Talk:Bell's theorem

Proposal to move to subpage
"STOP HERE. What follows is all messed up."

I love it! Guy, you are deeply engaged in the learning process, an aspect of "research." Being willing to be wrong is what can enable you to find breakthroughs. Keep it up. I'm cheering. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 01:19, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Okay, Guy, this is really cool and a great example of what is possible on Wikiversity. However, there is a possible issue. It's not clearly neutral. It's your opinion and, yes, original research. There is an easy fix, that allows you to fully develop your ideas, solicit and possibly actually attract participation, deepening the resource. It involves creating the mainspace page as a rigorously neutral page about Bell's theorem. It still does not need to meet the full w:WP:Verifiability standards, at least not as drafted. Consider it like a lecture you might give to students where you are communicating, not your own ideas, but what is widely accepted and known, and that could be verified if needed.

Then this would be an essay underneath, as a subpage, attributed to you, and where anyone else may collaborate with your consent.

You mention your view on "psychic phenomena." The term is quite undefined, but it's obvious that "psychic phenomena" exist, the issue is how they are interpreted. What, indeed, is the "psyche"? The mind? Does it exist? Where? How? In my training, "patterns of neurons firing." I think we would agree that there are neurons, and that they "fire," and that this sets up patterns. Are the patterns "real"? Or is the Mona Lisa just some oil paint? Then there are some experimental results, commonly considered not to exist (as by you, for example!). The results exist. The issue is, again, interpretation. There are some beginning approaches mentioned in Parapsychology. Essentially, there are results we don't understand, and people then make up explanations, typically in order to defend what they already believe, which is very normal for humans.

These are ontological questions that have occupied great minds for a long time. And the somewhat related scientific issues occupied many as well. If you have a solution, that's fantastic!

Now, here is how I can assist:

I have some background in physics, I sat with Richard P. Feynman in the classes at Cal Tech, as a freshman and sophomore there, in 1961-63. However, I never completed my science education, obtained no degree, and I was away from the sciences for many years. I'm now very involved with the cold fusion research community, and just had a paper published in a major mainstream multdisciplinary journal. That was fun! (and a challenge!)

I'd love to see an article on Bell's theorem, that explains it for a lay audience. In fact, I just was reading Feynman and his comments on the double-slit experiment, and was thinking about starting a resource here on that? We also could explore what I might all the "oovy groovy New Age appropriation of quantum mechanics to "explain" things like free will. I.e., pseudoscience. Which, by the way, doesn't mean "wrong." It means "not testable." We want explanations so badly that we will invent them, instead of just recognizing there are things we don't know. Feynman is being reported as saying "I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than have answers that cannot be questioned," which certainly sounds like him, but I'm skeptical that he actually said that. Feynman was the largest single individual influence on my life.

So ... how about we create these? I'm the ignorant student, you are the professor. However, I'm the kind of student who will ask you questions and tell you when I think you are wrong, or, more accurately, now that I have a level of sophistication, that your explanations have not yet convinced me, or that they are not likely to be effective in explanation to a general audience -- or to experts with different opinions. I may advise along those lines, but you remain free to take the advice or not.

This quality has been of high value in my discussions with the cold fusion community. Experts say what they think and I tell them how it lands. Some of them dislike this, but the best, the world's foremost experts, may get irritated on occasion, but have consistently, over the long term, expressed appreciation, because my perspective and stand leads them to become clear. Hence I've been acknowledged in major papers, you know, "appreciation for conversations." I actually suggested at least one of these papers, possibly the most important.

If you like, I'll set up the structure. Were you a newbie, and were it not for the recent flap, I'd just do it. The goal is to allow full exploration and expression and deep research, without conflict. Game? --Abd (discuss • contribs) 20:25, 5 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you plan to do, but I have moved this to a subpage. Also, do you know how to do the quantum calculation of the correlations coefficient of two entangled photons?  I can't do it off the top of my head, but am instead trying to calculated using classical wave theory.  Please leave the subpage Bell's theorem/Guy vandegrift alone, even though I will abandon it for long periods of time.' (It's labor day weekend and I am doing what I enjoy today.  Tomorrow its back to the grindstone, with no effort on Bell's theorem).


 * Regarding the "Psychic phenomenon", its in the title of a published article, so there is no need to prove or discuss its legitimacy. I chose the title because I do not believe in psychic phenomenona and wished to emphasize how amazing Bell's theorem is.  It's downright "spooky", especially for people like me who don't believe in ghosts.


 * --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 21:31, 5 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Assume I don't know bleep. Your subpage is yours, that's why it has your name. I will do something with the top-level page. We can't stop people from editing it, but you will always, I assume, be able to revert such -- or accept them. Yes, "spooky action at a distance" is a theme of the controversy. The word "psychic" is heavily loaded. It's the root of "psychology," not exactly the queen of the sciences, but at least a sort-of kinda-squishy science. Look at our Parapsychology resource for a neutral summary. The Parapsychological Assocation is affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, much to the chagrin of some. I've looked at some of the published papers that parapsychologists have asserted, and it's interesting, things happen that are very difficult to explain with ordinary "science," and I've looked at the published critiques by skeptics, and there are two kinds: those that suggest artifact (normal, functional skepticism), and those that believe in artifact because they believe in the non-existence of something that is not defined, which I think is really cool. When one of these rejected some strong claims by asserting a Bayesian prior of 10^-20, I knew the basis for the rejection. Belief. That's an expression of total, 100% practical certainty, with a 10^-20 possibility tossed in so he could pretend to be objective. This, then, is used to reject strong experimental evidence, though a complete abuse of the concept of Bayesian priors.


 * Are "psychic phenomena" happening? I don't know. From my own life, I've seen some totally amazing things, that, at the time, meant to me, quite strongly, that there was something other than what we ordinarily think of as reality. Coincidences that were just too amazing, correlated with each other. And now I see something else. The human mind was involved with all of these, and other people. What the human mind can do is not well understood. How much communication there is between us is not known. I'm very skeptical of "telepathy," as such. But how about "entrainment," where two processors track each other? What if how we think is not nearly as individual as we imagine?


 * Etc. Closed minds, by definition, can discover nothing. I am not interested in connections between Bell's theorem and "psychic phenomena." However, what reality underlies the universe? We don't know. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 22:33, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

about neutral organization, examples and review
The question is asked on the resource what should be the mainspace page. Several answers are proposed.
 * 1. The first article page.
 * Wikiversity isn't a collection of articles, though it includes articles. It is a collection of learning resources. As is well known, an effective way to learn is to support the learning of others. One may even learn this way when beginning in ignorance. What are the questions? What sources can be found? What connections can be made? Hence the mission of Wikiversity includes "learning by doing." If an article is created here, then, is it neutral? Is it supported by verifiable sources? If so, it is duplicating Wikipedia. We may want to present alternate Wikipedia articles, but not at the top level in mainspace, rather as studies, criticisms, etc., where this may not be possible on Wikipedia.


 * 2. The best article page.
 * This is subjective, and will ultimately lead to conflict. However, it should either be the best resource, or should readily lead to the best resource. "Best" is what ever serves the scholars most, which can include individual study. Thus one scholar's best resource may be different from another scholar's best resource.


 * 3. A node leading to all articles pages.
 * Or, as we grow, leading to an organized set of resources that lead to all studies. Wikiversity has a neutrality policy, like all WMF wikis. Wikipedia attempts to satisfy it with w:WP:NPOV. This is ontologically naive, it was a setup for persistent conflict. It assumes that there is a such a point of view. There are points of view that are similar to NPOV, and they are social phenomena, often the result of training. There is an academic point of view, and one might note that it's not fixed. There is a journalistic point of view. There is only one reliable standard of neutrality: 100% consensus, and where that is not attainable (it can be found much more frequently than those with no experience with genuine consensus process might think, but it famously takes work, much discussion), then what I'll call "maximmized consensus of the knowledgeable" is the most reliable standard. If not 100%, it always falls a little short of the ideal, so must always remain open. 100% consensus can change, as new ideas arise and new participants arrive. Unfortunately, "knowledgeable" can be subjective, but we recognize this in closing procedure when we claim that closing is based on weight of arguments, not votes. If consensus is 100%, "knowledgeable" is moot!

The third option allows high freedom in the development of resources, while site neutrality is maintained. It allows original research, opinion, discussion, presenting it in a hierarchy, and then the category system can cross-connect topics in a different manner. We also have Topic and Portal and School namespaces for other keys into the structure. (Similar devices can be used in those namespaces to maintain neutrality.)

Bottom line: the top-level page, in any namespace other than User, and maybe Template, should represent 100% consensus, where possible. The top-level page remains open to editing, it is not owned by any individual. We currently have an experimental exception, which I think problematic, the community has not considered the issue; there are positive and negative aspects: Wikiversity Journal of Medicine, which has an "Editor-in-Chief."

Generally, I place, on a top-level article, a link to the Wikipedia article. The top level article may summarize the topic, and it may even go into depth, and I would prefer, in fact, to speak of a "top level hierarchy," like a wikibook. On Wikibooks, the top-level page is commonly a table of contents for the book, and chapters are subpages. The top-level hierarchy is neutral. Anything not neutral, but useful for even just one user, is moved to a subpage, to a user page, or sometimes to a subpage elsewhere. (Linking to user pages from a top-level hierarchy is questionable, but it might be done from a subpage that explicitly points to personal user work). The goal is that the top level, and whatever is not attributed or owned in some way, is neutral and open to editing. Want to work on a page without interference? Create or move the page to an essay or other attributed page, in mainspace, or just to user space. Link it neutrally. Easy-peasy. Comment will still be allowed in the attached Talk page, except in user space, a user may revert that. Contrary to what Wikipedians routinely think, our User space is effectively owned by the user, and custodians will support that. Usually!

This page on Bell's theorem was started as a chatty exploration of a possibility. Guy moved it to a subpage, which he first called a draft. Bell's theorem/Guy Vandegrift. He then moved it to /Finding the correlations without quantum mechanics. I'm not completely thrilled by the new pagename, but being linked as a draft, and being identified on the page as Guy's project, is acceptable. I will usually put a very explicit comment at the top, that requests the page not be edited without my consent. (These little message boxes can easily be missed.) It just now occurs to me to request self-reversion of edits, which fits into some old ideas of how to allow "topic-banned" users to make constructive suggestions, and I've also used this when editing policies, where consensus should be found for changes. It is much easier to make a change than to describe it, often, and self-reversion -- which is quick and easy -- could be used whenever the change might possibly be controversial. Or just to maintain respect for the user to whom the page is attributed. Self-reversion has a history of increasing cooperation, under some conditions.

So my intention here is to use this page to study Bell's theorem. It may start out messy. But this is ordinary wiki editing. If it becomes an issue, I would subpage my study (or someone else may do that). Eventually, the page will not look like my study, it will be a node presenting what is not controversial about Bell's theorem, supporting learning (including my own), and linking to resources such as lists of sources, and individual studies like Guy's.

There has been a perceived conflict between free and unhampered development of a resource and open editing. This occurs when one attempts to develop and complete a resource in top-level mainspace. The thinking was still very Wikipedian, that there would be one resource on a topic. It was always easy" to develop a resource without being hampered: do it in user space. Move it when done. Very common. The use of attributed subpages allows it in mainspace.

Subpaging allows a resource to become complex and deep, see Cold fusion. There are subpages there with extensive debates; the goal is to eventually refactor those (always linking to the original) to present organized results or delineation of issues.

Landmark Education is an example of the use of explicitly named "sections." That resolved a budding edit war, and converted competition into collaboration. This was the first example I'm aware of the use of the technique to resolve conflict.

Parapsychology was set up to avoid conflict from the beginning, it being normal in that field. See for the page of a an organization set up for that, see ratwiki for a taste. So it did show, on. It was easily handled because of that page setup. That SPA never edited here nor anywhere else, in spite of being invited to create balance here. This is common among skeptical Wikipedians who think of Wikiversity as a haven for fringe. No, we are far more like universities, where what is presently fringe (and what is even off-the-rails pseudoscience) may be studied, discussed and debated. The Demarcation problem is far from resolved.

I just noticed: Jameskeptic Wikipedia block log and sock puppet investigation. My, my. Pot, kettle, black. Not our problem. We will not block Jameskeptic unless disruption here continues after warning.

Meanwhile, an apparent skeptic did appear. See Parapsychology/Sources/WaterPlanet and notice how the skeptical content was rescued from a sandbox by a "believer." I know Steigmann from off-wiki communication, and invited him here. He is reasonably described as a believer, I'd say. However, look what he's doing! And see the discussion on User talk:WaterPlanet. To anyone who knows the history of these "wars" on Wikipedia, the civility of the conversation is striking. This is what Wikiversity can do. WaterPlanet has done the homework, and more. I notice the user was never formally welcomed. I'll fix that.

Steigmann is learning. That is what happens when one sets out to create a deep Wikiversity resource. One becomes familiar with the material! Rigid thinking can start to soften, not because someone else is yelling at you, calling you names, impeaching your integrity, but because you know more. And then real conversations can begin.

One can also see this in the discussions around Landmark Education. I bought a book at the suggestion of that critic. My understanding of the controversy deepened. What the critic learned, for sure, was that there are options available, other than fighting for dominance. That spread, I've cooperated on Wikiquote with this user, who is a sysop there, when things got very hot, and that he trusted me probably arose from our cooperation here. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:13, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Moving discussion from mainpage to here

 * I'm signing contributions here. This can all be moved to the Talk page at any time, replaced by pure Bell's theorem content. Consider that we are workmen building the workspace. We do talk with each other. What we will build, here, will be neutral text and that will not be signed. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 01:35, 7 September 2015 (UTC)


 * This page should contain that, if it can be done neutrally. It can be developed here and subpaged later if there is a problem.
 * This has already begun with the Wikipedia link. One of the devices to use is to present relevant Wikipedia pages and categories. Another is to comment on them as to usefulness, depth, level of understanding needed, and, as well, to point to other internet resources, with helpful comments, not just a collection of links (which is useful, but some guidance is even more useful.) --Abd (discuss • contribs) 01:35, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Recent changes
I made a inter-wiki link to Bell's theorem, an article that makes no effort to provide those mathematical details that a college physics major would be looking for. Since the main thrust of Wikipedia is educational, I removed all the "research" aspects of the three links under the now deleted Bell's theorem/Guy vandegrift, and placed them at the top. These three subpages under "Calculations" are now conventional expository material collected from refereed educational resources.

I hope that's OK--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 19:38, 8 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I link to Wikipedia to provide a default neutral piece of content, not at all because I believe that the Wikipedia article is sound, well-written, etc., or even neutral. If it isn't, I hope people will change it. Those changes might even be explored here, free from the kinds of interference that are common on Wikipedia, it is is possible to draft an article here that would be later substituted for the Wikipedia, en masse, through an RfC on Wikipedia that compares the two. I've seen it happen. However, this is not where we start.
 * We are, here, building an educational resource. This is starting as a collaboration between an expert, relatively speaking. Turns out that Guy is actually published on this topic.. However, like all genuine experts, he apparently realizes there is more to learn, including how to express what he understands, effectively, and, ideally, simply.


 * I will be moving to make the top level resource a very brief, stand-alone introduction to Bell's theorem, similar to the lede in a decent Wikipedia article. Most especially, I want this page to express why Bell's theorem is, properly, of high interest. That is fully supported by reliable source, whether the theorem ultimately stands or falls. Some sources treat it as proven, other sources note possible defects in the proofs.


 * But the implications of Bell's theorem are profound. *What are those implications*? The page here should express this, even if only briefly.


 * Meanwhile, Guy is developing subpages with details. Most math will be there. Attributed to Einstein: "If I can't picture it, I can't understand it." What can we "picture" on the top-level page? I don't have the answer to this question, only a declaration that it is possible.


 * The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language. The desire is to have the idea clearly communicated to the other person. It is only necessary to be precise when there is some doubt as to the meaning of a phrase, and then the precision should be put in the place where the doubt exists. It is really quite impossible to say anything with absolute precision, unless that thing is so abstracted from the real world as to not represent any real thing.


 * On Wikipedia, I saw a mathematician demand precision on math pages, with no concern for clarity of expression such that non-mathematicians might understand the topic, at least in round outline. And that mathematician revert-warred with another mathematician who was far more effective in communication, but less connected with the administrative community. So who prevailed? Lucky guess?


 * A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven.


 * This is a piece of why I was, and still remain, quite skeptical of Bell's proof, even though I think it's likely correct, i.e., hidden variables do not explain quantum mechanics. However, I do not flip to the opposite conclusion, that God plays dice with the universe. I tend toward a concept of single cause for all events. In this, I take another aspect of Einstein's thought experiment, imagining what the universe would look like to a photon. There is no time to a photon. It all happens at once. And this could take me into mysticism. Which would be pseudoscience. However, remember that this thinking led Einstein to his discoveries.


 * The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off-chance that it is in another direction — a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory — who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed himself by teaching himself quantum electrodynamics from a peculiar and unfashionable point of view; one that he may have to invent for himself.


 * Now, why do I recognize my thinking so much in Feynman? Great minds think alike? In my training, I mentioned this issue to my coach, and asked him the question. His answer was exactly what I expected him to say, even though we had never discussed this before (this was our first time alone together and we had always stuck with "business"). He said, "there is only one mind." The implications of this idea are profound. It is not a "scientific truth." Rather, what is the "mind"? These association engines we call "brains," are they isolated and alone, or are they pieces of a larger association engine with billions of times as much input bandwidth, associational power, and ways of communicating that we are only beginning to understand? In my experience, I've seen no necessity for "telepathy," though I have seen phenomena that many would call telepathy. I was able to see mechanism in operation that did not involve true pararormal, merely things that we do not expect, because we are not ordinarily conscious of them.


 * Feynman brilliantly describes why "mainstream science" is as it is. It's that way for efficiency, it is "probably" correct, at least in part. However, there are exceptions. The exceptions are where growth is possible, and sometimes those exceptions can open up entire new realms of investigation.


 * The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to. … No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.


 * I'm often told that what interests me is not important. However, I know the contrary, from long experience with exploration of what most people would think not worth the effort. I learn from this exploration, always. Almost never do I find "nothing." Actually, "nothing" is truly spectacular, if one can find it. That, itself, is a long story.


 * Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.


 * He stated it in a shocking way. He liked poking people a bit, especially stuffed shirts. I would describe science as setting aside belief in order to investigate what actually happens, and the scientific method as a organized way of doing that, with tests designed to tease out the effect of variables. It is not that experts are "ignorant," but that some of what they know may be incomplete, extended beyond what is truly known by the human desire for "understanding," and Einstein also refers to this. We fill in the blanks. I could say that parts of the brain are designed to do that. What we fill in, however, is not observation, not "science." I could set up conditions where you can be looking at something, and you won't see it, because it is in your blind spot. When one actually observes the blind spot, it's amazing. It is not that we don't see something there, the appearance is of a filled-in background. And I'm thinking of writing an article for the Wikiversity Journal of Medicine on how to observe that process, directly, to see the "filling in," which takes a fraction of a second. We are so accustomed to it that we don't see it. When I first saw it, I suspected I was seeing the first signs of, say, macular degeneration. No. Just something that hadn't been noticed, as far as I've been able to find. I asked an opthomologist. She had no idea.


 * You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right—at least if you have any experience—because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in. ...The inexperienced, the crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.


 * I'm looking for a particular quote, and this is getting closer.


 * One of the first interesting experiences I had in this project at Princeton was meeting great men. ... So everybody is disagreeing, all around the table.


 * See the original with explanation, in Richard Feyman toward the end of that section. It is possible for Wikiversity seminars to be like this.


 * Will you understand what I'm going to tell you? … No, you're not going to be able to understand it. … That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.


 * This was about Quantum Electrodynamics.


 * I don't know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough.


 * The torch I carry: I find everything interesting if I go into it, and I go into it and write about what I find.


 * Once I asked him to explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin-1/2 particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. Gauging his audience perfectly, he said, "I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it." But a few days later he came to me and said: "You know, I couldn't do it. I couldn't reduce it to the freshman level. That means we really don't understand it."


 * This is getting very close.


 * What I cannot create, I do not understand.


 * This is how I learn: I was not going to reference this quote, it was too peripheral. However, I was looking for the quote I have not found yet, and thought there might be discussion on the Wikiquote talk page (there often is). That led me to do some research to respond there: . As part of this, I did an image search, and it turned up my next quote, from Quora, which I love (the site, that is, because it is full of very bright comments, grounded in experience):


 * That's why I agree with the saying, "if you can't do it, teach it". This is usually said in a derogatory way but having been a teacher for over 35 years, I have found it's the best way to fully understand something.--Sue Tamani.


 * Here is what I was looking for: The way I remembered it was "If you can't explain it to your grandmother, you don't understand it," and it is variously attributed to Einstein or Feynman. They come up with a Feynman quote it may have been based on. Some in the discussion there claim that it's not "true." Of course it's not "true." It's a finger pointing at the moon, it is not the moon, it is figurative. One more quote from Einstein, from wikiquote:


 * Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.


 * So, now, let's have fun! I heard Feynman talk about playing the bongo drums. I recall him as saying that he could beat 7:6. If so, that's amazing. I worked on and could do 5:4. 7:6 is practically incomprehensible to me. 6:5 would be hard enough! Indeed, 5:4 is hard enough!--Abd (discuss • contribs) 23:32, 8 September 2015 (UTC)


 * PLEASE don't make any changes to the lede or first section without first telling me, and then giving me a lot of time to think about it. I put days of thought into how it should go.  Some of this thought will not be transparent to the casual reader.  For example:


 * 1) I want a very short lede because the lede in Bell's theorem is way too long.
 * 2) I want the "abstract" and quote at the top to be small print because they are for experts.
 * 3) I liked the quote because it is multi-textured in a neutral sort of way. At first glance, it says that there is nothing special about Bell's theorem, a position held by many physicists (I a reference for that fact, though I don't really know if it is true).  But when you think about it, it is quite remarkable that we have a universe full of stars and sunrises and sunsets.  So maybe Bell's theorm is remarkable.
 * 4) There is no need to remind the reader that Bell's theorem is important.  I want this to be part of Physics equations (second semester).  In first year physics courses, students don't want to be told that this is important.  They are learning it because they are being told too.


 * Please, Abd, I know you like to do things your way. Just let the first section and lede be my way.  I wrote most of it.  Wikipedia says it's not a democracy, and it will take a lot more than two or three people to get me to back down on this.  Also, I am using this in a second semester course right now, so at least for a while, I can use that claim.  Don't forget, its just the lede and first heading (Calculations) that I care about (plus the three subpages)--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 21:07, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Suggested scope of the Calculation section and three subpages (Introduction-correlation-inequality)
The Calculation section and three subpages (Introduction, Correlation, Inequality) are designed to introduce advanced ideas at the lowest possible level. Those who wish to change this focus should consider creating one or more parallel pages (i.e. Bell's inequality or Bell's theorem experiments or Bell's paradox) We could move the (Introduction/Calculation/Inequality) subpages if there is consensus, but please edit them in a way that makes the material more accessible. Consider subpages for exercises and quizzes. As with anything "wiki", this is just a suggestion and is subject to community review.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 11:11, 22 September 2015 (UTC)