up and Spin Down for photons must, at the end of the day, be analogous to Heads Up and Heads Down for ordinary fair coins. The quantum counterclaim, here, is that there is no compelling solution set of local hidden variables that makes this analogy work for an EPR experiment. Furthermore, many claim that the Bell inequality rules out any such solution set. On the other hand, anyone who thinks that the Bell inequality has some single uncontested meaning has not been reading the literature. The paper noted below claims both to provide local hidden variables that constitute a compelling local realistic solution for an EPR experiment and to explain how such solutions have been falsely denied. See viXra:1704.0078 - Local Realism Explains Bell Violations - for a demonstration that all empirical evidence taken to support quantum theory over local realism plausibly does the reverse. The article comprises 8 pages, 4 figures, 6 equations, 32 references, a graph of testable predictions, and two paragraphs that purport to expose how the Bell inequality misrepresents the local realistic predictions for the EPR experiment. Thoughtful feedback appreciated (apyake@gmail.com).
Local realism reduces to the proposition that every physical effect arises exclusively at the spacetime locality where the determinate properties of physical reality determine that it be so. The causal model of quantum theory, however, and thus all prospects for quantum computers, require that local realism is false. The essential argument favoring quantum beliefs is that local realism cannot explain empirical Bell violations, whereas quantum theory can. By contrast, the article cited below offers compelling evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, such alleged refutations of local realism are predicated on an interpretation of the Bell inequality that many researchers reject (the cited article provides specific references). Meanwhile, the causal model of quantum theory reduces to the quantum formalism itself, which distributes outcomes across separate localities without providing enough information to determine what those outcomes are. More specifically, depending on subtleties of interpretation, the quantum formalism requires either: (A) There exists a bit of physical information such that this bit exists as mutually exclusive states, or (B) there exists a bit of physical information such that this bit is not physically informed. They are both contradictions. Pick your poison. Or reconsider local realism. See ** http://vixra.org/abs/1704.0078 ** Local Realism Explains Bell Violations (author Andrew P. Yake) - for a demonstration that all empirical evidence taken to support quantum theory over local realism plausibly does the reverse. The article comprises 8 pages, 4 figures, 6 equations, 32 references, 1 graph of testable predictions, and 2 paragraphs that purport to expose how the Bell inequality misrepresents the local realistic predictions for the EPR experiment. Thoughtful feedback appreciated (apyake@gmail.com).
Local realism is now revitalized as a fully viable causal explanation of physical reality including empirical Bell violations according to detailed arguments provided at the link below. Meanwhile, by denying local realism in its account of EPR experiments, quantum theory requires a physical causal signal that is physically discontinuous, leaping out of spacetime from one locality and landing in another, like a fish leaping out of water. Quantum theory thus invokes a physical domain outside spacetime through which its causal signal is logically required to travel -- unobservable, unstoppable, and at infinite speed. It might be tempting to conclude that such domains and such signals are some sort of magic, except that would be exactly wrong. Even magic obeys local realism. A master magician, however, can provide a compelling illusion to the contrary. The causally complete local realistic model given by the article below argues compellingly that the antilocality claims of quantum physics reduce to such illusions. Please see main article: ** http://vixra.org/abs/1704.0078 ** Local Realism Explains Bell Violations (author Andrew P. Yake) - Claims to demonstrate that all empirical evidence taken to support quantum theory over local realism plausibly does the reverse. The article comprises 8 pages, 4 figures, 6 equations, 32 references, 1 graph of testable predictions, and 2 paragraphs that purport to expose how the Bell inequality misrepresents the local realistic predictions for the EPR experiment. Thoughtful feedback appreciated (apyake@gmail.com).
Local realism must predict empirical Bell violations in a reasonable way to become a compelling causal explanation of reality. According to the paper at the link given below, it can now do that. On the other hand, theory, despite its wonderful statistical predictions, must transcend its infamous paradoxes to become a compelling causal explanation of anything. Unfortunately, paradoxes reduce to contradictions, and thus to nonsense. Take quantum superposition. Is this the simultaneous existence of mutually exclusive states or not? If it is, then we have a contradiction, and all further claims from theory fail to have meaningful interpretations. If superposition is something other than that contradiction, then what -- exactly -- is superposition? And let's take physical while we are at it. Defending theory as a causal explanation of reality requires that reality is not exclusively reality! Whoops. What -- exactly -- is so difficult about simply admitting when we have no sensible causal explanation for certain phenomena like Bell violations in EPR(B) experiments? In psychology, we know the answer to such questions. Our beliefs are evidence resistant. We thus predict that the rational threat from local realism to widespread beliefs -- its implication that reality might be mostly explained without appeal to antilocal mysticism -- will continue to be buried under reams of empirical observations stitched together by nonsense insinuations that that paradoxes are assets rather than contradictions. In any case, the paper below arguably formulates a theory of local realism that constitutes a causally valid description of reality. No nonsense required. Or, it could just be wrong. But it is waiting to be tested. Indeed, even existing data could bear on the empirical question if the theory is sound enough. See ** http://vixra.org/abs/1704.0078 ** Local Realism Explains Bell Violations (author Andrew P. Yake) - for a demonstration that all empirical evidence taken to support theory over local realism plausibly does the reverse. The article comprises 8 pages, 4 figures, 6 equations, 32 references, a graph of testable predictions, and two paragraphs that purport to expose how the Bell inequality misrepresents the local realistic predictions for the EPR experiment. Thoughtful feedback appreciated (apyake@gmail.com).
For almost three decades in the twentieth century, the physics community believed that John von Neumann had proved the impossibility of completing quantum mechanics by a local realist, hidden-variables theory. Although Grete Hermann had raised strong objections to von Neumann's proof, she was largely ignored. This situation lasted, until John Bell rediscovered that von Neumann's proof was flawed: a \emph{sufficient} condition for local realism had been taken as a \emph{necessary} one. Bell subsequently established various constraints on hidden-variables theories, in the form of inequalities that can be submitted to experimental test. All performed tests to date have opened some loopholes. The quest to close them motivated great technical achievements and ongoing efforts to improve what has already been reached. There is, however, a rather ironic twist concerning Bell inequalities. On deriving them, Bell also took a sufficient condition for local-realism, as if it were a necessary one. As a consequence, even completely loophole-free Bell inequality violations would not disprove local realism. We argue that Bell inequalities cannot follow from local-realism alone. The proof is given by constructing three local-realist models that entail Bell inequality violations.
Explaining observations in terms of cause-and-effect (causal) relations is central to empirical science. However, in his seminal 1964 work [1], John Bell showed that the correlations between entangled quantum systems cannot be explained in terms of, possibly hidden, cause and effect relations. After four decades of experimental effort, Bell's prediction has recently been confirmed in an unambiguous way by a series of loophole-free Bell-test experiments [2-4]. These experiments, however, cannot reveal where exactly quantum mechanics breaks with our classical notion of cause and effect. Specifically, Bell's theorem is based on the central assumptions of realism and local causality. Realism posits that physical systems have real, objective properties, independent of whether we observe them or not, and local causality assumes that causal influences cannot propagate faster than the speed of light.