The difference between proximal and distal stimuli is discussed and an example of the significance of this difference to physics is pointed out in the area of quantum teleportation. In particular, experimental evidence concerning the relative status of the distal stimulus to the observer points toward the relative nature of spatial orientation of objects. In quantum teleportation, this result indicates that the amount of classical information that needs to be transmitted to support the quantum transfer of information may be greater than is expected when the distal stimulus is assumed, as it ordinarily is, to have an absolute orientation in relation to the observer.
The difference between proximal and distal stimuli is discussed and an example of the significance of this difference to physics is pointed out in the area of quantum teleportation. In particular, experimental evidence concerning the relative status of the distal stimulus to the observer points toward the relative nature of spatial orientation of objects. In quantum teleportation, this result indicates that the amount of classical information that needs to be transmitted to support the quantum transfer of information may be greater than is expected when the distal stimulus is assumed, as it ordinarily is, to have an absolute orientation in relation to the observer.
Bennett et al.'s original article on quantum teleportation did not address explicitly synchronizing the orientation of the local spatial reference frames from and to which teleportaton occurs where the state teleported is spin 1/2 along the z axis. They wrote that only two bits of information need to be conveyed classically where the state to be teleported concerns spin 1/2 along the z axis. That only two bits of information need to be classically conveyed could imply that such synchronization is not needed for it would require more classically conveyed information. A gedankenexperiment is presented regarding the orientation of the local spatial reference frames exploring whether such synchronization is not needed even though it was apparently assumed by Bennett et al. that it was required. It is often assumed that there is an absolute, as opposed to a relative, orientation of objects in space. This assumption should be open to empirical test, especially in view of evidence in psychology that the orientation of objects in space is not absolute.
Over the past years, it has become increasingly apparent that perception is not a passive process: how stimuli appear is not just a function of stimulus properties, but also of the memory, and expectancies of the observer. In an experiment testing the effects of stimulus randomization on these expectancy processes, we have reported an anomalous effect of apparent precognition. Here we show that there may be another anomalous effect in play in stimulus detection tasks, namely psychokinesis. In a simple stimulus detection experiment, we used quantum-random versus pseudo-random generated stimulus sequences. If pseudo-generated sequences contain implicit structure, we would expect better performance for these sequences. Contrary to this prediction, we found participants performed better and faster in the quantum-random generated sequences. We explain this result in terms of the observation theory-framework, which postulates that psi-effects are closely related to the radical subjective solution of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Our results can be explained by assuming a combination of PK and precognitive priming effects for quantum-random generated sequences. We describe a replication experiment to formally test this hypothesis.
In modern physics only relative quantities are considered to have physical significance. For example, position assigned to a system depends on the choice of coordinates, and only relative distances between different systems have physical relevance. On the other hand, in quantum theory the scenario where one system, A, is localised around certain position while another system B is in a spatial superposition is considered to be physically different from the scenario where A is in a superposition, while B is localised. Different physical effects are anticipated in the two scenarios especially when the two systems have widely different masses. Here we show that for any superposed amplitudes that are related by a symmetry transformation, the above scenarios are physically equivalent: probabilities for any measurement are the same whether we assign the superposition state to system A or to system B. More generally, linearity of quantum theory guarantees that if a theory is invariant under some symmetry transformations it is necessarily also invariant under their arbitrary `superpositions'. Thus the notion of a superposition turns out to be relative to the choice of coordinates, once it is realised that relations between coordinates do not need to be classical.
This article develops an expanded critical-propositional analysis of Chien Liu, Zachary Dutton, Cyrus H. Behroozi, and Lene Vestergaard Hau’s experiment, “Observation of Coherent Optical Information Storage in an Atomic Medium Using Halted Light Pulses,” published in Nature 409 (2001): 490–493, DOI 10.1038/35054017, in systematic dialogue with the Theory of Objectivity (TO) formulated by Vidamor Cabannas and Denivaldo Silva. Liu et al. experimentally demonstrated the controlled storage and retrieval of coherent optical information in a magnetically trapped ultracold atomic medium through electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). A probe pulse was dramatically slowed, spatially compressed, localized inside an atomic cloud, and effectively halted when a coupling field was switched off. Information previously carried by the optical field was thereby encoded in collective atomic amplitudes and relative phases. When the coupling field was subsequently restored, the stored coherence was read out and transferred back into a propagating radiation field. The experiment therefore provides an unusually relevant empirical domain for examining the proposition of the Theory of Objectivity that information or knowledge produced in atomic relations is physically associated with atomic radiation. The analysis distinguishes carefully among direct experimental result, structural compatibility with TO, indirect empirical corroboration of an operational bridge, and confirmation of the complete ontology of the Theory of Objectivity. The Liu experiment does not establish the Seven Absolute Truths as modal necessi- ties, nor does it independently demonstrate that information is a transcendent substance in the specific ontological sense proposed by TO. Nevertheless, it provides controlled empirical evidence that coherent information can pass from a radiative mode of physical manifestation to a collective relational state of matter and subsequently return to radiation. This radiation–atomic relation–radiation sequence is shown to be especially relevant to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Absolute Truths. Particular attention is given to the Fifth Absolute Truth, according to which logical existence requires relational observation or inclusion within the frequency domains of at least two other elements, where observation is physical and relational rather than human or psychological. The three-part EIT configuration involving the atomic medium, probe field, and coupling field offers a strong structural analogy to this triangular requirement while falling short of proving its universal modal necessity. The article also examines the Second Absolute Truth concerning the exclusive field of each existing element; the Fourth Absolute Truth concerning boundaries and interfaces; the Sixth Absolute Truth concerning compositional emergence; and the Seventh Absolute Truth concerning the transcendent informational element. The experiment is further discussed in relation to the phenomenic elements of light, electromagnetism, temperature, and information, as well as to the TO concepts of Inductive Effects, embryonic memory, Units of Memory, Units of Reason, the cosmogonic theorem, and the cosmological Eras. A methodological distinction is defended between modal necessity and empirical corroboration. An experiment may support an operational consequence or bridge derived from a modal ontology without constituting an inductive proof of modal necessity itself. On this basis, Liu et al. is interpreted as providing strong indirect empirical support for a specific operational bridge of TO: the reversible relation among radiation, atomic organization, and stored information. The deeper ontological proposition that information constitutes the transcendent substance of reality remains a distinct theoretical claim requiring further formalization and discriminating experimental predictions. Keywords: Theory of Objectivity; electromagnetically induced transparency; optical information storage; atomic coherence; information; radiation; quantum memory; modal ontology; dark-state polaritons; atomic relations; transcendent element.
Since its discovery in 1993, we witness an intensive theoretical and experimental effort centered on teleportation. Very recently it was claimed in the press that ``quantum teleportation has been achieved in the laboratory'' (T. Sudbery, Nature, 390, p. 551). Here, I briefly review this research focusing on the connection to nonlocal measurements, and question Sudbery's statement. A philosophical inquiry about the paradoxical meaning of teleportation in the framework of the many-worlds interpretation is added.