NON-LOCALITY
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2312 ▶ |
| Object type | Epistemology, ontology or semantics, Methodology or model |
The boundless influence of an element , event or system in space and time.
The status of the concept — generalized by D. BÖHM — is still somewhat obscure and controversial.
In BÖHM's words, there is an “implicate order… This order is not to be understood solely in terms of a regular arrangement of objects (e.g., in rows) or as a regular arrangement of events (e.g., in a series). Rather, a total order is contained, in some implicit sense, in each region of space and time” (1980, p.149).
BÖHM exemplifies this as follows: “Thus, in a television broadcast, the visual image is translated into a time order, which is 'carried' by the radio wave. Points that are near each other in the visual image are not necessarily near in the order of the radio signal. Thus the radio wave carries the visual image in an implicate order. The function of the receiver is then to explicate this order, i.e. to 'unfold' it in the form of a new visual image” (Ibid).
An hologram offers another insight in non-locality, as its whole information content is scattered in its whole extension.
I. PRIGOGINE observes that some transformations are non-local as they replace “a point by an ensemble” and “break the temporal symmetry” (1986, p.10). This is an interesting clue.
The non-locality concept is somehow endorsed by H. SABELLI: “In the language of Process theory, only the material component of a system is local, whereas the energetic and informational aspects irradiate boundlessly” (1992 b, p.682). It is debatable if this is exactly BÖHM's idea.
If finally well confirmed, non-locality will very probably become a cornerstone for a cosmic generalization of systemics.
In the recent years, research on non-locality and the related phenomena of entanglement and decoherence in quantum mechanics has entered in its experimental phase.
However, particles behavior and the macroscopic world of classical mechanics remain still at odds for our common understanding .
As stated by S. HAROCHE in a paper explaining research in course: “The results of all these experiments are counter- intuitive”(1998, p. 36-42)
See also
Quantal representation, Quantum hologram, Quantum vacuum