Much ado about entanglement: a novel approach to test nonlocal communication via violation of 'local realism'.

Abstract

Background: The term 'entanglement' is often used in recent literature to help explain an apparent nonlocal communication within a psychophysical context, and is here strictly taken as equivalent to a violation of what physicists call 'local realism'.

Methods: Conceptual basics of nonlocal communication in psychophysical experiments are introduced in analogy to their usage in quantum physics to investigate local realism. Violations of local realism are tested using an algorithm adopted from the Information Theoretic Bell Inequality (ITBI) known to quantum theory. The algorithm involves a generic distant mentation experiment.

Results: An experimental design and an analytical method to test psychophysical entanglement presumed to be involved in a medical or psychological context are introduced. The mathematical foundations are presented in a didactically simple-to-follow approach.

Conclusions: The ITBI can be extended into the fields of medicine and psychological science, thereby providing a guideline for researchers to follow in order to estimate whether or not some kind of 'action at a distance' may be real in the phenomenon under investigation.