THEORY OF REALITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080053-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 5, 1998
• Sequence Number: 53
• Publication Date: April 29, 1975
• Content Type: RP

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OF Ri2,11TYX
Henry Pierce Stapp
La,:rrenoo Berkeley Laboratory
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720
April 29, 1975
ABSTRACT
Bell's theorem is.used to guide the formulation of a'unified
theory of reality that incor,orateo- the basic principles of relativ-
istic quantum theory.
Quantum theory is a theory of observations; the realities it
deals wi ,h are certain obserr: at_ans of scientists who -.:se theory.
These observations are only a small part of reality. Consequently quantum
theory, considered as a theory of reality, is incomplete. Prevailing
opinion holds, in fact, that no complete theory of reality can ade-
quately describe quantum phenomena. This opinion stems from the long
history of failures of attempts to achieve this end.
It is not clear, however, whether these failures arise fro.
an inadequacy of the reality concept, or merely from a breakdown of
the classical idea of causal space-time development. 3ohr often
emphasized the breakdown of this classical idea in the realm of quantum
pheno;: ana,and his point has nav? been strikingly verified and clarified
by the %vork of J. S. Bell.
Bell's work was orig;inall'y formulated in the restricted
7)
fr::s~~,:or c of hidden-variable the-,ry. Howwever, it was soon realized
'.lork suppo ted by U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration.
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'_..... Sell :i':tc establ.i e: ;vas t .he followwiingr pro`.'o :;- r ~ 7
The statistical predictions of quantum theory are incompatible
with the principle of local causes.
The principle of local causes asserts that what happens in
one space-time region is approximately independent of variables subject
to the control of an experimenter in a far-away space-like-separated
region. This principle holds in relativistic qu,-uitum theory at the
level of statistical predictions. However, the character of these
predictions is such that the principle must fail at the level of the
individual events. The statistical predictions from which this result
fol'owv come directly from the basic principles of quantum theory, no-,
from the detailed dynamics, and they have been experimentally tested
and confirmed. (3 )
Bell's theorem shows that no theory of reality compatible wi :h
quantum theory can allow the spatially separated parts of reality tc
be independent: These parts must be related some way -that goes beyond
the familiar idea that causal connections propagate only into the
forward light-cone. This conclusion will guide our thoughts
The first task of any general theory of reality is to formulate
the connection between the experiential or psychic aspects of reality
and the material or space-time aspects. The debate between Bohr and
E'L":_, tein pointed to the importance of this question, for Einstein
appealed finally to the need for a comprehensible understanding of
space-time relations, whereas Bohr appealed ultimately to the primacy
of experiential relations. A unified theory of reality must bring these
tyro aspects of reality into one coherent so "--me.
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~l LL..i theory ,JI a,,ea ity has beer. fGI'ia.i1 is
i :r.^ tf hill tene=t 1. ( 1 1 Accord:: n" to this theor,y reality consist', C=
discrete events. Each event has a location, which is a finite sr-ace-
time region. It. also has certain. experiential characteristics.
To support the idea that experience comes in discrete units
1`rnitehead cites the authority of William Jazes, who writeo:(6)
"Either your experience is of no content, of no change, or it
is of a perceptible amount of content or change. Your acaua.intara
with reality grows literally by buds or drops of perception. Intellec-
tually and on reflection you can divide these into components, bun as
immediately given they come totally or not at al"l."
To support the idea that physical processes consist of dis-
crete events one may cite the authority of Niels Bohr:(7)
"(The essence of quantum theory) may be expressed in the so-
called quantum postulate, which attributes to any atomic process an
essential discontinuity, or rather individuality, completely foreign
n-
to the classical theories and symbolized by Planck's quantum of
action. "
A reality consisting of discrete events seems hopelessly
fragmented and, pluralistic. Yet 'Uhitehead's reality is unified. This
unity is achieved by considering each event to be a process in which
all. prior events are brought together, or "prehended", in a new
oa'~t,ern. Reality thus becomes the process .,_ creation, in discrete
individual. steps, of an ever-r r ,;in g eb of relations oo'tvieen things
that are parts of this sam process. 1. ent'al events arc a part of
this general world process, and they afford an il-,_"'stratuion Of 113.7
events can be processes that bring together LuriQ!' events in new
patterns.
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inch event in the wcr'ld process prehen,:1s ii?
via,:- every prior event, and hence 3ontains within its-3y! f, in a
sense, the whole of creation.:
\'ihitehead chose a model that did not attain the full unity
just described. He believed that relativity theory req~Lred space-lik.V-
sewarated' events to be causally independent, and hence decreed that
each event prehend, not all of-creation, but only those events whose
locations lay in its backward light-cone. This mutilation of the
model destroys its natural unity and logical simplicity. Moreover, it
is incompatible with quantum theory, by virture of Bell's theorem.
Thus it must be undone. The result is a philosophically attractive
unified model of reality that provides a natural setting for relativ-
istic quantum theory.
II. THEORI OF EVENTS
In this section a physical theory of events is erected on the
model of reality described above. This theory incorporates the basic
principles of relativistic quantum theory. The theory is set forth
in eight assumptions or postulates, which have physical, metaphysical,
and mathematical aspects. The guiding principle is maximal simplicity:
The aim is to use the simplest and most economical metaphysical and
mathematical. structures consistent with what we know from experience.
The postulates are as follows:
1. The creative process. There is a creative process that
consists of a well.-ordered sequence of individual creative acts called
events.
Remark- This assumption affirms that there is actual creation, i.e.,
a real coming into being, or a coming into existence, aLnd that the
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or creat_Lo can be dcca_aoosed into a -_'a!'ante or _ndivi _..~
]!.? ~ o-
a . i i, l 'to. Is cre~ .t~. _ e1 2?L-is ts, and not l1.i ~n e is ~ e1..7_s 1.1 _ n
C . t.a . ti~.CVc: .o
passes out of existence. At the end of each creative act the v:hole of
creation is settled and definite: all that exists is unambiguously
fixed.
This simple logical structure can be contrasted rith ones in .
which all of creation, past, present, and future exists, and is fixed,
and change is some sort of i,l]fusion.- It may also be contrasted with
ones in which the creative process is not a single linear process but
rather a multiple process that proceeds somehow independently in
different space-time regions, sotlzat what exists is not globally well-
defined but depends on the space-time point from which the determination
of what exists is made. (These models bifurcate nature: they posit
either changing experiences of a pre-existing world or a changing world
in pre-existing space-time.)
2. Space-time location. Each event has characteristics that
define an associated region in a four-dimensional mathematical space.
This mathematical space is called the space-time continuum, and the
region in this space associated with an event is called its location.
Remark Space-time has no independent existence in -this theory.
Rather each event has characteristics -that can be interpreted as a
region in a certain mathematical space. For physical applications this
metaphysical distinction. is unir.portant, and one may imagine a pre-
existing space-time continuum with the events scattered through it.
Definition An event is prior to another if it occurs earlier in the
sequence of creative acts described in (1). It is subsecuent if it
occurs later in this sequence.
3. Conservation of mo,,entum-enerEy. Among the events prior
-to a given event are some events called its antecedents. Any event is
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a to each of its antecedents. The location of oac.. e'..~_-'
is connectod to the location of each of its antecedents by dir ;ed
geodesic (a directed straight line in space-time) that runs from
to
location of the antecdent to the location of the successor. Each
geodesic is associated with a real mass-value m, and also with a
momentum-energy vector p mv, .'There v is the four-velocity defined
by the direction of the geodesic. The sum of the momentum-energy
vectors associated with the geodesics coming into the location of a-
given event from the locations of its antecedents is equal to th? sum
of the energies associated with the geodesics going out from the
location of the event to the locations of its successors.
Remark This physical assumption, like those that follow, is holistic
rather than mechanistic; it is formulated as a mathematical condition
on the overall space-time structure of what emerges from the process
of creation, not as a dynamical law that governs the detailed way in
which reality unfolds.
Definition A system is a local space-time pattern of events.
4. Lorentz Invariance. Probabilities are determined by local
conditions: under suitable conditions of isolation the statistical
behavior of ensembles of systems defined by local specifications do not
depend on the Lorentz frame used to relate the local specifications
to global space-time.
Remark The isolation condition requires a local system to be isolated
in the sense that outside sources of energy a-re negligible. The
assumption is that under this condition of isolation ensembles of
subsystems defined by local specifications exhibit the type of
behavior characterized by probability functions. Moreover these
probability functions are invariant under Lorentz transformations.
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_h- s if A re orecents th. local specifications that charact~ri : an
ensemble and B represents the local specifications that
define a final ensemble and P[A; B] is the.-probability that B
holds under conditions A, then P[A; B) is independent of the
Lorentz frame used to relate the space -time coordinates occurring in
the local specifications A and B' to physical space-time points.
5. Scattering formalism. The statistical results of scatter-
ing experiments can be described by the formalism of classical rela
tivistic statistical mechanics, with the geodesics identifies? with
the trajectories of classical point particles.
Remark in the classical description each beam of initial particles
is described by a probability or weight function w(p,x) and the
detection system for each of the final particles is described by an
efficiency function e(p,x). The expression
(1)
fd3d3x w(p, x) e(P, x) = P[w, el
X 0
gives the probability that a particle in the beam described by w
will be detected by the system described by e. (The time t can be
chosen arbitrarily.) For a scattering of m particles into n
particles the expression
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P[w1,r,?, .'