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Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

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Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#2
From watching the video and reading one of the papers, I get the sense that the theory being described doesn't work in the usual way. For example, reading the paper it talks about "future inputs" determining what happens, which seems impossible if you need to have the entire state specified for each time slice without need to reference other time slices. Instead of having a specific state for time t, and being able to evolve it forward/backward to other times, it is instead applying constraints across spacetime?

In principle, allowing yourself that kind of flexibility could be enough to model quantum mechanics. But I'm not sure why I'd want to do it that way instead of the existing ways. It's not particularly philosophically appealing to me, and objectively speaking it looks like they don't yet have a concrete mathematical model that actually reproduces quantum mechanics. But maybe I'm just ignorant of the latter part's existence.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#3
As a complete layman, Sabine Hossenfelder's description here about Quantum Mechanics and Super Determinism is exactly that explanation that I came up with that made the most sense to me way back in college. And I have noticed that the idea of Super Determinism really bothers people on some fundamental level that I never really understood.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#4
post #2

From watching the video and reading one of the papers, I get the sense that the theory being described doesn't work in the usual way. For example, reading the paper it talks about "future inputs" determining what happens, which seems impossible if you need to have the entire state specified for each time slice without need to reference other time slices. Instead of having a specific state for time t, and being able t…

I'm no expert in this field, but aren't the existing assumptions around time being independent at the slice we want to take a major reason why QM and General Relativity can't be reconciled? If so, that would seem like a good reason to look at alternative ideas in this space.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#6
Uh, the OP frequently mentions "statistical independence", and I am uncomfortable with that: Independence is a property of a set of more than one random variable and is defined in probability, often used in statistics, but not defined in statistics. There is a polished, elegant, and thorough treatment of such independence, including of uncountably infinite sets of random variables, in J. Neveu, Mathematical Foundations of the Calculus of Probability.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#7
post #5

I can’t agree more with the OP about free will and stuff. The main problem of superdeternimism though is that it both explains everything and nothing. It’s like giving up.

The explanation of superdeterminism she gives here isn’t a “full” superdeterministic theory (nothing actually happens over time, there are no physics, the universe is just a movie being played back, etc) and she does say it only applies at the quantum level. So there’s still room for science.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#8
post #6

Uh, the OP frequently mentions "statistical independence", and I am uncomfortable with that: Independence is a property of a set of more than one random variable and is defined in probability , often used in statistics , but not defined in statistics . There is a polished, elegant, and thorough treatment of such independence, including of uncountably infinite sets of random variables, in J. Neveu, Mathematical Founda…

In the context of Bell’s Theorem, statistical independence is understood to mean that, if extant, hidden variables are not correlated with how measurements are being performed.

Bell’s Theorem is only correct if this assumption holds. Hossenfelder is arguing that the assumption is incorrect: that Bell’s Theorem is incorrect precisely because there ARE hidden variables and that these ARE correlated with measurement settings.

She also argues that all mentions of free will in all related discussions are meaningless red herrings that have distracted physicists from properly interpreting Bell’s Theorem and observed violation of Bell’s Inequality.

Superdeterminism, arguably misnamed, simply argues that QM is deterministic, where Bell and others have argued it is not.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#9
post #5

I can’t agree more with the OP about free will and stuff. The main problem of superdeternimism though is that it both explains everything and nothing. It’s like giving up.

Exactly so, its an interesting philosophical idea,but its by definition invalidates the scientific method, and all forms of meaningful reason. The correct answer to the question of if you are dreaming a dream from which you could never wake up isnt perhaps that explains why my math doesnt make sense, its: by premise that can not matter.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#10
Superdeterminism needs some kind of simplicity, for lack of a better word. To take her vaccine trial analogy further, imagine that you randomly assign a group of 100 people to a treatment and control cell (50-50). It could happen that all 50 people in the control cell just happened to be the 50 most a priori healthy people in the group. But it’s extremely unlikely. Following the analogy, superdeterminism says it happens anyways. But the level of coincidence involved invokes such an absurdly complex series of coincidences, that your coin flip comes up heads on these particular people, that occam’s razor might as well spontaneously cease to exist.

Are there any superdeterministic theories that maintain the level of simplicity that the universe is posited to have without it?

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