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Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

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Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#21

Post by graycat »

kgwgk wrote: post #12
graycat wrote: 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…

I guess the whole field of statistical mechanics would make you uncomfortable.

What I have seen so far for statistical mechanics is uses of integral calculus notation that has nothing to do with anything in any version of calculus, advanced calculus, measure theory, the Riemann integral, Lebesgue integration, etc.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#22

Post by effie »

quantum_mcts wrote: post #18

I'm from the many-worlds interpretation camp, and this "superdeterminism" business always strikes me as ironic. Proponents of hidden variables, in their desire to explain QM effects, arrived at the idea that there is something that permeates the Universe since the Big Bang and participates in every physical interaction. Existence of this something cannot be directly proven - since we are "inside" of it. How about the…

Their goal is to find the deeper explanation behind wave functions, so obviously going back to wave function, even that of the Universe, is not very appealing to them.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#23

Post by naasking »

midjji wrote: post #9
d--b wrote: 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.

> Exactly so, its an interesting philosophical idea,but its by definition invalidates the scientific method, and all forms of meaningful reason

It doesn't, and Sabine specifically addresses this point.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#24

Post by naasking »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #4
Strilanc wrote: 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.

I think that's more or less correct. GR suggests "time" isn't independent, we instead have 4-dimensional "spacetime". The idea that future inputs can influence past configurations can be perfectly sensible in this context. It's like a restricted form of consistent closed timelike curves.

There was some development in this direction years ago:

The Logic of Quantum Mechanics Derived from Classical General Relativity, https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9706018

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#26

Post by dfilppi »

candiodari wrote: post #14
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #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 happ…

The point is that it's only unlikely (or other situations likely) if the events, even from patient to patient, are random. If whether a patient is sick or not determined if they're in the placebo group or the healthy group, you would be testing exactly nothing. The randomness in placing the patient is a required part of the experiment. And more than random, the patient placement must be random and independent from th…

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Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#27

Post by myridium »

graycat wrote: post #21
kgwgk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the whole field of statistical mechanics would make you uncomfortable.

What I have seen so far for statistical mechanics is uses of integral calculus notation that has nothing to do with anything in any version of calculus, advanced calculus, measure theory, the Riemann integral, Lebesgue integration, etc.

Well if you're doing fermionic thermal field theory sure (where the `integral' on Grassmann numbers is just some linear operation which satisfies certain properties). But apart from that I thought all the thermodynamic quantities were defined in terms of the partition function, which is a perfectly well-defined (Riemann) integral...

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#28

Post by 323 »

Strilanc wrote: 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…

You might want to read about "block time" or "block universe". In this theory, everything is already pre-computed, like an uncompressed video file. So you can skip to whatever frame you want since there is no state.

> It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block", as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternalism_(philosophy_of_time...

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#29

Post by myridium »

quantum_mcts wrote: post #18

I'm from the many-worlds interpretation camp, and this "superdeterminism" business always strikes me as ironic. Proponents of hidden variables, in their desire to explain QM effects, arrived at the idea that there is something that permeates the Universe since the Big Bang and participates in every physical interaction. Existence of this something cannot be directly proven - since we are "inside" of it. How about the…

Totally agree. It's therapeutic to read this.

Last I checked, many-worlds is a consequence of current quantum theory, not a postulate or additional axiom. Yet people treat it like such. Probably because it's 'spooky'. Then indeed it's ironic that they search for alternative explanations which try to say the same thing as many worlds but without saying 'many worlds'.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#30

Post by myridium »

effie wrote: post #22
quantum_mcts wrote: post #18

I'm from the many-worlds interpretation camp, and this "superdeterminism" business always strikes me as ironic. Proponents of hidden variables, in their desire to explain QM effects, arrived at the idea that there is something that permeates the Universe since the Big Bang and participates in every physical interaction. Existence of this something cannot be directly proven - since we are "inside" of it. How about the…

Their goal is to find the deeper explanation behind wave functions, so obviously going back to wave function, even that of the Universe, is not very appealing to them.

Well if they insist on expressing the dynamics of the universe as the minimisation of a global (or local) action functional, then they are already throwing in the towel because that implies a wavefunction of the universe.

I'm suspicious that these fringe quantum-physics-deniers just don't understand the mathematics. They want to be relevant but they don't want to learn, so they post wordy, fluffy blog posts targeted at non-professionals. Like Sabine.

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