There seems to be information missing from this reality... where is this information hiding? Some sort of non-material substrate maybe? — Devans99

If it's a substance, won't it just be subsumed into physics, and become part of material reality?

It would explain the following:

1. Waveform collapse. Hidden variables describing the particles position etc… are hidden in the non-material substrate. De Broglie–Bohm pilot wave theory for example. — Devans99

In De Broglie-Bohm, the hidden variables are the particles. Can never figure out if the wavefunction is a real thing in that theory. Probably best avoid it since it has been refuted so many times.

2. Dark matter/energy. Astronomers can’t find them but insist they are there. Maybe dark matter/energy exists in the non-material substrate but its mass effects things in the real world — Devans99

These Dark theories are really just catchy names for particular problems. Not sure how suggesting the observed anomalous effects are caused by something immaterial. Seems to only make matters worse.

3. Radioactive decay (and other ‘stochastic’ mechanisms). Hidden variables in the non-material substrate determine when atoms decay. — Devans99

How would hidden variable in a non-material substance do that? How can non-material substances affect material substances, and how do they store variables?

Radioactivity seems pretty well understood otherwise.

4. Quantum entanglement. Einstein’s spooky action at a distant could be explained if FTL travel is possible in the non-material substrate or if it is organised differently to the material world (maybe locality is persevered) — Devans99

Any explanation that appeals to spooks or the mysterious, or the non-physical, or the superluminal, really doesn't explain anything, and you may therefore reject it. Especially when explanations exist that don't invoke those things.

In De Broglie-Bohm, the hidden variables are the particles. Can never figure out if the wavefunction is a real thing in that theory. Probably best avoid it since it has been refuted so many times — Inis

I don't believe the wave function collapse is random, so there must be hidden variables in the non-material substrate. Everything is cause and effect IMO. There is no other way for the universe to get things done; it must apply at some level.

These Dark theories are really just catchy names for particular problems. Not sure how suggesting the observed anomalous effects are caused by something immaterial. Seems to only make matters worse. — Inis

We are missing matter and energy; galaxies are not rotating correctly for the amount of observed mass. That mass has to hidden be somewhere. If a non-material substrate could have the property of mass then it would be a possible answer.

How would hidden variable in a non-material substance do that? How can non-material substances affect material substances, and how do they store variables? — Inis

An atom might have a hidden timer variable(s) that determines when decay is due. I think the non-material and material would interact through forces. Certain forces may effect both the material and non-material worlds. Gravity is maybe one of them (dark matter/energy).

Any explanation that appeals to spooks or the mysterious, or the non-physical, or the superluminal, really doesn't explain anything, and you may therefore reject it. Especially when explanations exist that don't invoke those things. — Inis

How else do you explain spooky action at a distance without something a bit spooky? You are not going to find a local explanation for non-local behaviour so it will always be spooky.

I don't believe the wave function collapse is random, so there must be hidden variables in the non-material substrate. Everything is cause and effect IMO. There is no other way for the universe to get things done; it must apply at some level. — Devans99

Bohmian mechanics has been refuted so many times, it is getting boring. Physicists don't even mention wavefunction collapse anymore anyway. For the Copenhagenists, it purely imaginary event, for Everettians, it doesn't happen, and the view of the Quantum Bayesians seems to be the same as the Copenhagenists. The wavefunction is just a tool, it's not a thing.

We are missing matter and energy; galaxies are not rotating correctly for the amount of observed mass. That mass has to hidden be somewhere. If a non-material substrate could have the property of mass then it would be a possible answer. — Devans99

As I said, the catchy name for the unsolved problems is the Dark Theories.

How else do you explain spooky action at a distance without something a bit spooky? You are not going to find a local explanation for non-local behaviour so it will always be spooky. — Devans99

All varieties of Everettian QM are local and realistic. Copenhagen is local, but non-realist. The superdeterminist extension to Copenhagen is realist, however.

De Broglie-Bohm is refuted and doesn't work.

You're into physics right? So you would know that we have already done major research into the existence of all possible particles. If the standard model (SM) is correct than there are no other interactions besides which already have been discovered.

If however, it is missing some key variable of particle interaction it leaves itself open to the possibility of other particles existing. If this is the case there could be other energies that can cause invisible but apparent interactions.

The four situations you have listed don't seem to achieve any logical proof of a non-material reality. If there is a non-material reality it should in some way interact with this world effecting its phenomena. If you can give an example of this interaction, and make that example a demonstration/experimentation than you will have proof of a spirit realm.

Does such exist already?

Perhaps it does. There are several reliable experiments in paranormal research that provide us with some semblance of proof of a spirit world. But who is doing the research into its existence at a particle level? I have found none. Thus, such 'beingness' is currently non-reducible, and therefore unfit for the SM.

Bohmian mechanics has been refuted so many times, it is getting boring. Physicists don't even mention wavefunction collapse anymore anyway. For the Copenhagenists, it purely imaginary event, for Everettians, it doesn't happen, and the view of the Quantum Bayesians seems to be the same as the Copenhagenists. The wavefunction is just a tool, it's not a thing. — Inis

I just cannot countenance a non-deterministic interpretation and then many worlds Interpretation is IMO crazy so I'm staying with non-local hidden variables.

De Broglie-Bohm is refuted and doesn't work. — Inis

I don't see any valid explanation of quantum entanglement with the Copenhagen interpretation. A non-material substrate would provide a mechanism though.

If there is a non-material reality it should in some way interact with this world effecting its phenomena. If you can give an example of this interaction, and make that example a demonstration/experimentation than you will have proof of a spirit realm. — Josh Alfred

Well dark matter/energy are hidden and do interact with the material world so are a candidate. And I don't believe a purely materialistic explanation of quantum entanglement is possible.

I just cannot countenance a non-deterministic interpretation and then many worlds Interpretation is IMO crazy so I'm staying with non-local hidden variables. — Devans99

Despite it being refuted, and impossible to relativise.

Your attitude is isomorphic to those who adhere to geocentricism and the flat Earth.

Despite it being refuted, and impossible to relativise.

Your attitude is isomorphic to those who adhere to geocentricism and the flat Earth. — Inis

And your attitude is isomorphic to an adherent of magic. How exactly is the universe meant to function without cause and effect, by magic? What mechanism would you replace cause and effect with? Purely random processes we've never been able to achieve so maybe the universe can't do random either? Generating information from nothing is impossible.

If we abandon the axiom of cause and effect we might as well give up on logic and science IMO.

I don't think a materialistic explanation for entanglement is possible.

What do you propose? Just leave it as an "unknown"? When particles become entangled they than communicate non-locally. What happens to particle a, happens to particle b. What is missing here, you think?

I am convinced that reality is energetic/elemental/substantive (ontology) undergoing causal change (teleogoy) understand by the mind (epistemology). Do you propose another domain?.Spirit? As some do? What is its ontology? Do your propose its teleology is non-local communication?

I was a materialist but now I'm having second thoughts. Some sort of material/non-material hybrid is maybe what reality is. So not materialism and not idealism.

Especially since the idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent, the far more logical assumption is that our theories are at least incomplete, if they don't require a more foundational paradigm change. You don't just assume that our theoretical framework must be correct when we arrive at something like "dark matter" and then assume something incoherent such as "there must be a non-material substrate." What's far more likely is that we f-ed up somewhere on the way to concluding that there must be dark matter (and so on).

A pet peeve of mine is theory worship, and this sort of thing smells of theory worship--proceeding as if the theory can't be wrong, so there must be something like a "non-material substrate." Basically it's epicycles all over again.

To be fair I sited 4 separate ideas/theories that all point in the same direction.

If you reject a non-material substrate, how would you explain quantum entanglement?

If you reject a non-material substrate, how would you explain quantum entanglement? — Devans99

How in the world would a nonmaterial substrate explain it?

We can't even explain what the heck a nonmaterial substrate would be.

Isn't that precious, all that talk about a "non-material substrate." Maybe it would be good to define "material." Did that ever occur to anyone? What, you say! Everyone knows what material is and what the word means, and thus what non-material means! If you think you do, then watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8grN3zP8cg

and find out what you're really made of.

If you really need (a) God to explain everything, then just grab a chunk of granite, or any piece of hard rock local to you and call that God, and offer that it explains everything, once it's properly understood how it acts whether as a whole or in its parts. Not satisfactory? Why not - what else do you need?

The whole matter of this thread is a wishful God-in-the-gaps proposal. Empty, useless. And true faith, if that is what is in question, has no need whatsoever of it.

How in the world would a nonmaterial substrate explain it? — Terrapin Station

The non-material substrate could be arranged differently so the entangled particles remain co-located in the substrate. Or FTL communication is possible in the substrate.

The non-material substrate could be arranged differently so the entangled particles remain co-located in the substrate. Or FTL communication is possible in the substrate. — Devans99

But you could just make the same moves re the material world without having to posit something incoherent.

But you could just make the same moves re the material world without having to posit something incoherent. — Terrapin Station

These solutions don't work in the material world: the entangled particles are (say) one light year apart in the material world so there is no way they can be co-located. FTL communication is impossible in the material world. We have spent years searching the material world and not found anything to mediate the spooky action at a distance. Hence its valid to consider alternative mechanisms.

First, you're ignoring that the idea of a nonmaterial anything doesn't even make any sense.

Secondly, you're doing what I talked about earlier re assuming that our theories are correct. In other words, if our theories suggest that FTL communication is impossible, then it's impossible. Our theories could be wrong. We could have gotten things wrong at a very fundamental level that would require a major paradigm change in physics (and/or the mathematics that underlies it).

Third, you're comfortable jumping to "well FTL communication is impossible in the material world, but it would be possible in the nonmaterial world" (even though the idea of a nonmaterial world doesn't even make any sense and we haven't the faintest idea whatsoever how FTL communication would be possible in a nonmaterial world . . . we haven't the faintest idea whatsoever how anything would work in a nonmaterial world, or what any properties of it would be).

You might as well just "explain" every mystery with, "It must be magic."

Re the theory worship problem, in a nutshell, if you get to a point where theory suggests something that is absurd or that contradicts empirical evidence, you should figure that we went wrong somewhere in our theorizing, or we at least missed something.

It's the "therefore I have no head" problem. If the theory leads to a conclusion like that. you don't continue to endorse the theory as if it's necessarily the trump card (and add stuff like, "It must be magic that makes it appear as if I have a head . . ."). You go, "Oops! I must have royally f-ed up somewhere." And then you retrace your steps, apply (creative) critical thinking to each step, and try to figure out where you could have gone wrong.

In my opinion especially physics spends a lot of time on and posits a lot of gobbledygooky, unfalsifiable nonsense, and interprets a lot of things in a completely untenable way philosophically, in a way that has increased in the past 150 years or so . . . but I'm a physicalist and a nominalist with a very parsimonious ontology--I'm not even a realist on mathematics, or any abstracts for that matter--who favors and instrumental interpretation of science and who has a bit of a logical positivist disposition. So obviously I'm going to think that "multiverse" talk and all of that sort of stuff is so much balderdash.

First, you're ignoring that the idea of a nonmaterial anything doesn't even make any sense. — Terrapin Station

The fact that there is one sort of reality we know about (the material world) does not exclude the possibility of alternative forms of reality. We are missing information in the real world and it must be somewhere. If we can't find it in the real world, it must be elsewhere. So a non-material world makes sense.

Secondly, you're doing what I talked about earlier re assuming that our theories are correct. — Terrapin Station

There is masses of experimental evidence for the speed of light and for quantum entanglement; I do not see it as reasonable to doubt them.

Third, you're comfortable jumping to "well FTL communication is impossible in the material world, but it would be possible in the nonmaterial world" (even though the idea of a nonmaterial world doesn't even make any sense and we haven't the faintest idea whatsoever how FTL communication would be possible in a nonmaterial world . . . we haven't the faintest idea whatsoever how anything would work in a nonmaterial world, or what any properties of it would be).

You might as well just "explain" every mystery with, "It must be magic." — Terrapin Station

FTL travel is not possible because of spacetime. If the substrate is not subject to spacetime then FTL travel maybe possible.

The non-material world is not magic; if it exists, it follows rules like our world. It would be also connected to our world. So it's logical and we can collect evidence for it (indirectly); so it falls well within the remit of science.

The fact that there is one sort of reality we know about (the material world) does not exclude the possibility of alternative forms of reality. We are missing information in the real world and it must be somewhere. If we can't find it in the real world, it must be elsewhere. So a non-material world makes sense. — Devans99

An alternate-to-the-material-world world doesn't make sense just because we are "missing information"--whatever that amounts to, exactly. And whatever it amounts to, "Just in case there's only the material world, then we'd not be missing any information" obviously doesn't follow.

You'd have to try to make some sense of what a non-material world would even be. Otherwise it's just an empty term. You could just forward any nonsense word as the alternative--"There must be a pleebaflak that's different than the material world because we're missing information." It would just be a sound referring to nothing.

There is masses of experimental evidence for the speed of light and for quantum entanglement; — Devans99

If there is empirical evidence that the speed of light can be exceeded, then obviously we went wrong somewhere in our theorizing. Empirical evidence trumps theory.

FTL travel is not possible because of spacetime — Devans99

"Spacetime" is one place that I KNOW we've gone wrong. There is no such "thing" as spacetime. Space is the same as the extension of matter and the extensional relations of matter. That's it. it's not anything else. It's not any sort of "container" to put things into. It has no properties in itself. And time is simply change or motion--so that it again supervenes on matter/the dynamic relations of matter. Thinking of space, time or spacetime as something that kind of functions like a container, or that has its "own" properties, etc., is a very fundamental mistake, and any theorizing based on that is going to have problems.

Quantum entanglement as I understand it has been experimentally proven - and Quantum Mechanics - works for lack of a better word. Where I think physics is now is General Relativity works ( again for lack of a better word ) for big stuff, and QA works for sub atomic stuff - but there has not been a bridge built between the two that unifies them - some unified theory of the universe.

On another thread i opined that ( with no evidence at all ) Entanglement could be looked at as the top most slice of the space -time plane we are aware off - there being many other space time planes that we are not aware of.

The philosophic implication of such a world is all problems then become metaphysical - since all physical constants are only valid in the space time plane we are aware of.

Dr. Hud Hudson makes this point to show that if it is only possible that block time exists, it is now possible that literal bible interpretations such as creation, or Adam and eve - are possible events in some other space time plane - and as such can not be dismissed on scientific claims - and must be addressed metaphysically.

It is certainly possible that we hold our current scientific understandings in a much higher regard than they well deserve - just like every other generation before us held theirs. It seems as we reach each new step on the science ladder - we look down at all those other ideas and feel our current level of knowledge is so superior - ignoring the fact that as a race we felt that exact same way on every other rung.

Quantum entanglement as I understand it has been experimentally proven — Rank Amateur

Ermpirical claims are not provable (in any stricter sense of that term) and we're not doing science if ANY claim isn't revisable.



And apparently no one knows what instrumentalism is, by the way.

The philosophic implication of such a world is all problems then become metaphysical - since all physical constants are only valid in the space time plane we are aware of. — Rank Amateur

You also don't seem to be using the term "metaphysical" in the standard (at least modern) philosophical sense there.

Pardon the slack language - there have been many experiments done that show entanglement happened, as predicted by the tested hypothesis -

You also don't seem to be using the term "metaphysical" in the standard (at least modern) philosophical sense there — Terrapin Station

was not sure there was such an agreed philosophical sense - In the sense I meant in the quote - and in the sense Dr. Hudson meant - was it becomes a question outside physics - out side science - if block time is deemed as only a mere possibility.

If you take it that there are individual spatial-temporal locations, each distinct from every other, then it seems there necessarily has to be something immaterial linking them together for them to have any effect on each other, rather than each being self-contained. You can’t posit some kind of material “glue”, since you’re left with the same problem of having to explain how that glue is to everything materially glued. Perhaps that ties in with some of the physics you mention.

In Eisenstein's world of general relativity - yes, in the world of Quantum Mechanics - no.

An electron, say, doesn’t occupy a particular spatial-temporal location?

If it's a substance, won't it just be subsumed into physics, and become part of material reality? — Inis

My thoughts exactly.

A pet peeve of mine is theory worship, and this sort of thing smells of theory worship--proceeding as if the theory can't be wrong, so there must be something like a "non-material substrate." — Terrapin Station

It's a pet peeve of mine, too. Although it can be of interest to examine what might have gone wrong. This isn't the first time that I've seen some indication that Devons99 might have gone astray somewhere. He seems to put the cart before the horse, i.e. confirmation bias.

The whole matter of this thread is a wishful God-in-the-gaps proposal. Empty, useless. — tim wood

That seems about right.

according to entanglement - and as shown be experiments - no it does not . Entanglement would even say the electron does not even exist before it is "seen" .

It is a wild world we live in

Then where is it? And if it doesn’t exist before we see it, how do we come to see it? I know very little about quantum mechanics, but this entanglement theory on the face of it seems credulous.