<story><title>Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take</title><url>http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-path-we-didnt-take.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>themgt</author><text>I find this Quora answer convincingly reflects my thinking as to why Superdeterminism can&amp;#x27;t possibly be correct given Bell’s theorem[1]&lt;p&gt;Skimming the actual paper[2] I&amp;#x27;m not really seeing a convincing explanation, this in particular just strikes me as hard to believe &amp;#x2F; failing Occam&amp;#x27;s razor:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The belief that such tests tell us something about (the implausibility of) Superdeterminism goes back, once again, to the idea that a state which is intuitively “close” to the one realized in nature (eg, the wavelength of the light from the distant quasar was a little different, all else equal) is allowed by the laws of nature and likely to happen. However, in a superdeterministic theory what seems intuitively like a small change will generically result in an extremely unlikely state; that’s the whole point. For example, in a superdeterministic theory, a physically possible counterfactual state in which the wave-length of the photon was slightly different may also require changes elsewhere on the past hypersurface, thereby resulting in the experimenter’s decision to not use the quasar’s light to begin with.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Reality is a giant deterministic conspiracy&amp;quot; is more plausible than abandoning local realism? They do (kinda?) propose an experiment at least?&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quora.com&amp;#x2F;Why-do-some-crackpot-scientists-go-after-super-deterministic-theories-when-Bells-theorem-has-proved-that-local-realism-is-false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quora.com&amp;#x2F;Why-do-some-crackpot-scientists-go-aft...&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arxiv.org&amp;#x2F;pdf&amp;#x2F;1912.06462.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arxiv.org&amp;#x2F;pdf&amp;#x2F;1912.06462.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>millstone</author><text>I would say it like so: pi has many transcendental neighbors, which are in no way related to pi. But e and pi, despite being numerically distant, are in one sense &amp;quot;close&amp;quot; - related - via Euler&amp;#x27;s formula. So there&amp;#x27;s a &amp;quot;local closeness&amp;quot; - the arithmetic difference of pi and its neighbor - but also a &amp;quot;relationship closeness&amp;quot; where pi and e are intimately linked.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps quantum states obey the relationship closeness, not the arithmetical one. Classical physics obeys &amp;quot;arithmetical closeness&amp;quot; meaning that small differences in dynamical properties are close in state-space. But actually this is an emergent property: highly sensitive quantum experiments reveal that small differences in dynamical properties can be highly separated in state-space.&lt;p&gt;Rationals are all pretty easily related, but pi has nothing in common with a random close transcendental neighbor.&lt;p&gt;More: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Implicate_and_explicate_order&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Implicate_and_explicate_order&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Superdeterminism: The path we didn’t take</title><url>http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-path-we-didnt-take.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>themgt</author><text>I find this Quora answer convincingly reflects my thinking as to why Superdeterminism can&amp;#x27;t possibly be correct given Bell’s theorem[1]&lt;p&gt;Skimming the actual paper[2] I&amp;#x27;m not really seeing a convincing explanation, this in particular just strikes me as hard to believe &amp;#x2F; failing Occam&amp;#x27;s razor:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The belief that such tests tell us something about (the implausibility of) Superdeterminism goes back, once again, to the idea that a state which is intuitively “close” to the one realized in nature (eg, the wavelength of the light from the distant quasar was a little different, all else equal) is allowed by the laws of nature and likely to happen. However, in a superdeterministic theory what seems intuitively like a small change will generically result in an extremely unlikely state; that’s the whole point. For example, in a superdeterministic theory, a physically possible counterfactual state in which the wave-length of the photon was slightly different may also require changes elsewhere on the past hypersurface, thereby resulting in the experimenter’s decision to not use the quasar’s light to begin with.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Reality is a giant deterministic conspiracy&amp;quot; is more plausible than abandoning local realism? They do (kinda?) propose an experiment at least?&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quora.com&amp;#x2F;Why-do-some-crackpot-scientists-go-after-super-deterministic-theories-when-Bells-theorem-has-proved-that-local-realism-is-false&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quora.com&amp;#x2F;Why-do-some-crackpot-scientists-go-aft...&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arxiv.org&amp;#x2F;pdf&amp;#x2F;1912.06462.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arxiv.org&amp;#x2F;pdf&amp;#x2F;1912.06462.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>perl4ever</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure if everything being deterministic is an abhorrent, invalid option, but I also don&amp;#x27;t see why reality has to be local. I mean, the limitation of light speed is something that exists to make a consistent theory, not something that somehow has value in itself...?&lt;p&gt;My problem is probably not just a lack of math, but a lack of taste.</text></comment>