LOCAL YOKELS AND BUTTERFLY WINGS

Some years ago, I rented a film called Suspect Zero. Very interesting flick. Ben Kingsley starred as a former FBI agent who would track down serial killers, and kill them. How did he find them? Remote viewing. It was tres intriguing. Definitely worth a watch.

On the DVD’s special features, there were a couple of featurettes. One was about a Taoist priest who gave instructions on how to activate the ‘Third Eye’. The other was a brief intro on the concept of nonlocality.

Here is the brief explanation:”A physical theory is said to exhibit nonlocality if, in that theory, it is not possible to treat widely separated systems as independent. The term is most often reserved, however, for interaction supposed to occur outside the backward light cone, i.e. superluminal influences.”

To understand this a little better, there is also the concept of locality:

“In physics, the principle of locality is that distant objects cannot have direct influence on one another: an object is influenced directly only by its immediate surroundings. This was stated as follows by Albert Einstein in his article "Quantum Mechanics and Reality" ("Quanten-Mechanik und Wirklichkeit", Dialectica 2:320-324, 1948):

Principle of locality
The following idea characterises the relative independence of objects far apart in space (A and B): external influence on A has no direct influence on B; this is known as the Principle of Local Action, which is used consistently only in field theory. If this axiom were to be completely abolished, the idea of the existence of quasienclosed systems, and thereby the postulation of laws, which can be checked empirically in the accepted sense, would become impossible.

Local realism is the combination of the principle of locality with the "realistic" assumption that all objects must objectively have their properties already before these properties are observed. Einstein liked to say that the Moon is "out there" even when no one is observing it.”

Thus far, nonlocality is beating out locality, as per Bell’s theorem:

“Bell test experiments to date overwhelmingly show that the inequalities of Bell's theorem are violated. This provides empirical evidence against local realism and demonstrates that some of the "spooky action at a distance" suggested by the famous Einstein Podolsky Rosen (EPR) thought experiment do in fact occur. They are also taken as positive evidence in favor of QM. The principle of special relativity is saved by the no-communication theorem, which proves that the observers cannot use the inequality violations to communicate information to each other faster than the speed of light.”

Have I lost anyone yet? The short version is…drum roll, please…everything’s interconnected on a quantum level.

I find this so weirdly interesting. The featurette previously mentioned put it thusly (all paraphrased, so feel free to step in and correct, please).

In the 20’s, Schrödinger (yes, the same cat who did the cat in a box experiment) came up with the concept of non-locality. Split a subatomic particle in two, and no matter how much distance between them, one will always be spinning in one direction; the other will always be spinning in the opposite direction. One spins upwards, the other downwards.

Einstein hated this theory. So he set out to disprove it. What happened? He validated it. (Take that, you crazy creationists! Oh, wait, different topic, sorry).

The best example I can muster for my readers without a scientific bent (don’t feel bad, I struggle with this stuff too), is the butterfly effect or better known as chaos theory –

“The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear (or, for that matter, prevent a tornado from appearing). The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale phenomena. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different.”

That’s the best example I can cobble up to illustrate the concept better.

Personally, I find the theorums fascinating, even mind-boggling. That the world as we know it is one vast, interconnected jigsaw puzzle, but that the pieces are ever in flux, there is no stasis, all is moving, all is in a constant state of infinite change.

Yes, there’s one infinite I recognize. Energy. It has no face, no name, no staff to smite with, just a vast ocean of waveforms, cresting, tidal, an interlocking matrix that defies the mind to imagine, the eye to see.

It’s the only appeal to wonder I need.

Till the next post, then.