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Space and time may spring up from the quantum entanglement of tiny bits of information?

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From Clara Moskowitz at Scientific American:

Hundreds of researchers in a collaborative project called “It from Qubit” say space and time may spring up from the quantum entanglement of tiny bits of information

…

Some skeptics have questioned how productive IfQ can ever be if it is based on an unrealistic foundation. “That certainly is one very valid criticism: Why are we focusing on this toy model?” Engelhardt says. “All of this depends on the validity of the toy model, and the idea that in the end the toy model is representative of our universe. I would like to make sure that if we understand the toy model, we understand the real deal.”

Why does it sound like an effort to rehabilitate string theory?

The project is reminding some physicists of the heady days in the past when other big ideas were just getting started. “I became a grad student in 1984 when the so-called ‘first string theory revolution’ took place,” says Hirosi Ooguri, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology who has been working on IfQ. “That was a very exciting time when string theory emerged as a leading candidate for a unified theory of all the forces in nature. I do see the current explosion of excitement around this similarly. This is clearly an exciting time for young people in the field as well as those of us who received our PhDs decades ago.” More.

Okay, but string theory never really went anywhere.

There is something going on here and it often sounds like a lot of people are determined not to find it.

See also: In search of a road to reality

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4 Replies to “Space and time may spring up from the quantum entanglement of tiny bits of information?”

  1. 1
    bornagain77 says:
    October 30, 2016 at 10:16 am

    as to:

    Some skeptics have questioned how productive IfQ can ever be if it is based on an unrealistic foundation.

    Although I do like the ‘information theoretic’ foundation to reality that quantum mechanics puts forward, I, none-the-less, must point out that any ‘toy model’ of reality we construct that excludes consciousness as a primary prerequisite in building that ‘toy model’ will be, by definition, “based on an unrealistic foundation”. In other words, for us to even be able to define what is real and what is not real in any ‘toy model’, it is required that ‘mind’ must be assumed as a given. William J Murray puts the situation of constructing any realistic ‘toy model’ like this:

    “In any philosophy of reality that is not ultimately self-defeating or internally contradictory, mind – unlabeled as anything else, matter or spiritual – must be primary. What is “matter” and what is “conceptual” and what is “spiritual” can only be organized from mind. Mind controls what is perceived, how it is perceived, and how those percepts are labeled and organized. Mind must be postulated as the unobserved observer, the uncaused cause simply to avoid a self-negating, self-conflicting worldview. It is the necessary postulate of all necessary postulates, because nothing else can come first. To say anything else comes first requires mind to consider and argue that case and then believe it to be true, demonstrating that without mind, you could not believe that mind is not primary in the first place.”
    – William J. Murray

    William J Murray is in very good company:

    “No, I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
    Max Planck (1858–1947), the originator of quantum theory, The Observer, London, January 25, 1931

    “Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”
    Schroedinger, Erwin. 1984. “General Scientific and Popular Papers,” in Collected Papers, Vol. 4. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences. Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden. p. 334.

    “I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.”
    Werner Heisenberg – As quoted in The New York Times Book Review (March 8, 1992). – “Uncertainty,” David C. Cassidy’s biography of my father, Werner Heisenberg

    Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry – Physics Professor – John Hopkins University
    Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the “illusion” of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist).
    (Dr. Henry’s referenced experiment and paper – “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 – “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (Leggett’s Inequality: Violated, as of 2011, to 120 standard deviations)
    http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html

    Of related note to properly defining what is real and what is not real, in the following study, researchers who had a bias against Near Death Experiences being real, set out to prove that they were merely hallucinations by setting up a clever questionnaire that could differentiate which memories a person had were real and which memories a person had were merely imaginary.
    They did not expect the results they got:

    ‘Afterlife’ feels ‘even more real than real,’ researcher says – Wed April 10, 2013
    Excerpt: “If you use this questionnaire … if the memory is real, it’s richer, and if the memory is recent, it’s richer,” he said.
    The coma scientists weren’t expecting what the tests revealed.
    “To our surprise, NDEs were much richer than any imagined event or any real event of these coma survivors,” Laureys reported.
    The memories of these experiences beat all other memories, hands down, for their vivid sense of reality. “The difference was so vast,” he said with a sense of astonishment.
    Even if the patient had the experience a long time ago, its memory was as rich “as though it was yesterday,” Laureys said.
    http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/.....periences/

    Memories of Near Death Experiences (NDEs): More Real Than Reality? – Mar. 27, 2013
    Excerpt: University of Liège
    ,,,researchers,, have looked into the memories of NDE with the hypothesis that if the memories of NDE were pure products of the imagination, their phenomenological characteristics (e.g., sensorial, self referential, emotional, etc. details) should be closer to those of imagined memories. Conversely, if the NDE are experienced in a way similar to that of reality, their characteristics would be closer to the memories of real events.
    The researchers compared the responses provided by three groups of patients, each of which had survived (in a different manner) a coma, and a group of healthy volunteers. They studied the memories of NDE and the memories of real events and imagined events with the help of a questionnaire which evaluated the phenomenological characteristics of the memories. The results were surprising. From the perspective being studied, not only were the NDEs not similar to the memories of imagined events, but the phenomenological characteristics inherent to the memories of real events (e.g. memories of sensorial details) are even more numerous in the memories of NDE than in the memories of real events.
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....190359.htm

    A Doctor’s Near Death Experience Inspires a New Life – video
    Quote: “It’s not like a dream. It’s like the world we are living in is a dream and it’s kind of like waking up from that.”
    Dr. Magrisso
    http://www.nbcchicago.com/on-a.....31791.html

    Medical Miracles – Dr. Mary Neal’s Near Death Experience – video (More real than real quote at 37:49 minute mark)
    https://youtu.be/WCNjmWP2JjU?t=2269

    “More real than anything I’ve experienced since. When I came back of course I had 34 operations, and was in the hospital for 13 months. That was real but heaven is more real than that. The emotions and the feelings. The reality of being with people who had preceded me in death.”
    – Don Piper – “90 Minutes in Heaven,” 10 Years Later – video (2:54 minute mark)
    https://youtu.be/3LyZoNlKnMM?t=173

    Dr. Eben Alexander Says It’s Time for Brain Science to Graduate From Kindergarten – 10/24/2013
    Excerpt: To take the approach of, “Oh it had to be a hallucination of the brain” is just crazy. The simplistic idea that NDEs (Near Death Experiences) are a trick of a dying brain is similar to taking a piece of cardboard out of a pizza delivery box, rolling it down a hill and then claiming that it’s an identical event as rolling a beautiful Ferrari down a hill. They are not the same at all. The problem is the pure materialist scientists can be so closed-minded about it.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....51093.html

    This ‘more real than real’ finding is completely inexplicable on Naturalism. Whereas on Theism, this ‘more real that real’ finding is expected since God is the source of all reality and we rightly would expect things to become very much ‘more real’ for us the closer that we got to God.

    Verse:

    2 Corinthians 10:5
    5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

  2. 2
    J-Mac says:
    October 30, 2016 at 3:35 pm

    Off topic; well, sort of.

    I have been thinking about Einstein’s general theory of relativity as I was challenged by my two sons.

    According to them, there has to be a flaw in the theory as they do not agree that one’s time clock could tick to the past or the future depending on his distance and his movement through space-time.
    They think it’s impossible because the past has already happeded and the future hasn’t happeded yet…

    They were inspired to challenge it by the video by PBS at

    the 23 min mark

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ngv-8b8FM

  3. 3
    Dionisio says:
    October 30, 2016 at 7:18 pm

    IBM advances bring quantum computing closer to reality?

    http://www.computerworld.com/a.....ality.html

  4. 4
    Dionisio says:
    October 30, 2016 at 7:42 pm

    Quantum light-matter interfaces are at the heart of photonic quantum technologies.

    Quantum memories for photons, where non-classical states of photons are mapped onto stationary matter states and preserved for subsequent retrieval, are technical realizations enabled by exquisite control over interactions between light and matter.

    The ability of quantum memories to synchronize probabilistic events makes them a key component in quantum repeaters and quantum computation based on linear optics.

    This critical feature has motivated many groups to dedicate theoretical and experimental research to develop quantum memory devices.

    In recent years, exciting new applications, and more advanced developments of quantum memories, have proliferated.

    In this review, we outline some of the emerging applications of quantum memories in optical signal processing, quantum computation, and nonlinear optics.

    We review recent experimental and theoretical developments, and their impacts on more advanced photonic quantum technologies based on quantum memories.

    Quantum memories: emerging applications and recent advances

    Khabat Heshami, Duncan G. England, Peter C. Humphreys, Philip J. Bustard, Victor M. Acosta, Joshua Nunn, Benjamin J. Sussman

    Comments: Review paper. Comments are welcome!
    Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
    Journal reference: Journal of Modern Optics 63, No. S3, S42-S65 (2016)
    DOI: 10.1080/09500340.2016.1148212
    Cite as: arXiv:1511.04018 [quant-ph]
    (or arXiv:1511.04018v2 [quant-ph] for this version)

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