Are space and time physical non-realities?

Why More Physicists Are Starting to Think Space and Time Are ‘Illusions’

“I’m almost certain that space and time are illusions. These are primitive notions that will be replaced by something more sophisticated.” — Nathan Seiberg, Princeton University

_{Not smart enough to provide a link.}

"Reality is an illusion but a very persistent one". ...A.E

You can send information instantly across any distance. Unfortunately, you have no control over what you're sending.

Suppose you have two entangled particles with opposite spin. If you pick a direction and measure the spin of one, you will get "up" or "down". You have no control which - it is totally random.

If the spin of the entangled partner is measured along the same direction, it will come up "down" or "up", opposite of the first particle, even if the particles are separated farther than light can travel between measurements.

Common sense says that the particles had their spin from their creation, like a pair of shoes are left and right, a hidden variable. Bell, using the statistics of spin measured in varying directions, proved that hidden variables could not explain the correlation.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-bells-theorem-proved-spooky-action-at-a-distance-is-real-20210720/

A bird flies into a window - the concept of glass and reflection is beyond their understanding. Maybe quantum mechanics is beyond human understanding. We know what it does, but don't know why.

"Maybe quantum mechanics is beyond human understanding. "

Quantum mechanics is certainly beyond this human's understanding. I've been working in physics for nearly 70 years, and taught it for 28 of those years, but I definitely can not grasp quantum mechanics!

Obviously, I'm an old classical physicist!

Glad to know that I am not the only one.

Sabine Hossenfelder does an excellent job of explaining this.

https://youtu.be/XL9wWeEmQvo

speaking on quantum mechanics… I have read that a particle can be in two places at the same time.

but hey, I only repeat what I hear… and that’s faster then fast…

I don't see how we can draw any conclusions based on something we don't have a full understanding of ... that would be reckless and without foundation...the whole thing seems sketchy to me ...

Now that doesn't mean we can't make observations and use what we learn from those observations to build new technology, we don't have to understand it to use it....I would keep a sharp eye out for unintended consequences though....We don't really understand the nature of electricity, but we use the hell out of it...Speaking of that I never hear much about the unintended consequences of using electricity, just the pollution generated by the source used, but we all know that electricity dissipates to heat, wouldn't that contribute to global warming? Backs slowly out of room

I never hear much about the unintended consequences of using electricity, just the pollution generated by the source used, but we all know that electricity dissipates to heat, wouldn't that contribute to global warming?

I like that! Also never really thought about it. Thanks.

As long as you remove energy from wind water or sunlight to create electricity before you use it, you end up even; whereas if you burn fossil fuel to create the electricity you transfer energy stored in the fossil fuel to the environment.

Yes: I'm ignoring loads of other things which need to be taken into consideration.

I just meant to ask due to my lack of understanding....

Since I have no real understanding of what was labeled as "electricity", is it not like that saying that the light we see as being a cause as well as an after effect of electricity and vice versa? Which either way causes the heat that is felt by us? Which in general is really what causing the term "global warming" as coined by a fellow named Gore?

This thread travelled here slower than the speed of light.

Wow.

Reality is subjective,IMHO.If you were blind,deaf,mute your reality would be totally different.

We only perceive a small slice of reality,limited by our senses.

We are like an ant on the desert,thinking the universe is made of sand.

The truth is beyond out understanding;Try to describe a color to a blind person.

To paraphrase an unknown author:"If the universe were simple enough for us to understand it,we would be too simple to understand it."

Reality is subjective,IMHO.If you were blind,deaf,mute your reality would be totally different.

I don't know, if everyone's reality were different, we could not agree on anything. If an electron spin is measured, it could be up or down, but we all agree on the outcome.

Your perception of reality may be subjective, but it seems to me there is only one reality ultimately, what varies is the awareness of individuals...and the greater your accuracy is, the greater your ability to accomplish things....this is why we don't see chimpanzee's building high rise buildings and such....

IMHO:

Reality is a construct of the mind.It is constructed by inputs from various sources.

Reality exists only in the mind of the observer.Multiple observers may agree on certain things,but what each observer sees is an individual thing.When we agree that a certain color is say,green,we do not know exactly what the other person sees in his mind,but whatever it is, it is agreed to be called green.

Does the moon exist when you are not looking at it?To you it does not,but not to everyone.

Start with the premise that you do not exist,and see how far you get with that.

"Start with the premise that you do not exist, and see how far you get with that."

I think René Descartes had that covered.

This post was originally written in reply to #8, but applies equally well to #28.

Just because different people perceive the world in different ways does NOT mean the world isn't real.

On a cold day, a person doing nothing besides sitting working on a computer in a room kept at 65°F will probably perceive that room as cold. Another person coming in from outside will probably perceive that same room as warm. The fact that the two people have different perceptions of that room and its atmosphere do not make that room and its atmosphere unreal.

"We only perceive a small slice of reality,limited by our senses." This is definitely true, but it doesn't make reality subjective. It does make each person's perception of that reality subjective.

I think you're wrong about Bell. Post a link and prove me wrong.

As I understand Bell's thinking, and I may be wrong, he seemed to believe that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light. He shows that quantum entanglement allows information to be transmitted over infinite distances, which seemingly disproves space-time as a reality.

Proving quantum entanglement is possible and proving that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light, are mutually exclusive proofs. But they happened.

He therefore believed that our belief in space-time is the problem.

But then again, this stuff is really over my head. Just trying to stimulate the crowd.

Where is the proof that information cannot travel faster than the speed of lifght?

That was some time ago when C was king, before quantum came along. We now know better.

Is that supposed to be an answer to my question?

Don't include me in that "we"!

Well there was also a time when we thought the world was flat and human flight was impossible.

I'll be sure to not include you in that "we"!

Here is the current thinking about that.

https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/future-tech/information-travel-faster-than-light.htm

Thanks.

From that link: "The answer to whether meaningful information can travel faster than light is currently no"

(My added emphasis). DW

I think you are splitting hairs with you adjective "meaningful" which is actually where the emphasis would have better been placed IMHO.

I can envision where entangled particles will one day be used in apparatus which will enable instantaneous communication between vast distances.

But then again, I'm just a dreaming engineer who might be a little ahead of my skis.

That adjective isn 't mine; its in the quote from the article referred to in your link. The only thing I added was the boldface and underline, as I just did in the previous sentence.

If the information isn't meaningful, then why bother to transfer it?

First, I would consider where the Bell Curve comes from. It comes from flux. And to this day, man can not discern flux. There are different fluxes also, which adds to the problem. A flux measurement is always an average measurement. Bell's curve is nothing more than a plot of the average, including both IDEAL sides of the average. Of a flux. Light is a flux. That's why you should NEVER use light to measure light. Use a single emitter to measure V, not a flux.

And they call this flux a distribution. And they proclaim this distribution comes from probability.

But it does not come from probability. It comes from multiple emitters at various angles and emission timings. There is nothing probable about it.

And yet, they have proclaimed that probability is part of nature.

The only probability that I can detect, is with intellect, not nature.

Probability, randomness and chaos only exist between the ears.

"Experiments have overwhelmingly shown that the Bell inequalities are violated. The most common interpretation of this result is that the "message" between A and B is instantaneous. (The alternative would be to invalidate the physical reality of B's spin.) Therefore, quantum mechanics seems to display non-locality.

Note: This non-locality in quantum mechanics only relates to the specific information that is entangled between the two particles - the spin in the above example. The measurement of A cannot be used to instantly transmit any sort of other information to B at great distances, and no one observing B will be able to tell independently whether or not A was measured. Under the vast majority of interpretations by respected physicists, this does not allow communication faster than the speed of light."

thoughtco.com/what-is-bells-theorem-2699344

“It might not sound like much, but it’s a major advancement and builds upon the past 20 years of work. By doing so, we’ve revealed the key to scaling up the technology, which is crucial for the most ground-breaking of quantum hardware applications.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/quantum-entanglement-two-photons/

IMHO:

A person's reality consist of only things that (s)he can perceive;A bubble of reality,so to speak.Like bubbles in sea foam,they can make contact other bubbles in various ways, sharing the limits of their reality,yet still maintaining it in a personal exclusive way and affect each other in many ways,but yet maintain personal integrity.A bubble bursts, a person dies,another bubble forms, a baby is born,and life goes on.Everyone's life experience,their reality is different.

Life is the universe trying to see itself from all possible points of view,even viruses and bacteria.

Reality is an illusion that the brain projects onto the inside of the cranium as a result of sensors, training and experience.

"We now know that we can entangle two protons and transmit information over seemingly unlimited light years instantly."

How do we know this? Have we ever removed the entanglement from earth's g field? Let's send one of a pair to Jupiter. Will the entanglement hold when it switches g fields?

Could there be another physical property that we have not recognized yet? Science says we have a positive particle and a negative particle. What if they are a left handed particle and a right handed particle. Handedness. And what if there is a balance of handedness? We had no problem saying that there is a balance of neg and pos. Maybe handedness is the real equality. Maybe that's why we can pair them.

The equality might not be the balance of energy, but an equality of motion. Different velocities of motion, can be equalized and balanced with area. This balance will be un-equal in energy.......but equal in area motion.

Does that make any sense to anyone? What if there is a property of area(spacial) handedness.....or motion handedness.

The huge difference in right and left handed energy(momentum), at atomic level, might cause the asymmetric attraction of g.