Unravelling the Mysteries of Space and Light

[Chalnoth]

The apparent non-locality of QM stems from the collapse of the wave function, which never actually happens in reality. There is merely decoherence, not collapse.

 

[inflector]

So are you saying, for example, that in an EPR-type experiment like Aspect's the measurement of one entangled photon doesn't affect the outcome of the other measurement over distances in a way that must be happening faster than light speed?

I realize that there is no way to transmit information using entanglement, but I thought it was pretty clear that there was an instantaneous (or at least superluminal) effect due to the entanglement.

 

[Chalnoth]

So are you saying, for example, that in an EPR-type experiment like Aspect's the measurement of one entangled photon doesn't affect the outcome of the other measurement over distances in a way that must be happening faster than light speed?

Yes.

I realize that there is no way to transmit information using entanglement, but I thought it was pretty clear that there was an instantaneous (or at least superluminal) effect due to the entanglement.

Perhaps this will explain it:
Imagine, if you will, a emitter which emits entangled photons. Photons traveling in one direction have opposite spin to the photons traveling in the other direction. Now, the spins, when the photons are emitted, are in a superposition of the two available states. But now I go and measure the spin on one side and get a definitive answer: this photon is spin up. I must, if I go back and measure the other spin, get spin down: this is necessitated by the physics of the emitter. The fact that I must measure spin down on one photon if I've measured spin up on the other isn't a manifestation of non-locality, but merely of consistency.

 

[Carid]

Suppose everytings interacts with everything but the strength of the interaction falls off as R^-2 would we have "a seething cauldron of chaos" then?

The strength of the interaction may fall off as R^-2 and maybe the amount of interaction will rise as R^3 (on a large enough scale)
If my understanding is correct (a very dubious prospect mostly) this is the basis of why the inertia we experience is the fruit of our (non-instantaneous) interaction with the furthest observable objects in the Universe. The further we look, the more there is to interact with.