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Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

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Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#121

Post by thulle »

zikzak wrote: post #31
323 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

People who meditate often begin to slowly realize that ideas arise without concious thought. We imagine we are "thinking" but there really is no break in causality where we somehow choose how we want the future to unfold. Our brains are no more exempt from cause and effect than a marble rolling downhill is. It is a mistake to confuse the finger pointing at the moon with the moon itself. We don't preceive everything,…

> there's no more free will here than a plant turning to follow the sun

That's a bold claim without presenting anything really backing it up?

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#122

Post by thinkski »

naasking wrote: post #104
thinkski wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also an inconvenient idea. For instance, how can one be guilty of a crime if one had no choice in committing it? Why try at anything if you have no choice — everything that will happen was decided at the universe’s origin and is merely playing out. It’s nihilism to the extreme. Then again, the quantum idea of true randomness isn’t much better — if human choice stems from a coin flip, can you really call it a con…

> For instance, how can one be guilty of a crime if one had no choice in committing it? Why do you think you had no choice in committing it? Are you saying these people don't have any reasons they think justified committing a crime? That seems clearly false in general. Certainly if someone was literally forced to commit a crime, ie. they didn't want to do it, then they are not guilty, but why wouldn't they be guilty…

What is the origin of genuine choice?

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#123

Post by [deleted] »

lmm wrote: post #49
astrange wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like if you “thought of the consequences” and “understood QM” here you’d have a theory of everything all ready to go.

I do, it's called "quantum mechanics". It's the most thoroughly verified theory in the history of physics, and in my subjective opinion the most mathematically beautiful one. It is the greatest pinnacle of human scientific achievement. But people think the idea that things might superimpose on each other like waves is weird, it's not what they see everyday objects that are 10,000,000,000x larger behaving, so it can't…

[deleted]

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#124

Post by rafaelero »

lmm wrote: post #114
rafaelero wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, that's definitely not what OP said. Of course the particle still can interfere with itself after the slit, it's just that when the measurement is made, the pattern of two waves interfering gets much weaker/non-existent. Also, the experiment you are alluding to does not say what you think it says. Perhaps you will be interested on another video from Sabine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQv5CVELG3U&ab_channel=Sa…

I don't/can't watch videos. I'll happily look at something written, but frankly "the experiment you are alluding to does not say what you think it says" does not convince me that you know what you're talking about and are looking to find the truth. I have a master's in this stuff and I'm pretty sure what I said is a fair description of the experiment in question; if you think something is different about it then be s…

You can read the transcription. Sean Carrol also wrote about it too https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2019/09/21/the-not...

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#125

Post by lmm »

rafaelero wrote: post #124
lmm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't/can't watch videos. I'll happily look at something written, but frankly "the experiment you are alluding to does not say what you think it says" does not convince me that you know what you're talking about and are looking to find the truth. I have a master's in this stuff and I'm pretty sure what I said is a fair description of the experiment in question; if you think something is different about it then be s…

You can read the transcription. Sean Carrol also wrote about it too https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2019/09/21/the-not...

I agree with the article you've linked (although the graphs are either mislabelled or being used to illustrate a different experiment from the one they're actually taken from; in the Kim et al setup R03 is not R01 + R02, it's a measurement from a different detector). How do you think it contradicts what I said?

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#126

Post by temp438 »

lmm wrote: post #115
temp438 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes a mockery of the idea of trying to do science at all - the experiments you take are already determined The laws of physics were there before people started studying physics. Didn't make it less interesting for those who were interested. Everything we do is a mockery - life expectation is 75 if you are lucky and universe doesn't care about your achievements >you can't learn anything about what causes have w…

> The laws of physics were there before people started studying physics. Didn't make it less interesting for those who were interested. But they're interesting because they are laws - because there's some structure there, because the same causes consistently have the same effects. Superdeterminism denies all that. > If you don't have free will, then how can you change smth? I'd say that if you're an inherent part of…

> But they're interesting because they are laws - because there's some structure there, because the same causes consistently have the same effects. Superdeterminism denies all that.

Wait, how does it deny it?

> i'd say that if you're an inherent part of the causal chain that makes something happen then it's fair to say that you changed it. You don't have to assume free will to acknowledge that we affect our environment.

it's separating us from the environment and saying that one part changed the other, but that's just a simplification as our heads can't contain the whole system with all it's events. A blurry reflection. So now we "look" at this reflection and say : this is wrong, it makes no sense

Without simplification, we had some "initial" state and it "goes" somewhere. Like sand in a clock. We all know where the sand goes and what will happen in an hour.

We have words like "interesting, learn, understand" which don't really mean anything when we think about determinism. Science requires an observer but who is looking?

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#127

Post by lmm »

temp438 wrote: post #126
lmm wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The laws of physics were there before people started studying physics. Didn't make it less interesting for those who were interested. But they're interesting because they are laws - because there's some structure there, because the same causes consistently have the same effects. Superdeterminism denies all that. > If you don't have free will, then how can you change smth? I'd say that if you're an inherent part of…

> But they're interesting because they are laws - because there's some structure there, because the same causes consistently have the same effects. Superdeterminism denies all that. Wait, how does it deny it? > i'd say that if you're an inherent part of the causal chain that makes something happen then it's fair to say that you changed it. You don't have to assume free will to acknowledge that we affect our environme…

> Wait, how does it deny it?

To be able to talk about cause and effect you have to have a concept of independence. Superdeterminism's basic premise is essentially that everything in the past can affect everything in the future - you chose which direction to measure because the particle was polarised a particular way (or because of some common underlying cause). So how can you possibly talk about what caused you to measure a particular direction when apparently it was magically due to this thing that has no visible connection to it?

> We have words like "interesting, learn, understand" which don't really mean anything when we think about determinism. Science requires an observer but who is looking?

And yet science does work. We're able to make predictions and see them borne out.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#128

Post by temp438 »

lmm wrote: post #127
temp438 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they're interesting because they are laws - because there's some structure there, because the same causes consistently have the same effects. Superdeterminism denies all that. Wait, how does it deny it? > i'd say that if you're an inherent part of the causal chain that makes something happen then it's fair to say that you changed it. You don't have to assume free will to acknowledge that we affect our environme…

> Wait, how does it deny it? To be able to talk about cause and effect you have to have a concept of independence. Superdeterminism's basic premise is essentially that everything in the past can affect everything in the future - you chose which direction to measure because the particle was polarised a particular way (or because of some common underlying cause). So how can you possibly talk about what caused you to me…

> So how can you possibly talk about what caused you to measure a particular direction when apparently it was magically due to this thing that has no visible connection to it?

You mean a connection we can measure.

as i understand, our measurements rely on what we know and what we know relies on previous events. Its like what and how we measure something is simultaneosly determined by that something. We can't measure the size of a cat's soul because we don't have instruments for it but if we invent the instruments there will be no other choice than measuring them in a particular way the soul allows us to measure it.

Don't know if it make sense at all, but i tried to make sense of it.

Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?

#130

Post by geertj »

lmm wrote: post #115
temp438 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes a mockery of the idea of trying to do science at all - the experiments you take are already determined The laws of physics were there before people started studying physics. Didn't make it less interesting for those who were interested. Everything we do is a mockery - life expectation is 75 if you are lucky and universe doesn't care about your achievements >you can't learn anything about what causes have w…

> The laws of physics were there before people started studying physics. Didn't make it less interesting for those who were interested. But they're interesting because they are laws - because there's some structure there, because the same causes consistently have the same effects. Superdeterminism denies all that. > If you don't have free will, then how can you change smth? I'd say that if you're an inherent part of…

> But they're interesting because they are laws - because there's some structure there, because the same causes consistently have the same effects. Superdeterminism denies all that.

There can be structure without cause and effect. Take any static physics problem, for example a flexible sheet that’s stretched over some frame. Since there is no time dimension there is no cause and effect but at every point in the sheet there is structure (Poisson’s law).

Both QFT and GR are the same order in time and space dimensions. Now, time is special among the dimensions because of the second law of thermodynamics, but I still have this feeling that it’s our being part of the universe and our brains having sufficient complexity for self reference that causes the illusion of a linear flow of time, while in fact all time happened in one ‘instant’ and one of the requirements for our universe to exist is that it is self consistent (causing these weird conspirational coincidences).

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