Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take • Hacker News Board

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#21

Post by ouid » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:53 AM UTC

ajkjk wrote: post #4

ouid wrote: post #3

Hopefully this doesn't make me seem like a crank, but it seems to me that the path forward on superdeterminism is to use uncomputability. 1: Untriangulable smooth manifolds exist. 2: The manifolds can be smoothed via Ricci flow in a manner similar to how Perelman solved the Poincare conjecture. 3: This smoothing, applied to an untriangulable manifold, is irreversible, deterministic, and yet somehow must not converge…

I'm having trouble seeing what any of that has to do with determinism.

The evolution of a manifold under Ricci flow is deterministic as mentioned, and it is also irreversible, ie many manifolds are smoothed to the same manifold. It's also a diffeomorphism, meaning that it preserves all of the topological information of the manifold that it acts on. Furthermore it can act on manifolds which have no normal form, in at least some sense. Because smooth manifolds with no triangulation do indeed exist.

The manifold cannot, in whole, as a result of this, get "simpler" or even maintain the same amount of simplicity, it must somehow get more complex, which would require information to be generated. The primary problem with deterministic models, at least as I understand it, is that there's no obvious way for deterministic processes to get more complex.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#22

Post by philip142au » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:53 AM UTC

I believe strongly that everything is deterministic. As a programmer, that means all is purely functional.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#23

Post by selestify » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:58 AM UTC

Simon_says wrote: post #18

corporate_shi11 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bell's theorem gives us a clear path forward in understanding the universe. Local realism must be discarded.

Realism is the axiom to give up, not locality. Just accept MWI as the current best guess and get on with your life.

There’s no evidence MWI is the best guess compared to other interpretations

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#24

Post by ajkjk » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:59 AM UTC

philip142au wrote: post #22

I believe strongly that everything is deterministic. As a programmer, that means all is purely functional.

What does it matter what you believe? The universe is evidently somewhat probabilistic, what's left is explaining the details.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#25

Post by mberning » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:59 AM UTC

sysbin wrote: post #15

mberning wrote: post #13

“Should we discover that quantum theory is not fundamentally random” This would be a terrifying revelation on a personal and existential level.

How so, can you expand on what would be terrifying on a personal and existential level for you? I've encountered a few people that will cite quantum theory when it comes to discussions about questioning if one has free will. I cannot even imagine how quantum theory gives a us true free will and without one's will just being the outcome of the system we reside in.

I am OK with the thought that the the universe sprang into existence, and through some form of randomness or chance, things played out on this planet that allowed for life and for me to exist on it.

Now go back to step one and assume that, even on an atomic level, there is no chance, no randomness. Given all of the preconditions, we get this outcome every single time. Then I have to reconsider why is there even the illusion of choice. Why should I even write this comment. It’s crazy.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#26

Post by knzhou » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 5:00 AM UTC

ReadEvalPost wrote: post #20

knzhou wrote: post #7

I've always been mystified at why people take superdeterminism as a good explanation for anything, when it actually acts as a stopsign for thought. For example, suppose I am betting with you on the outcomes of a coin toss. You call heads, the coin comes up tails, you give me some money. You call tails, the coin comes up heads, you give me some more money. This repeats a number of times. The common sense response is t…

I don't really understand what your coin flip metaphor is supposed to mean in the context of the paper. That Superdeterminism could be used in an entirely facile way doesn't really suggest anything about the theory itself. When choosing Superdeterminism as an ontology it suggests different paths for doing research, paths that are unexplored and potentially full of insight. That's what is exciting about it to me.

While I can think of exciting questions sparked by many different interpretations of quantum mechanics, I can't think of any for superdeterminism, for exactly the reasons I said -- it's scientifically dead from the start. Other ideas have limits, superdeterminism doesn't. Do you have a good example?

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#27

Post by knzhou » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 5:02 AM UTC

sysbin wrote: post #19

knzhou wrote: post #7

I've always been mystified at why people take superdeterminism as a good explanation for anything, when it actually acts as a stopsign for thought. For example, suppose I am betting with you on the outcomes of a coin toss. You call heads, the coin comes up tails, you give me some money. You call tails, the coin comes up heads, you give me some more money. This repeats a number of times. The common sense response is t…

Your example given with the conclusion to follow doesn't make sense. I'm a hard determinist, I've known others like myself and nobody leaps to the thought, "the initial conditions of the universe means this is all meaningless" and we do try to observe every possibility such as the game being rigged. I don't necessarily think superdeterminism can explain literally anything or that if it did explain something there wou…

You're not distinguishing between determinism and superdeterminism. Determinism is perfectly compatible with science, as it admits the idea of controlled and reproducible experiments. (For example, if you believe in determinism, you could grab the coin out of my hand and run some tests on it yourself.) The whole point of superdeterminism is to go further and deny this.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#28

Post by MrEldritch » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 5:03 AM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #16

gliese1337 wrote: post #12

I find it strange that they claim that QM lacks any explanation for measurement. There are explanations for measurement. Not everyone agrees with any single one of them, but they definitely exist. Superdeterminism is one, but it's not the only one. It is really only the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM that has a measurement problem. Personally, I am on board with the "measurement is just entanglement" solution (it se…

While I lean the same way, the measurement problem is definitely harder than you say. If it's just entanglement with an external system, you still have to answer how that superposition ends up with you personally observing only one result.

you are a large, warm object, and as such you decohere basically instantaneously. (In any case, far faster than the milliseconds required for you to perceive anything.) As such, the state-in-which-you-perceive-result-A is completely unable to causally influence the state-in-which-you-perceive-result-B, and vice versa.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#29

Post by mberning » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 5:03 AM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #17

mberning wrote: post #13

“Should we discover that quantum theory is not fundamentally random” This would be a terrifying revelation on a personal and existential level.

Terrifying revelations comes for cheap these days. Plenty of people say that the opposite of that is terrifying as well. I figure if I'm going to be terrified either way, I might as well not be!

It seems to me that most people intuitively know that there is a large amount of chance and “unknowns” in life and the universe. The find out the opposite is true would be a very big deal.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#30

Post by sysbin » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 5:08 AM UTC

mberning wrote: post #25

sysbin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so, can you expand on what would be terrifying on a personal and existential level for you? I've encountered a few people that will cite quantum theory when it comes to discussions about questioning if one has free will. I cannot even imagine how quantum theory gives a us true free will and without one's will just being the outcome of the system we reside in.

I am OK with the thought that the the universe sprang into existence, and through some form of randomness or chance, things played out on this planet that allowed for life and for me to exist on it. Now go back to step one and assume that, even on an atomic level, there is no chance, no randomness. Given all of the preconditions, we get this outcome every single time. Then I have to reconsider why is there even the i…

> Then I have to reconsider why is there even the illusion of choice. Why should I even write this comment.

I think the answer is society conditions us to assume we have choice by how society is structured and how society functions. You writing the comment is just me being an external force upon you and triggering it from all the previous external forces that made you eventually react the way you did. Even if everything isn't random, a lot of what people like to wish for & believe, can in fact come true but it's hard for me to rationalize it. Other than an outside our universe deterministic observer needing to exist.