Does superdeterminism undermine the scientific method?

[Jarvis323]

The main issue, I believe, is what happens if we accept SD and ask what we do next? Let's do all science from now on assuming SD is correct. There is nothing to do. There is no substance behind the theory - not even a hint of how the laws of physics actually work. SD is indistinguishable from believing that everything is controlled by an unknowable and capricious deity. And, therefore, SD is (IMO) fundamentally anti-scientific. At best it's pseudo-science.

The thing is though that SD doesn't say anything at all could be explained with SD, it just says that correlations between the measurement device settings and the particle's state would be. And that would imply some kind of repeatable deterministic pattern. Maybe it would be a hopelessly complex and seemingly implausible one, but at least a consistent one. That's different from a deity being able to just change or control things at a whim at any instant.

Moreover, for a superdeterminist, there is no hard scientific work to be done. Hossenfelder has a paper where she plays about with a few concepts from QM and some statistics. But, it's no more than that. It bears no relation to the hard science and complex experiments that underpin conventional physics - such as the muon anomaly saga.

She does propose an approach for looking for evidence of the hypothesized correlations. Since those correlations would probably be highly complex and non-linear, and probably beyond our ability to de-tangle on paper, she thinks that big data and deep learning might be able to discover some hidden correlations linking the measurement device and the particles state somehow. But if you suppose we one day did find some of these hypothesized hiding non-linear correlations, however, I don't think we could use that as very strong evidence of SD specifically, because they wouldn't necessarily imply locality or determinism. Maybe the consciousness causes collapse people could somehow make the same kind of claim from that evidence for example. But it does seem potentially possible that evidence against the assumption of statistical independence of the measurement device settings and the particle could be found, if they truly are dependent. And if we did find that they are not independent, then it would beg further work to try to figure out how that happens.

 

[wittgenstein]

I feel a little intimidated by the expertise here. So please accept my questions even tho they may seem stupid to you.
1. Do you agree that Zellinger's objection is silly? He basically says that if we have no free will there can be no science. Computers solve problems all the time and they have no free will. Also, that implies that our thoughts are not the result of a biological computer (our brains). Zellinger implies that if our thoughts do not come from a source outside nature, they cannot be rational.
2. Please explain why superdeterminism requires a cosmic conspiracy. That seems to me to be based on a misunderstanding of the anthropic principle. Some people think that the anthropic principle puts humans at the center of reality. It does not. The fact that our Earth is in the goldilocks zone (not too hot and not to cold) is why there is life on earth. Did physics "conspire" to create us? NO! Also, evolution shows that order can arise from disorder. The fact that I can make rational decisions does not mean that some super intelligent agency at the big bang designed and conspired to create the rationality of some of my decisions.
I am sure I am misunderstanding something. Please show me where I am misunderstanding. This site has many interesting debates in it , but it is also about answering questions from intelligent but less informed people (such as myself) . To be honest I am not a fan of superdeterminism. I want someone to prove it wrong to me or at least make it seem outrageously improbable. Obviously, I am open to the possibility (though reluctantly) that superdeterminism is true.

 

[Fra]

Some additional reflections:

1. I personally disagree with Sabines analysis to use superdeterminism to escape Bells inequality: I don't think statistical independence is the problem, for me the more likely problem is our incomplete understanding of the nature of causality.

But Einsteins quest for a casaul mechanism is IMO rational. Correlations begs an explanation. But IMO the partitioning of probabilities into the sum over hidden variable is contains implicitly preconceptions on the nature of causality, not sure why, but this is rarely mentioned. It sticks out to me. But the alternative causal mechanism is not yet understood. But I think it's the place to look for progress. Superdeterminism itself has to me no mechanisms with explanatory value, as has been mentioned by others as well, it's more like an excuse to keep a loophole open, that will not be useful. I think it's the wrong hole.

2. Also generally, not having statistical independence does not imply superdeterminism. They other way is true though. There is a middle path, where the choices are partly free (ie guided) but not deterministically determined; this is how I see it. And agents "freedom" is to me similar to a random walk; or making a decision based on incomplete information. One can think of it as a free decision, but I see it just as a random choice - but a guided one. So it's not black or white for me.

/Fredrik

 

[PeterDonis]

Do you agree that Zellinger's objection is silly?

No.

He basically says that if we have no free will there can be no science.

No, that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is that if what Hossenfelder calls the assumption of Statistical Independence is false, we cannot draw inferences about what the laws of nature are from experimental results. By "freedom of the experimentalist" Zeilinger does not mean any mystical concept of "free will" but the straightforward assumption that there are no hidden correlations between measurement settings and preparations of systems to be measured that affect the measurement results. Superdeterminism denies that assumption; and if you deny that assumption, then you can't, for example, infer that QM is correct from experimental results that violate the Bell inequalities, because hidden superdeterministic correlations between the measurement settings and the preparations of the measured systems could have affected the results, so that they appear to us to support QM but are actually produced by a completely different underlying theory.

 

[Jarvis323]

1. Do you agree that Zellinger's objection is silly?

Here is my take, and I should prefsce it with the fact thst I'm not an expert on this and might have misconceptions.

Yes and no, depending on how you read it. If you read it literally, I think it's a bad argument. But in context, it makes some sense. It's just one person's philisophical opinion though.

My understanding is this: in science you usually can assume independence even though it's only approximately independent. For example, you might ignore Pluto's effect on the Earth's orbit around the Sun, or ignore the air pressure's effect on the fairness of a dice roll.

When we assume statistical independence of the measurement settings and the quantum particle, we think we can do so because we can try to decide those settings through as random of a process as possible. And we even have something called deterministic chaos which can be indishinguishable from true randomness. So you would think even if the universe were fully deterministic, our best attempt to randomize the measurement settings would lead to independence. If not, you have to figure out how the particles state can depend on a persons decisions, the flip of a coin miles away, etc.

Superdeterminism is saying, maybe we don't know how that is possible, but let's assume that the particle's future state can depend on those kinds of things in the events they are used to set up the device settings, even though we don't know how. And that would violate the assumption of the Bell test and invalidate it, opening up new possibilities to explain the results.

Doing this kind of thing in general seems problematic, because you could apply the same kind of thing to any case where an important unexplained scientific result that depends on what seems we would commonly think of as a valid assumption, in order to invalidate the unexplained result. So if you use ans accept superdeterminism argument frivilously, you can invalidate any scientific result.

So IMO this isn't necessarilly an argument just about determinisn or free will. It's about using these things as loopholes.

That said, questioning an assumption isn't such a bad thing, even if it seems valid. And thst is at the heart of what Sabine us advocating I think.

 

[wittgenstein]

I am confused. Zellinger said, " "We always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist... This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science. If this were not true, then, I suggest, it would make no sense at all to ask nature questions in an experiment, since then nature could determine what our questions are, and that could guide our questions such that we arrive at a false picture of nature" It seems to me that he is saying that if our questions are predetermined (by nature/ our brains) they lack validity because they are not objective. You wrote, " but the straightforward assumption that there are no hidden correlations between measurement settings and preparations of systems to be measured that affect the measurement results. Superdeterminism denies that assumption; " I sincerely apologize but can you explain that to me, a university educated person, but physics is not my specialty. I value " Physics forum" because it is an opportunity for an interested layman to ask questions.

 

[wittgenstein]

I do have some speculations as to what you meant but it would be presumptuous for me to include them.

 

[Jarvis323]

I am confused. Zellinger said, " "We always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist...

Right, but it doesn't mean that making the assumption necessitates it being completely true. Pluto does affect the Earth's orbit, but we can usually assume it doesn't. Even if we can't say that the experimentalist can do completely unbiased science, we can make the assumption (even if it is an approximation) that they can do unbiased enough science to get reliable results.

SD is claiming that in some particular case, that assumption isn't valid, and that no matter what we do, our results for this particular experiment become biased, and that invalidates the Bell test result, which opens up the possibilities the Bell test result would otherwise rule out.

So the problem here is using such a loophole could theoretically be done to invalidate any scientific result. But we would have to decide when is appropriate to use the loophole.

In the QM case, though, we are struggling to understand the results of the Bell test. And it makes some sense to just consider the possibility the assumption of independence isn't valid and explore the possibilities. Why not. But it isn't really usefull for making any solid conclusions. Unless at some point, some proof of that dependence springs up (even though some would seriously doubt that).

The issue is an issue in the philosophy of science, which is really more about, in this case I think, how we make decisions what is worth pursuing or not. I'm not sure belief or disbelief itself should be the real goal, just a proxy for confidence we're on the right track or not in future work.

We can certainly use the loophole here, to motivate a new look, and it doesn't break science. It's not an all or nothing type of thing, so yes the criticism is a bit silly if taken too seriously, but there is a point to it.

 

[PeterDonis]

It seems to me that he is saying that if our questions are predetermined (by nature/ our brains) they lack validity because they are not objective.

He's not saying superdeterminism says our brains are predetermined. (That would just be determinism.) He's saying that superdeterminism says that whatever it is that determines the measurement settings has some hidden connection with whatever it is that determines the state preparation of the system being measured. And according to superdeterminism, this must be true no matter what precautions we take to keep those two things independent. For example, even if we use random noise from distant pulsars to determine the measurement settings (which, note carefully, is a process that does not involve human brains at all, and can be set up to depend entirely on events outside the past light cone of the state preparation event, so there is no possibility of signals of any kind passing between the two), according to superdeterminism, the measurement settings still have hidden connections to the state preparation process. When he talks about "the freedom of the experimentalist", he means we assume that such outlandish hidden connections don't exist. But superdeterminism says they do.

 

[PeroK]

No, that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is that if what Hossenfelder calls the assumption of Statistical Independence is false, we cannot draw inferences about what the laws of nature are from experimental results. By "freedom of the experimentalist" Zeilinger does not mean any mystical concept of "free will" but the straightforward assumption that there are no hidden correlations between measurement settings and preparations of systems to be measured that affect the measurement results. Superdeterminism denies that assumption;

It's also to be noted that these outlandish hidden connections fail to manifest themselves anywhere else! The whole concept of SD is designed purely to avoid accepting QM. It serves no other purpose, or sheds any light on any aspect of physical phenomena.

It may also be worth contrasting SD with simple determinism - for example in a comparison between Earth and Mars. In simple determinism, the laws of physics determine the evolution of both planets largely independently. In SD, every particle on Earth is correlated with every particle on Mars. It very difficult to see how any amount of research could produce a mathematical basis for that. If the Earth and Mars have no independent physical processes, it's difficult to see how evolution of any plant or animal life is possible, let alone the apparently rational behaviour of intelligent life.

This is why I believe it's an empty theory that serves no purpose other than to allow some people to say that they don't believe QM.

 

[Lord Jestocost]

1. Do you agree that Zellinger's objection is silly? He basically says that if we have no free will there can be no science.

He is completely right. Scientists who make a lot of noise about a “superdeterministic world” often don’t realize that they themselves are an included part of this world. When using the term "superdeterminism", one should know how it is defined. Gerard 't Hooft in "The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics":

"If a theory is deterministic all the way, it implies that not only all observed phenomena, but also the observers themselves are controlled by deterministic laws. They certainly have no ‘free will’, their actions all have roots in the past, even the distant past. ... The notion that, also the actions by experimenters and observers are controlled by deterministic laws, is called superdeterminism." [Italics in original, LJ]

At the end, one can stop here if one assumes that we have superdeterminism. All what one does, writes or thinks has at the end no influence on the future course of events. Superdetermism actually tells you that what you are doing is futile anyway. And even when you believe that what you are doing isn’t futile, you are simply pre-determined to believe in this way.

 

[wittgenstein]

So you are saying that we cannot be rational if we lack free will. I disagree. Computers are rational and lack free will. Also that requires that we do not get our ideas from our brains since they are part of nature and not supernatural. It is a common mistake to believe that a lack of free will means that nothing matters. Many things act on the world that have no free will. I hope you are wrong because that makes Zellinger's objection silly.

 

[wittgenstein]

You wrote," He is completely right. Scientists who make a lot of noise about a “superdeterministic world” often don’t realize that they themselves are an included part of this world" I disagree. That is exactly what scientists know. Zellinger however, implies that we are separate from nature. Evolution is not based on free will and yet it "designed" our brains a problem solving computer.

 

[kith]

@wittgenstein: Could you briefly outline your understanding of what superdeterminism is and why physicists are talking about it?

 

[Jarvis323]

Whether determinism excludes free will or not is a matter of philosophy and there are two schools, one which thinks it does and one whoch thinks it doesn't.

Anyway, some people have a personal philosophical issue with determinism, which should be separated from the debate in SD.

Many people would be very fine with, actually even strongly prefer, pure determinism and maybe only very reluctantly accept non-determinism, but still think SD is too much of a stretch.

 

[PeroK]

He is completely right. Scientists who make a lot of noise about a “superdeterministic world” often don’t realize that they themselves are an included part of this world. When using the term "superdeterminism", one should know how it is defined. Gerard 't Hooft in "The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics":

"If a theory is deterministic all the way, it implies that not only all observed phenomena, but also the observers themselves are controlled by deterministic laws. They certainly have no ‘free will’, their actions all have roots in the past, even the distant past. ... The notion that, also the actions by experimenters and observers are controlled by deterministic laws, is called superdeterminism." [Italics in original, LJ]

I don't see how that definition on SD is enough to explain QM results. The key missing element is correlation between seemingly independent physical systems. For what it's worth, Wikipedia agrees with me on this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism

"The term superdeterminism is misleading. Superdeterministic models are deterministic in the usual sense. But in addition to being deterministic, they also postulate correlations between the state that is measured and the measurement setting. "

For example, suppose experimenter A chooses something to do with English football results and experimenter B chooses Scottish football results to obtain data for an Bell-type experiment. It's one thing to say that these results are predetermined. It's quite another to say that they are correlated - in just the right way to make QM appear to be true.

Not least, because data cannot be correlated with all other data in every possible way. SD (to explain QM) requires that a very specific set of correlations emerge. For example, if we do the experiment one way it might require that Celtic and Chelsea have results that are correlated in some way. But, then, we change the way we use the data and from that moment on, Celtic and Chelsea have results that must be correlated in some different way.

SD says that some law of physics maintains this bizarre interrelationship where, for example, Celtic's winning streak comes to an end at precisely the time that it needs to in order that the data when used by the experimenters is correlated with photons in an experiment.

It's not that football results, experimental decisions and photon polarizations are all pre-determined; it's that they are all correlated in order to make QM appear true. It's not clear what form the laws of nature would have to take to ensure such correlated interrelationships.

 

[wittgenstein]

PeroK wrote "It may also be worth contrasting SD with simple determinism - for example in a comparison between Earth and Mars. In simple determinism, the laws of physics determine the evolution of both planets largely independently. In SD, every particle on Earth is correlated with every particle on Mars. " Pardon the imprecise metaphor. Suppose at the big bang God (I am once again using a metaphor. It's just an easy way to imply whatever caused the initial conditions.) God puts 2 gloves in separate boxes, one left-handed and the other right-handed) 13 billion years later I open a box and instantly know what the other glove is. Is your point that the odds of those 2 gloves being in the same vicinity are astronomically unlikely?

 

[Jarvis323]

It may also be worth contrasting SD with simple determinism - for example in a comparison between Earth and Mars. In simple determinism, the laws of physics determine the evolution of both planets largely independently. In SD, every particle on Earth is correlated with every particle on Mars. It very difficult to see how any amount of research could produce a mathematical basis for that. If the Earth and Mars have no independent physical processes, it's difficult to see how evolution of any plant or animal life is possible, let alone the apparently rational behaviour of intelligent life.

But if this were what SD was saying, then SD would be easily disproved and be incompatible with chaos theory wouldn't it?

I think SD, at least Sabine's version of it, is trying to be minimally presumptuous. It's just saying the correlation exists when we measure the particle, and technically that could just extend to some hidden connection with whatever went into those specific measurements and the particle. We would need to examine the union of all factors that have gone into Bell tests, and consider a minimal common denominator that needs a connection to produce the bias. Or something of that sort.

 

[Lord Jestocost]

I don's see how that definition on SD is enough to explain QM results.

@PeroK

To avoid any misunderstanding:

As a former experimental physicist, I regard "superdeterminism" as an irrelevant idea. I am in line with Zeilinger: “[W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist... This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science.”

 

[PeroK]

PeroK wrote "It may also be worth contrasting SD with simple determinism - for example in a comparison between Earth and Mars. In simple determinism, the laws of physics determine the evolution of both planets largely independently. In SD, every particle on Earth is correlated with every particle on Mars. " Pardon the imprecise metaphor. Suppose at the big bang God (I am once again using a metaphor. It's just an easy way to imply whatever caused the initial conditions.) God puts 2 gloves in separate boxes, one left-handed and the other right-handed) 13 billion years later I open a box and instantly know what the other glove is. Is your point that the odds of those 2 gloves being in the same vicinity are astronomically unlikely?

That wasn't my point at all. SD, if true, has nothing directly to do with QM entanglement. As per the Wikipedia page, it's not the determinism that is the issue, it's the correlations.

To take an example from mathematics. Take the digits of ##\sqrt 2## and ##\sqrt 3##. These sets of digits are completely determined in advance. But, the two sets of digits are uncorrelated. Suppose you pick a digit somewhere in the decimal expansion or ##\sqrt 2## and it is ##5##, say. You cannot then say that the correspoding digit of ##\sqrt 3## is more likely to be one digit than any other.

The analogy in the physical universe is that initial conditions produce two complex systems: Earth and Mars. Their respective evolutions might be completely pre-determined, but you wouldn't expect the data to be correlated. We imagine, therefore, that we may obtain statistically independent data from separate complex systems. We assume that the data in each system has been effectively randomised.

SD (e.g. the Hossenfelder paper) challenges this and claims that all physical data is statistically dependent. This is an incredible claim. And, goes way beyond any simply detereministic theory (whether or not that theory treats humans as ultimately deterministic systems).

 

[wittgenstein]

So we do not get our thoughts from our brains? Or are you saying that our brains transcend matter? Can computers perform rational operations or are they also required to have free will?

 

[wittgenstein]

Are you saying that our brains do not follow the laws of cause and effect?

 

[wittgenstein]

That was in response to Lord Jestocost. I disagree with him and believe that free will is not required for rationality.

 

[PeroK]

@PeroK

To avoid any misunderstanding:

As a former experimental physicist, I regard "superdeterminism" as an irrelevant idea. I am in line with Zeilinger: “[W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist... This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science.”

SD claims way more than loss of freedom. It claims that the decision-making is not just predetermined, but pre-determined in such a way that human decision making is correlated with all other data in the universe.

To take my example. You might be predetermined to choose "Chelsea" and when they score their first goal of the match. And I might be predetermined to choose "Celtic" and when they score their first goal. You get ##17## and I get ##64## say. But, what the hell has 17 to do with 64? It appears completely random. And, why would that be correlated with the polarization on a pair of photons? (That works quite well for a choice of angles, given there are 90 minutes in a game of football!)

To persevere with this line. We generate violations of Bell's inequalities. So, we decide that from now on it should be when Celtic first concede a goal. And now, lo and behold, this data is correlated in just the right way. Nature is not just predetermining our decision making, but somehow aligning it (in some mysterious, hidden way) with anything and everything else in the universe.

In short, it's not clear how data from multiple complex systems could possibly be correlated in this way.

 

[CoolMint]

What your brain does, is the 'free will'. At the cellular level, brain cells send electrical signals via ligands attaching to cell receptors. A ligand can induce a cell reaction that may involve production of specific hormones that drive physiological functions(sleep, appetite, etc.) Or it may create a specific human behavior - e.g. irritability, impaired cognition, depression, joy.
As for higher thoughts - these things also have their roots in cell signaling. It is a learned(acquired) behaviour.
Your brain is your free will. It drives you.

 

[wittgenstein]

It seems to me that Zellinger's point is a metaphysical point (that free will is necessary for rationality) rather than a scientific one.
Cool mint. I agree the brain does create all our thoughts. We may disagree tho on the idea that the brain can violate cause and effect. I think it cannot.

 

[CoolMint]

It's weird. Cells communicate to ensure the biological functions necessary for survival. Cell communication producing higher thoughts, introspection, philosophy, imagination... is the epitome of survival skills. Survival taken to its most extreme form. And it's all in the dna. There are 10 transcription factors that guide dna alterations( 'mutations') which are necessary for new traits be made in just a couple of generations. Your reasoning in this thread is also a form of survival taken to its most extreme form.
Survival is the meaning of life. You would not have a chance at surviving better if everything was predetermined. It isn't.

 

[zonde]

I think SD, at least Sabine's version of it, is trying to be minimally presumptuous. It's just saying the correlation exists when we measure the particle, and technically that could just extend to some hidden connection with whatever went into those specific measurements and the particle. We would need to examine the union of all factors that have gone into Bell tests, and consider a minimal common denominator that needs a connection to produce the bias. Or something of that sort.

And two of the factors are Justin Bieber and One Direction fan tweets: https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.05705
How is that "minimally presumptuous"?

 

[PeroK]

But if this were what SD was saying, then SD would be easily disproved and be incompatible with chaos theory wouldn't it?

I think SD, at least Sabine's version of it, is trying to be minimally presumptuous. It's just saying the correlation exists when we measure the particle, and technically that could just extend to some hidden connection with whatever went into those specific measurements and the particle. We would need to examine the union of all factors that have gone into Bell tests, and consider a minimal common denominator that needs a connection to produce the bias. Or something of that sort.

If SD put some limit on where you could obtain data, then there should be some point at which QM breaks. I.e. eventually you would get data from two sources that are disconnected physically, hence not statistically correlated (in just the right way). That's why Hossenfelder claims that ALL data is statistically correlated. Ironically, that's an admission that the rules of QM are always going to hold!

A bolder version of SD would be to claim that there is some uncorrelated data (e.g. the digits of ##\sqrt 2## and ##\sqrt 3##) and claim that if such data were found, then the rules of QM would be violated.

That, to me, is the final irony. The superdeterminists don't want to accept QM, so they've invented a theory that starts by assuming the results of QM hold in all cases! A real theory would say where QM breaks down.

 

[Jarvis323]

And two of the factors are Justin Bieber and One Direction fan tweets: https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.05705
How is that "minimally presumptuous"?

The problem is that correlation structures can be enormously complex. For example, A and B, and also A and C, can be mutually independent yet A can depend on B and C. And the more variables you have the complicatedness of possible correlations structures explodes.

Anyways my point is just that SD where every pair of events is correlated with each other is easy to disprove, and incompatiable with deterministic chaos. So the only way SD is not able to be just thrown out entirely is through hypothesised mysterious complicated non-linear multivariate correlation structures that are maybe beyond our ability to fathom.

I agree SD is an extreme stretch. But there should be a space of things which we can and can't directly disprove in terms of how super determinism can be. I would think so at least.

Another way of thinking about it is that chaos theory, and thermodynamics, each place some limits on how much order can exist in the universe. We can't just easily rule out the existence of some bizarre sets of order nestled within all the chaos, but we can rule out everything being bizzarely ordered, I would think.

Maybe not.

 

[Jarvis323]

It seems to me that Zellinger's point is a metaphysical point (that free will is necessary for rationality) rather than a scientific one.
Cool mint. I agree the brain does create all our thoughts. We may disagree tho on the idea that the brain can violate cause and effect. I think it cannot.

I don't know what is in Zellinger's mind exactly. But when you say science implicitly assumes free will of the experimenter, you could interpret that as meaning that we at least must assume that the will (free or not) of the scientisit is statistically independent of the outcome of the experiment. This means we need to assume our thoughts don't bias the outcome of the experimental results beyond some threshold of significance. And that is believed to be able to be assumed, at least approximately, both with pure determinism and with non-determinism for many cases.

If we can't make that assumption, even approximately, in a given experiment, then we can't rely on the result.

 

[Jarvis323]

If SD put some limit on where you could obtain data, then there should be some point at which QM breaks. I.e. eventually you would get data from two sources that are disconnected physically, hence not statistically correlated (in just the right way). That's why Hossenfelder claims that ALL data is statistically correlated. Ironically, that's an admission that the rules of QM are always going to hold!

A bolder version of SD would be to claim that there is some uncorrelated data (e.g. the digits of ##\sqrt 2## and ##\sqrt 3##) and claim that if such data were found, then the rules of QM would be violated.

That, to me, is the final irony. The superdeterminists don't want to accept QM, so they've invented a theory that starts by assuming the results of QM hold in all cases! A real theory would say where QM breaks down.

This is a fair point.

 

[zonde]

The problem is that correlation structures can be enormously complex. For example, A and B, and also A and C, can be mutually independent yet A can depend on B and C. And the more variables you have the complicatedness of possible correlations structures explodes.

Anyways my point is just that SD where every pair of events is correlated with each other is easy to disprove, and incompatiable with deterministic chaos. So the only way SD is not able to be just thrown out entirely is through hypothesised mysterious complicated non-linear multivariate correlation structures that are maybe beyond our ability to fathom.

I agree SD is an extreme stretch. But there should be a space of things which we can and can't directly disprove in terms of how super determinism can be. I would think so at least.

Another way of thinking about it is that chaos theory, and thermodynamics, each place some limits on how much order can exist in the universe. We can't just easily rule out the existence of some bizarre sets of order nestled within all the chaos, but we can rule out everything being bizzarely ordered, I would think.

Maybe not.

Well, in order to understand what to do with SD it seems reasonable to look what this arguments by itself represents.
First, it's not a theory. So there is no point disproving it.
It is rather a loophole for Bell inequality. But it is a type of loophole that we can never close in actual experiments.
So do you discard Bell inequality? Bell inequality basically says that certain type of hypothetical theories are falsified if certain experimental results are observed. Would you still want to try to develop theories like the ones that Bell inequality excludes?
But then again SD loophole says that you won't be able to confirm these theories because nature is conspiring against you to pretend that it obeys QM predictions (as PeroK pointed out). So what would be the point of developing theories that can't violate Bell inequalities if you can never verify them?

So it seems to me that SD serves no purpose in science. It does not matter if it's right or wrong, it's a dead end.

 

[Fra]

FWIW, from the prespective of the agent interpretation of QM, this is how I see the matter of "free will":

"freedom of action" of an inside agent/observer
(The exeprimenters free will is a special case of this, but for me the logic is more easily seen in the general case I think)

From the perspective of the agent itself, this "freedom" is just a manifestation of the limited predictive power and control of the environment. In this sense, the freedom is related to the potential to learn. No freedom would correspond to the case where the agents dice has only one outcome to choose from, and the observer thinks it can predict the future with certainty. From the point of an inference machinery that makes sense either:

- the agent is completely dominant and literally has all it's environment under controls (ie it rules the future), whatever this means, a big "black hole agent" that consumes rather than communicates?

- the agent have acquired an illusion of certainy, which intuitively is like an unstable condition, which would spontaneously be broken and destroy the agent

In this sense, I agreee that freedom is always nautrally there without any assumptions. But the freedom is constrained by the dice, which in turn is causally related to it's fulll interaction history since big bang. And the dice corresponds the agents eolved and tuned knowledge. It is rather tha LACK of freedom, that is the assumption in my eyes and that needs motivation.

/Fredrik

 

[PeterDonis]

"If a theory is deterministic all the way, it implies that not only all observed phenomena, but also the observers themselves are controlled by deterministic laws. They certainly have no ‘free will’, their actions all have roots in the past, even the distant past. ... The notion that, also the actions by experimenters and observers are controlled by deterministic laws, is called superdeterminism." [Italics in original, LJ]

At the end, one can stop here if one assumes that we have superdeterminism.

No, one can't, because superdeterminism as the term is used by, for example, Hossenfelder means more than just determinism. It means determinism, plus the assertion that the deterministic laws plus the initial conditions enforce correlations between measurement settings and preparations of measured systems that nullify any attempts to infer the laws of nature from measurement results.

All what one does, writes or thinks has at the end no influence on the future course of events.

Determinism says no such thing. Determinism does not say you cannot influence events. All it says is that "you" are part of a deterministic physical system, so whatever influence you have on events is done by means of deterministic laws. If the deterministic chain of causation of some event goes through you, then you influence that event.