From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti)
Subject: re: Gallis on open system QM
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 21:52:10 GMT


Mike Gallis writes:

>No Richard. Henry Stapp in several of his writings on quantum mechanics
and consciousness (Henry is at Lawrence Bereley Lab) has pointed out that
>standard QM is really formulated for closed systems not for open systems -
 ************************************************************************
>although the recent work in continuous measurement of does the watched pot
>boil variety is beginning to correct that.
>
>This is not quite true.  Go down to your local physics library, and under
>subject, look up quantum open systems.  You'll find a wealth of
>information.

>In fact, one of Sarfatti's heros, Feynman, did some pioneering work, and
>developed what is called an influence functional to acount for environment
>effects in a quantum open system.  See also master equations, dissipative
>quantum systems, quantum Langevin equations, Lindblad generators, quantum
>dynamical semigroups ....
>Much of this work is 20 or more years old.

Yes, Mike you are quite correct. In fact, someone from Livermore O Group
showed that the arrow of time can be derived from the influence functional.
When the name pops up in my memory I'll post it.  He used to drive me
around in a Cobra in La Jolla in the 60's.

>The intent of my remark was not to give a necessary and sufficient
>definition of life in terms of physics but only to point to a
>necessary condition - no living system is in thermal equilibrium or
>even near it but is in the far-from-equilibrium "nonlinear" region
>in the sense of Prigogine - and that this feature may interact with
>the quantum mechanics in surprising ways that overcome the unitarity
>barrier and permit quantum connection communication between widely
>separated quantum level parts of living systems- providing nonlocal
>coordination needed for healthy functioning. I think that's the
>sort of thing Josephson has in mind in his Foundations of Physics paper
>on the subject.

>Local dynamics do not allow FTL communication, even if there are nonlocal
>quantum correlations.

Maybe so, but I am not convinced yet. I saw a new book by Haag on local
dynamics in QM field theory - it looks good and I may shell out the $60 to
relearn QM. But Josephson sort of waffles on communication (i.e. local
decoding) for his idea. He certainly thinks that nonlocal coordination
which is confirmed by Aspect mod detector loophole is important for life.
So do I.. However, my point is that if precognition and remote viewing are
real then nonlocal coordination without local decoding is not enough.
Josephson does say in Foundations of Physics that living systems can
communicate in my sense as well - but this is not within standard QM he
would agree - it's something new. Evewn Eberhard is prepared to accept FTL
communication, but beyond QM. Eberhard told me that directly. Have you read
Steve Weinberg's new nonlinear extension of standard QM? What do you think?
I'm told Weinberg's model does permit FTL local decoding.

>This holds even for open systems with local evolution.  Unfortunately
>Sarfatti has a history of not being able to distinguish between dynamics
>and the state of the system.

Not fair, as I explained earlier. I always accepted local dynamics in the
jA coupling. It's all in the objective entangled wavefunction which I view
as a premetrical hyperspace bridge if you like. No you don't like.

>For an isolated quantum system, the dynamics are described by the
>Hamiltonian and the state is the wave function.  For open systems, these
>generalize to a Liouville operator (often a Lindblad generator) and a
>density operator,respectively.

Yes, of course.

>A generalized non FTL communications proof can be found in
>"A General Argument against Superluminal Transmission through the Quantum
>Mechanical Measurement Process"
>by G.C. Ghirardi, A. Rimini and T. Weber
>Lett. Nuovo Cimento V27 p293 (1980)

Yes, I read that long ago. I thought you meant some second paper, something
new. I will re-read it though and comment.