Larry King to Host Robert Spitzer and Stephen Hawking
By: PR Newswire
Sep. 9, 2010 01:06 PM
Leading Authority on Metaphysics to Respond to Hawking's Creation Theory

Cap'n Jack Sarfatti It's Hawking's Grand Illusion - a persistent one. ;-)
26 shots o' rum ago · Weigh in · Arr!
Jack Sarfatti GOD is alive and well on our future event 2D horizon that is the world hologram conscious cosmic computer and we are its back from the future 3D hologram images. This is the craziest idea to come out of the minds of men starting with Wheeler and Feynman to 't Hooft and Susskind put together by me. It's so kooky, so crazy that it may even be true!
22 shots o' rum ago · Arr! · Jack Sarfatti We need to throw in Hoyle, Narlikar, I.J. Good, John Cramer, Fred Alan Wolf, Yakir Aharonov & students, and Paul Davies and probably others (Basil Hiley?). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6eqsOAJL20

If you want a receipt for that popular mystery,
Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon,
CHORUS. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
COLONEL. Take all the remarkable people in history,
Rattle them off to a popular tune.
The pluck of Lord Nelson on board of the Victory –
Genius of Bismarck devising a plan –
The humour of Fielding (which sounds contradictory) –
Coolness of Paget about to trepan –
The science of Jullien, the eminent musico –
Wit of Macaulay, who wrote of Queen Anne –
The pathos of Paddy, as rendered by Boucicault –
Style of the Bishop of Sodor and Man –
The dash of a D'Orsay, divested of quackery –
Narrative powers of Dickens and Thackeray –
Victor Emmanuel – peak-haunting Peveril –
Thomas Aquinas, and Doctor Sacheverell –
Tupper and Tennyson – Daniel Defoe –
Anthony Trollope and Mister Guizot! Ah!
Take of these elements all that is fusible,
Melt them all down in a pipkin or crucible,
Set them to simmer, and take off the scum, 

And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum!
W.S. Gilbert

On Sep 9, 2010, at 9:12 PM, nick herbert wrote:

There are more serious critiques of the recent Aharonov paper than the fact that Jack fails to credit the priority of Aristotle for some of his ideas.

Not true, Nick, in the July 30, 2010 video of my Lecture to the Illuminati of the Theosophical Society I mention Aristotle's Final Cause many many times. Just Google and get the links on http://stardrive.org/. And of course it will be in Destiny Matrix 2012.

Aharonov and Vaidman are certainly more aware of the subtleties of quantum measurement than your average quantum grease monkey. It was they who worked out the details of quantum non-disturbing measurements using the Zeno Effect. However there may be problems with the very concept of a "weak measurement" (not the same as the well-understood Zeno phenomenon) that have not yet been addressed and that might render this kind of measurement a less useful tool than one might hope. I have not read Aharonov's new book so I do not know if he addresses the criticisms raised by Stephen Parrott in his "What does a "weak measurement" actually measure?" a question that neither Aristotle nor Aquinas raised--for obvious reasons (but on the other hand Aharonov completely ignores the question of the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist.)

But Dan Smith does not! ;-)

A precise definition of "weak [quantum] measurements" and "weak value" (of a quantum observable) is offered, and simple finite dimensional examples are given showing that weak values are not unique and therefore probably do not correspond to any physical attribute of the system being "weakly" measured, contrary to impressions given by most of the literature on weak measurements.

A possible mathematical error in the seminal paper introducing "weak values" is explicitly identified. A mathematically rigorous argument obtains results similar to, and more general than, the main result of that paper and concludes that even in the infinite-dimensional context of that paper, weak values are not unique. This implies that the "usual" formula for weak values is not universal, but can apply only to specific physical situations.

The paper is written in a more pedagogical and informal style than is usual in the research literature in the hope that it might serve as an introduction to weak values.


WHAT DO QUANTUM WEAK MEASUREMENTS ACTUALLY MEASURE?
Stephen Parrott

http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/0908.0035

Since you are enthused about weak measurements I expect you might be able to produce some cogent commentary on Stephen Parrott's analysis of their limitations.

I am not enthused so much about weak measurements. You are painting my fence quite nicely. Like you, signal nonlocality a strong result compared to the faint-hearted lily of weak measurement is what whets my appetite. It is obvious to my intuition that back-from-the-future retro-causal influences do not live or die only on the issue of weak measurements. They are not the crucial test, merely a stepping stone along the way. Weak measurements still obey signal locality. They are puny, stunted like Shakespeare's Richard III.

Nick Herbert
http://quantumtantra.blogspot.com/

PS: Jack, you merely took one course in Aquinas. I lived in St. Thomas's world for the first quarter of my life.

Ah so, that explains it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oppHeMlaLVM
3 shots o' rum ago · Arr! ·