The EPR phenomenon is that measuring one of two entangled photons determines the other. It is determinism or physical causation only, not successful communication. Indeed, that is precisely why it cannot be used for FTL computing, the sender can only measure, not control what the measurement will be (No Cloning Theorem.)
I'm extremely firm in insisting that we not allow the meaning of words to be altered in any debate, especially here among fellow conservatives.
History has shown us the potential for deadly consequences by controlling the dictionary in politics. Two cases come to mind off the top of my head. In Germany, they meticulously referred to Jews, Gypsies and other unwanted sorts as "untermenschen" which literally means "under men." So much did the people buy into this new word that they did not believe they were killing humans in the holocaust, merely untermenschen. Likewise today we have stood by and let the press and politic define the unborn child as a fetus and likewise, the would-be mothers have not been killing babies but fetuses.
Control of the dictionary it also is a tool in ideological, theological and philosophical debate as if to manipulate how people think.
We see in the never-ending debate over the philosophical and political consequences of Darwinism when our correspondents use the term "creationist" to mean Young Earth Creationism only - an easier subgroup for them to smear. The truth however is that all people who believe in God the Creator are creationist! We must not permit such tactics.
And, as I'm sure TXnMA can attest, I've been hard as nails on the misappropriation of math terms.
I freely admit to being a math geek, but math terms such as "information" and "randomness" should not be misappropriated for the same reasons.
For instance, the term "random" has been misappropriated to describe unpredictable natural phenomena. But in math, one cannot say something is random in the system unless he knows what the system "is."
In physical systems, both the full number and types of dimensions are unknown and unknowable for the same reason we cannot say that particles and fields do not exist simply because they have no measurable direct or indirect effect!
As an example, a series of numbers extracted from the extension of pi may appear to be random when they are, in fact, highly determined by calculating the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.
Allowing that misappropriation of the term "random" would inadvertently help atheistic activism.
Likewise, allowing "information" to be misappropriated to mean determinism or physical causation inadvertently advances the atheistic activism - in this case, as if to say that information is a naturally occurring phenomenon which could give rise to life from non-life when there is no naturally occurring evidence of the elements in the Shannon model (message, sender, encoding, channel, noise, receiver and decoding!)
Ok, off the soapbox now...
(No Cloning Theorem.)
***From wikipedia’s page on Faster Than Light Communication
(You can rage against Wikipedia all you want to for misusing the term “information”)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal_communication
Birgit Dopfer’s experiment
Although such communication is prohibited in the thought experiment described above, some argue that superluminal communication could be achieved via quantum entanglement using other methods that don’t rely on cloning a quantum system. One suggested method would use an ensemble of entangled particles to transmit information,[3] similar to a type of quantum eraser experiments.[4][5][6]
Birgit Dopfer, a student of Anton Zeilinger’s, has performed an experiment which seems to make possible superluminar communication through an unexpected collective behaviour of two beams of entangled photons, one of which passes through a double-slit, utilising the creation of a distance interference pattern as bit 0 and the lack of a distance interference pattern as bit 1 (or vice versa), without any other classical channel.[4][7] Since it is a collective and probabilistic phenomenon, no quantum information about the single particles is cloned and, accordingly, the no cloning theorem remains inviolate. Physicist John G. Cramer at the University of Washington is attempting to replicate Dopfer’s experiment and demonstrate whether or not it can produce superluminal communication.[8][9][10][11]
Oh dearest sister in Christ, you are my favorite "math geek!" Thank you so much for this splendid essay/post!
It seems to me that, in general, the debasement of language — of the meaning of words — eventually leads to a condition where people cannot even understand one another. Talk about constructing a new Tower of Babel (Babble)!!!
LOL!! Now, just where did you find that "random" comment, Dear Sister in Christ?
Today the term atheist denotes commitment to a concept of the universe (nature) that is open to anything but the God of the Bible. Modern atheists are naturalists. Therefore, whatever oddities nature brings before us, i.e., meaning, laws, demons, voices speaking into minds, mind itself, it must always be nature alone that has somehow produced them.
Only the natural dimension is allowed, thus evolutionary materialist Dr. Scott Todd wrote in the science journal 'Nature:'
"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic." (Naturalism in the Light of Reality, Robert Gurney, creation.com, June 14, 2012)
Early conservative intellectual Richard Weaver foresaw this eventuality. In his book, "Ideas Have Consequences," (1945) Weaver writes that 14th century Western man had made an "evil decision" to abandon his belief in the transcendent God and universals and thus the position that "there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of, man..." The consequences of the rejection of "higher things" were catastrophic:
"The denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably...the denial of truth. With the denial of objective truth there is no escape from the relativism of 'man is the measure of all things." (The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, George H. Nash, pp. 32-33)
The brilliant visionary, Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914), an English Catholic priest saw through the scientific pretenses of one-dimensional natural science and its' primary doctrine, evolutionary theory. Benson predicted that naturalism and evolutionary thinking would prepare Westerners and Americans not only to embrace but to worship and adore Antichrist, for this human-god (Mr. Felsenburgh) is the first perfected product of nature and evolutionary forces. Mr. Felsenburgh has arisen and he is,
"....the first perfect product of that new cosmopolitan creation to which the world has labored throughout its history..." (p 85)
He transfixes men, and they excitedly declare they have seen,
"...the Son of Man,' the 'Savior of the world,' we knew Him in our hearts as soon as we saw Him, as soon as He stood there. It was like a glory around his head (and now we) understand it all... It was He for whom we have waited so long; and He has come, bringing Peace and Goodwill in His hands." (pp. 85, 89)
Christianity failed, it divided people. It made men feel guilty. But now Jehovah is gone. He never existed at all except as a hideous nightmare. Now at long last man's natural Savior has arisen:
"The reign of God has really begun (and) we are all partakers of God" because God is in everything, including all men...."Jehovah has fallen. He is in His grave." In His place is the evolved Son of Man, a god indeed and a man as well..."a god because human and a man because so divine." (ibid, pp. 93, 95)