On 12-1-2011 18:01, scott wrote:
>>>>> but maybe that's just because we haven't figured out yet what is
>>>>> driving those events, so they just *appear* random to us.
>>>>
>>>> FWIW, the answer to this speculation is "no, we have proven that's not
>>>> the case." :-)
>>>
>>> Really? How?
>>
>> Look up "Bell's Inequality." It has recently (in the last couple of
>> years) gone on from there to prove that the problem is not non-local
>> interactions.
>
> But does that really prove that there is nothing else controlling what
> we are measuring? If you liken our universe to a computer simulation,
> then outside of the simulation none of the limitations inside the
> simulation necessarily apply.

The technical term for that is a 'hidden variable theory'; the variable 
has a value except we don't know it. Bell has shown that if the universe 
can be described by a hidden variable theory some measurable quantities 
have different values than if the variable has no value until measured. 
Alain Aspect has shown that nature is incompatible with a hidden 
variable theory. So Darren is right, and you, Einstein, Podolsky, and 
Rosen are proven wrong. Nothing to be ashamed of, I'd say.

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