Bell's Theorem is highly technical, but in ordinary language it
amounts to something like this: There are no isolated systems:
every particle in the universe is in "instantaneous" (faster-thanlight)
communication with every other particle. The Whole
System, even the parts that are separated by cosmic distances,
functions as a Whole System.
Now, such faster-than-light communication seems to be
forbidden by Special Relativity, which makes a problem. Bell's
Theorem, however, is inescapable: a theorem in physics is not a
mere "theory"; it is a mathematical demonstration which must be
true, if the mathematics contains no flaw, and if the experiments
on which it is based are replicable. Bell's Theorem contains no
mathematical flaw, and the experiments are replicable and have
been replicated several times.
And yet we cannot dispense with Special Relativity either,
because the mathematics there is equally flawless and the experiments
are legion that confirm it.
Two solutions have been proposed and both assume that the
"communication" involved in Bellian transmissions does not
involve energy, since it is energy that cannot move faster than
light. Dr. Edward Harris Walker suggests that what does move
faster than light, and holds the Whole System together, is "consciousness."
We may eventually be forced to accept this, in
which case physics will have justified pantheism or at least panpsychism.
The other alternative, proposed by Dr. Jack Sarfatti, is
that the medium of Bellian transmissions is information.
Pure information, in the mathematical sense, does not require
energy; it is that which orders energy. It is the negative of
entropy, that which brings disorder to energy systems.
Dr. Sarfatti explains his theory as follows:Imagine that your brain is a computer, as modern neurology
suggests. Now imagine that the whole universe is a big computer,
a mega-computer, as John Lilly has proposed. Then
imagine that the sub-quantum realm, the realm of what Dr.
David Bohm calls 'hidden variables' is made up of mini-minicomputers.
Now, the hardware of each 'computer'—the universe,
your brain, the sub-quantum mechanisms—is localized.
Each part of it is somewhere in spacetime, here not there, now
not then. But the software—the information—is non-local. It
is here, there and everywhere; now, then and everywhen.
