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Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

backreaction.blogspot.com

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Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#131

Post by [deleted] »

comex wrote: post #83
ouid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ind…

Aren't diffeomorphisms invertible by definition?

[deleted]

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#132

Post by GoblinSlayer »

harmoat wrote: post #118
throwaway713 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This would be a terrifying revelation on a personal and existential level. Why is that? I believe the universe is fully deterministic (i.e., no such thing as "true" randomness), yet I also don't think that rules out free will. Free will and determinism aren't necessarily incompatible.

> Free will and determinism aren't necessarily incompatible. How?

If you don't require free will to be supernatural.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#133

Post by mikk14 »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #94
trevyn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, is MWI compatible with superdeterminism? That is, the sequence above seems to show that MWI is an effective way to calculate, but does not actually rule out superdeterminism underneath it — just like ordinary quantum mechanics is an effective way to calculate in certain domains of applicability but cannot effectively claim to be the “underlying reality”.

All theories are compatible with undetectable additions, but that's kinda whole point: MWI doesn't need them and works fine without them. But I believe superdeterminism has single world, so I don't see how it can emulate MWI.

I just had a funny thought. I don't know if it makes any sense, but it's funny to think about it. This is all made with my tongue firmly in my cheek, I don't know nearly enough about the topic to have any sort of confidence on what follows, so hold your downvotes :-)

Let's assume MWI is correct. This means that, as far as I understand, the Schrodinger equation imposes that for each quantum event there is a forking in two worlds: one per possible state (cat alive/dead). The implication is that there are (infinitely) many world branches that go from the beginning to the end of time. Since there is no collapse, each of these branches must be superdeterministic by definition: that's how we picked the branch, we identified a sequence of forks in the Schrodinger equation by picking the result.

"I" can live only in one of these branches: there are infinitely many "I"s, but the one I am in right now is one of them. I'll be in my branch until I die (many other "I"s will branch off me). Since every "I" lives on a branch, every "I" experiences the universe as superdeterministic. Thus, if we assume MWI is correct, the result for any possible "I" is indistinguishable from superdeterminism.

It gets funnier. If what I said it is true, MWI and superdeterminism are indistinguishable. However, one presupposes the creation of branches, while the other does not. Thus one is more parsimonious than the other, and should be preferred. Or, in other worlds, by assuming MWI is true, we prove that it is false and that superdeterminism is true.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#134

Post by arnoooooo »

arnoooooo wrote: post #108
zyxzevn wrote: post #55

Since we are looking at an alternative interpretation: Max Planck's Loader Model - the simplest interpretation that is never looked at. In the Loader Model atoms have a hidden and random energy state, and a detectable state. The energy of light is spread evenly as waves. And when the energy reaches a threshold the detectable state changes. Photons do not exist. What we see are just detectable jumps of the energy stat…

The simplest interpretation is that there is no such thing as matter. Physicists are studying consciousness. It is actually the only explanation that is consistent with experience, since there is no experience outside of consciousness.

I wished people offered a rebuttal instead of just downvoting. I understand Einstein himself entertained the idea.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#135

Post by GoblinSlayer »

lmm wrote: post #121
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the explanation. It really is non-intuitive and hard to get especially just from informal texts. What I don't get at all is the bit about quantum entanglement not carrying any information. Apparently, that has to do something with the fact that the collapse of the wave function is a random process? But, if you have probability then you have information, yes? What's the explanation?

> But, if you have probability then you have information, yes? What do you mean by that? Suppose you and I are far apart in space and are each going to toss a coin, but we somehow magically know that one of us will get heads and the other will get tails. Can we use this pair of magic coins to communicate information? Actually no.

The suggestion is to abuse information whether you get tails with probability 100% or 50%.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#136

Post by repsilat »

gliese1337 wrote: post #42
repsilat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a Many-Worldser, but I don't quite know how to answer the question "How does the Born Rule work?" That is, if "worlds" branch off with some amplitudes, and there's a "me" on this branch and another on that branch, how does it make sense to talk about the probability of "me me" being this one or that one? Empirically we know how to calculate it from the amplitude, but why is that more reasonable than any othe…

Well, yeah, there is that... I suppose one could argue that lacking an a-priori explanation for the way probability is allocated over state-space is equivalent to lacking an explanation for measurement, but that seems to me like claiming that we have no answer to how thermal emission of light works because we can't explain the measurement rule in QM, which I expect most physicists would balk at. Yea, there is still w…

The "measurement problem" is really a Copenhagen-specific thing -- "measurement" is the fundamental and identifying mechanism of the interpretation, and it's problematic. And In the Copenhagen interpretation the Born Rule is inextricably tied to measurement outcomes.

I guess you could say that MWI removes the wishy-nastiness around what constitutes measurement, when it happens etc, and that could constitute "solving the problem", but I think

- Some of "the problem" has just been moved outside those borders. (And fine -- the MWI doesn't need to solve every problem to be an improvement. And I do think it's an improvement.)

- The Born Rule is weirder* in the MWI. In Copenhagen it's axiomatic: We explicitly roll the dice, a nondeterministic outcome happens, that's the mechanism. In MWI it's an afterthought: The wavefunction evolves deterministically, and oh-by-the-way you should weight the likelihood of finding yourself here or there by the squared amplitude.

Maybe that's unfair though?

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#137

Post by repsilat »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #101
repsilat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a Many-Worldser, but I don't quite know how to answer the question "How does the Born Rule work?" That is, if "worlds" branch off with some amplitudes, and there's a "me" on this branch and another on that branch, how does it make sense to talk about the probability of "me me" being this one or that one? Empirically we know how to calculate it from the amplitude, but why is that more reasonable than any othe…

According to Bayesianism probability is a subjective interpretation for the purpose of decision making, so if you think this interpretation helps you, then it's fine.

I don't think it helps, I think it just punts on the question. Let's get concrete:

I fire a polarised photon at a polarised filter oriented 30° off. In Copenhagen there's a 75% chance it goes through, and a 25% chance it hits the filter. In MWI there are two branches, one with squared amplitude of 0.75 and another with squared amplitude of 0.25, and there's a "me" on each side.

Now, say I can bet on what happens at even money. In Copenhagen we'd say "betting on the photon going through is positive expectation." In MWI though, one of "me" wins and the other loses, and we just say "there's less subjective chance of being the loser"? Or "the loser has less amplitude, so less moral weight"?

I don't think it's super satisfying.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#138

Post by jayd16 »

caf wrote: post #103
jayd16 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a proper understanding of superdeterminism? I may be totally off base but my understanding is the analogy is more like Craps. Two dice with fair odds create an uneven distribution such that 7 is more common. The dice have "conspired" to bring 7 up more often than 2 because their states interact in a non-linear way.

Ahem, there isn't anything more linear than the sum of two variables...

Its just an analogy. Something to show that a distribution might appear interesting but is actually not.

The point is that Bell's theorem relies on the assumption that a linear distribution must be expected and the paper is arguing that that has not been sufficiently proven. At least that's my understanding of the paper's argument.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#139

Post by jayd16 »

ganzuul wrote: post #105
jayd16 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand. In their mind they are not special. To a determinist, the way you feel about yourself is exactly how a fully deterministic being would feel because, in this theory, you are deterministic. Ascribing to new theories doesn't change the world at all, they can only change your understanding of how the world already existed.

Doesn't this perspective generalize to monism? I.e. everything is conscious? I don't have a problem with that, but the only way I can consolidate someone's claim that consciousness does not exist is if their experience differs from mine.

I don't think that's strictly the only interpretation. In the same sense that some things are mechanized and something things are not, some objects can have consciousness while some do not.

Consciousness is certainly less unique in this interpretation but I'm not sure that means its so uninteresting that we must say a rock is conscious.

That said, I think the OP is conflating free will with consciousness which I think is a mistake. I think its more useful to keep the definition of consciousness as only a sense of self. Even if universal determinism does not exists, one could imagine an AI built in classical physics that exhibits a sense of self deterministically.

Re: Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take

#140

Post by slashdev »

arnoooooo wrote: post #108
zyxzevn wrote: post #55

Since we are looking at an alternative interpretation: Max Planck's Loader Model - the simplest interpretation that is never looked at. In the Loader Model atoms have a hidden and random energy state, and a detectable state. The energy of light is spread evenly as waves. And when the energy reaches a threshold the detectable state changes. Photons do not exist. What we see are just detectable jumps of the energy stat…

The simplest interpretation is that there is no such thing as matter. Physicists are studying consciousness. It is actually the only explanation that is consistent with experience, since there is no experience outside of consciousness.

This is a new agey woo kind of idea that comes probably from a layman's interpretation of the effect of the observer on changing the quantum system being measured. However, it does not scale to macro systems. As Sam Harris put it when debating this idea with Deepak Chopra, the moon does not disappear when we're not looking at it. The universe was before consciousness and will continue to be afterwards.
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