Superdeterminism!

[peter]

Ok - now we are getting to the heart of it. I'm going to put this in as simple a way as my limited understanding gets it and I apologize in advance if I get it wrong, but you guys are clever enough to sort the wheat from the chart and sift out the good stuff.

When the Young's Slits experiment is performed such that only one photon passes through the apparatus, the characteristic diffraction pattern of bands of light and dark is seen on the detection screen such that one concludes with certainty that the photon is wave form in nature. So far so good - except that if you modify your set up to detect the photon passing through the slits rather than hitting the target screen behind something very weird happens. Now all of a sudden the diffraction pattern disappears and becomes concentrated behind a single slit as though the photon were a discrete particle. It's as though the photon knows in advance where it is going to be looked at and alters it's nature accordingly.

Then we have the problem of quantum entanglement; in this case, two widely separated but linked particles (don't ask me how you do this - I have no idea) seem to be connected in such a way that an observation made on one will instantaneously effect an observation made on the other, such that the passage of information between the two has to overturn the speed of light barrier that is fundamental to our understanding of 'how things are'. Either this or (somehow) the two particles are actually a single particle that exists in two places at the same time. Either way the situation is decidedly 'spooky' in the way it contradicts everything that we understand to be the case about how the world should work. Einstein, in his famous God does not play dice quotation said that he could see where quantum theory was coming from, but felt deep in his gut that something was not right; he felt it was part of the picture - but that something fundamental was missing. Quantum theory - or the various understandings of it that we currently have - do nothing to explain these observations in anything like a satisfactory manner.

Enter Superdeterminism.

If I get it correctly, this speculates that there are hidden correlations between certain aspects of the properties of fundamental particles, hidden perhaps in dimensions to which we have no access, that go right back to the instant of creation when all particles were essentially one, and that to this present moment mean that every single point of matter in the universe is inextricably linked to every other and (what's worse) that every single interaction between them on the micro and macro scale (that's you and me and everything we have done or will ever do) is predetermined and set in stone in advance. Everything from the emision of an alpha particle in a radioactive decay to Lizzie Borden giving her husband forty wacks is completely predetermined and non random. Anything that is random only appears so because we have no access to the connections that make it not so, these being hidden out of sight in dimensions beyond our ken. The oddities of superposition and quantum entanglement disappear in a flash as simple methods of understanding the complex maths of quantum theory, but we are moved straight into a world where free-will and randomness are gone. It is a cold place where we are reduced to the level of pre-programed interactions between fundamental particles of whose course we can neither influence or deviate from.

And if all of this sounds out on a limb, then I can only call to my defense Nobel Prize winning physicist Gerard t' Hooft who as well as being one of the world's most respected experts in the field happens to support it.

(I must thank author Micheal Brooks from whose book The Quantum Astrologer's Handbook this is (badly) drawn. Thoroughly recommend this quirky little popular science book that blends quantum physics with the biography of the Renaissance polymath and largely unremembered oddball character Jerome Cardamom. Easy to read and very informative.)

[Lazy Luke]

Amazing!

So this means that my Bandaxall tone control circuit, using not only electronic components such as resistors and capacitors etc soldered to copper stripboard, but with tiny wire links that happen to be shaped like letters, (S and T and C), will spell out three-letter words at a quantum feedback level. That would be truly SUPER. The DETERMINISM would then be the tuning part, where the individual component values are altered to suit the desired tonal output.

Would the addition of a vowel or two be worthwhile when predeterminism rules?

[peter]

You're not getting it Luke; this has been labeled as the "ultimate conspiracy theory"; in superdeterminism you can no more decide whether to add a few more vowels than to win the lottery. There is no decision to be made. All of the work has already been done. My advice is.......... meaningless!

[Lazy Luke]

You're not getting it Luke.

That's quite alright, peter. I honestly don't want it. I just saw some comparisons within the tone control circuit I'm building. The Superdeterminism sideline is more for fun.

While watching Suicide Squad, or I should say listening to the Steven Price music to the film, I was impressed by the glowing symbols surrounding the Enchantress. I've been reducing circuit diagrams into symbols as a form of electronic abbreviation, and I'm sure one of her symbols looked similar to one I was using for the bass circuitry.

Taking this a step further, and connecting components together with intricately shaped links (or letters), is actually ... not meaningless.

[Ur Dead]

See if I got this right..(for the old befuddled people like me.)

If I'm at the racetrack and I place a bet on a horse to win and past records
indicate that it's only going to show. Yet in my mind I cannot be persuaded to
modify my bet because I am set in my ways. That that is called
Superderterminism..

Right

[Hashi Lebwohl]

If I get it correctly, this speculates that there are hidden correlations between certain aspects of the properties of fundamental particles, hidden perhaps in dimensions to which we have no access, that go right back to the instant of creation when all particles were essentially one, and that to this present moment mean that every single point of matter in the universe is inextricably linked to every other and (what's worse) that every single interaction between them on the micro and macro scale (that's you and me and everything we have done or will ever do) is predetermined and set in stone in advance. Everything from the emision of an alpha particle in a radioactive decay to Lizzie Borden giving her husband forty wacks is completely predetermined and non random. Anything that is random only appears so because we have no access to the connections that make it not so, these being hidden out of sight in dimensions beyond our ken. The oddities of superposition and quantum entanglement disappear in a flash as simple methods of understanding the complex maths of quantum theory, but we are moved straight into a world where free-will and randomness are gone. It is a cold place where we are reduced to the level of pre-programed interactions between fundamental particles of whose course we can neither influence or deviate from.

Otherwise known as "the Dr. Manhattan School of Thought".

[peter]

Physicist John Bell from a BBC interview given in the 1980's;

There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance, bit it involves absolute determinism in the Universe; the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic with not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but our behaviour, including our belief that we are free to choose one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined, including the "decision" by the experimenter to carry out one set of measurements rather than another, the difficulty disappears. There is no need for a faster than light signal to tell particle A what measurement has been carried out on particle B, because the Universe, including particle A, already "knows" what the measurement, and it's outcome, will be.

The answer to the quantum theory dilemma could already be right in front of our eyes - but we simply have not the courage to acknowledge it. The only question of any relevance now surely is "does the math support it?"

[Zarathustra]

The problems presented by these experiments can be resolved in three ways, namely, by giving up either 1) locality, 2) realism, or 3) freedom. So the universe could be either nonlocal (i.e. "all is one") or in some sense observer-dependent (e.g. the moon only exists when we look at it), or deterministic.

Superdeterminism is only one of three possible solutions. From Wikipedia:

In October 2015, Hensen and co-workers[7] reported that they performed a loophole-free Bell test which might force one to reject at least one of the principles of locality, realism, or freedom-of-choice (the last "could" lead to alternative superdeterministic theories).[8] Two of these logical possibilities, non-locality and non-realism, correspond to well-developed interpretations of quantum mechanics, and have many supporters; this is not the case for the third logical possibility, non-freedom. Conclusive experimental evidence of the violation of Bell's inequality would drastically reduce the class of acceptable deterministic theories but would not falsify absolute determinism, which was described by Bell himself as "not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but with our behaviour, including our belief that we are free to choose to do one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined". However, Bell himself considered absolute determinism an implausible solution.

Remember, as Deutsche pointed out, the many worlds theory also explains these phenomena.

[Skyweir]

I love you guys .. youre all so brilliant

I enjoy reading the fascinating things you each posit.. its really quite invigorating as well as heartening. Keep on keeping on

[peter]

Oh, if it were true Sky!

Z, V, Hashi and others have understanding of the subject - I have desire to understand the subject - two very different things!

Yes - granted Z; but it's untidy isn't it. It doesn't 'feel' right. It has the feel of bending reality to fit the math rather than using math to describe the reality. Superdeterminism, while certainly not the complete answer does at least have the advantage of according with Occam's Razor. It's simpler - not palatable I'd be the first to grant - but simpler.

This may be presumptuous as a question because it's unlikely any of these questions will be satisfactorily answered any time in the near future - but if Superdeterminism were the case, what would be the consequences of this in terms of our understanding; what would be the next questions we would be forced to confront?

[Vraith]

- but if Superdeterminism were the case, what would be the consequences of this in terms of our understanding; what would be the next questions we would be forced to confront?

Well, the consequence is that there IS no "understanding," there are no "questions," and there is no one to confront them, forced or not.

Superdeterminism cracks me up in this way: It's David Byrne---just cuz you dress it up in a giant suit, doesn't mean it's someone else...it's still just determinism.

And besides Z's points [which are real, ADDITIONAL points, not counter his points], there's a ton of other things.
Just with his---there are continua...semi-real, semi-local, semi-determined.
Beyond that: quantum is spec-damn-tacular...as is GR.
YET: As successful as they are, the ONE thing that is undeniably true of both---BOTH tell us there is a lot of shit we don't know anything about but MUST exist.

It's like you had a satellite-view video of the ocean and land surfaces of the earth for the entirety of WW2. You could learn a lot of shit, and be right about almost all of it---and one of the things you would know is that there MUST be aircraft and submarines even though you couldn't see them. And those things affect EVERYTHING. But did they determine the outcome?? They neither did nor didn't in any way that is different [in kind] from the things you COULD see. You only think they did because you think you know what the things you could see did.

But you don't.

Sorta related to that thought---a thing I saw on Quanta---guy saying [[rough simplification]] "Gravity is so small that almost everyone almost all the time ignores it at small scales. That's a mistake."

And he's right, for dozens of reasons I won't blather on here/now.

[Fist and Faith]

peter, your main problem is that Lizzie Borden killed her parents, not her husband.

[Ur Dead]

peter, your main problem is that Lizzie Borden killed her parents, not her husband.

Yea,, Impossible since she wasn't married at the time.
Could have had a BF.
The BF though Lizzie was crazy over him.
She would have gotten to him but couldn't find a chainsaw.

[peter]

{There is a film, recently released, that gives a telling of the story and in due course I shall be brushing up on my 'psychopathic axe murder narrative and the accuracy thereof as recorded in popular cant' skill set; in the meantime following the well trodden path of generations of politicians, statesman and other high profile dissemblers when caught in the act, spouting (deliberately or otherwise) egregious examples of factual inacracy my answer is both simple and (I believe) recondite. No comment!}

Totally get the determinism point V - determinism either is or isn't, isn't it (couldn't resist that ), but I'm guessing it's the ....mmmm.... level (?) at which the concept is being applied at (I mean right down at the microest of micro scales of stringy things and across dimensions ad infinitum unavailable to the dimensions that are unavailable to us) that makes 'them' add the 'super' tag. But spectacular as QT and GR undoubtedly are, they don't seem to be going anywhere. SD does at least seem to take us forward, even if we view it in the light of say ptolomeic cycles and epicycles, from an instrumentalist standpoint - (no, that sounds like bullshit, even to me...... I'll leave that and go try to make sense of this 'satelite image' metaphor that left me feeling as though I was trying to look into my own ear on first reading).



Is matey saying that theoreticians are not including the gravitational effects nearly enough in their descriptions of the world down at the quantum level V. That would (it seems to me) indeed qualify as a big mistake!

[Vraith]

but I'm guessing it's the ....mmmm.... level (?) at which the concept is being applied at (I mean right down at the microest of micro scales of stringy things and across dimensions ad infinitum unavailable to the dimensions that are unavailable to us) that makes 'them' add the 'super' tag.

But spectacular as QT and GR undoubtedly are, they don't seem to be going anywhere. SD does at least seem to take us forward

I'll leave that and go try to make sense of this 'satelite image' metaphor that left me feeling as though I was trying to look into my own ear on first reading).



Is matey saying that theoreticians are not including the gravitational effects nearly enough in their descriptions of the world down at the quantum level V. That would (it seems to me) indeed qualify as a big mistake!

On the first, yea, that's what they're doing/meaning. But it's STILL just a bigger suit...and mostly made of the same fabric.

On the second, I totally disagree. Q and GR have and are and will continue to get us places...SD, if....ESPECIALLY if...it is so doesn't move anything forward, it takes us completely out of the equation. All the most brilliant minds/ideas/creations...intelligence/consciousness itself---aren't merely meaningless, but non-existent.
The Star Wars saga and any random lump of rock come about for exactly the same reasons, and have precisely the same meaning/value [[that meaning/value being zero---which, I happen to think is actually true, so maybe I shouldn't have picked Star Wars....HAH!!!! AS IF I HAD A CHOICE!!!!!

On the third---go ahead, if ya got time, but don't work too hard...It's an OK analogy, I liked it a little when I made it, but not brilliant or anything.

On the last---yea. Well, it's not him saying it so much as stating a fact...almost everyone, for almost everything quantum, ignores gravity as if it didn't exist. It is him saying he thinks it's a mistake.

On a related note, a number of fundamental particles are pretty much always treated as points. Size Zero. And some folk think that may prove to be a mistake, too.

In both cases, one [but not only] reason is tools to measure don't [and might not any time soon] exist.

[peter]

Just done a re-run of the post V and today I begin to see it! Agreed - it makes it's point well. (That's an interesting effect of getting older; I find that sometimes a block of text that is incomprehensible on the first reading suddenly falls into clarity on the second.)