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From: kube@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Paul Kube)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.physics
Subject: Bell's inequalities and Meaning of QM
Message-ID: <19053@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Wed, 27-May-87 16:40:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.19053
Posted: Wed May 27 16:40:46 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 30-May-87 02:29:43 EDT
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Reply-To: kube@cogsci.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Paul Kube)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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Keywords: aspect Bell hidden variables QM
Xref: mnetor sci.philosophy.tech:107 sci.physics:1468

In article <1216@cullvax.UUCP> drw@cullvax.UUCP (Dale Worley) writes:
>
>The important thing is that most or all hidden variable theories
>predict that Bell's inequality will be satisfied, but that the
>standard interpretation of QM requires that it will be violated in
>certain instances.

It seems to me that Worley's description here of the relationship between
the standard interpretation of QM, Bell's inequality, and hidden-variable
theories is exactly right.

>At present, the experimental evidence tends to support the standard
>interpretation, although I believe that no one has yet done an
>experiment that fully satisfies the requirements for Bell's
>inequality, so the jury's actually still out...

Whether or not there has been enough experimental disconfirmation of
the inequalities to finally decide the issue is, of course, a matter
for informed judgment.  I wish my judgment were informed enough to say
anything definitive about it.  I know just enough to see what turns on
it:  Quantum mechanics has impressive predictive power, but seems to be
committed to such a bizarre ontology that it has been preferable to
interpret the formalism instrumentally.  If the EPR-type
disconfirmations of the inequalities hold up, however, some bizarre
ontology is the right one, and a major reason for not taking QM
seriously goes away.  Maybe not quite an empirical answer to a
metaphysical question, but a pretty impressive intellectual
achievement nevertheless.

Isn't there anyone out there who understands the logic of the relevant
experiments and is up on the recent literature?  Please help us out.

--Paul kube@berkeley.edu, ...!ucbvax!kube