7 ms·
Superdeterminism in general is a pretty absurd idea. It basically says the measurement settings you choose were predetermined. But you can use a random source f
by akvadrako 7y ago
Superdeterminism in general is a pretty absurd idea. It basically says the measurement settings you choose were predetermined. But you can use a random source from another galaxy to select them. So something like the configuration of stars in another galaxy must be conspiring to help you choose just the correct settings to fake the results QM predicts, instead of QM being actually true.
- magicalhippo 7y agoYou can also generate them using a mathematical algorithm, say a cryptographically secure PRNG. Then what?
- chopin 7y agoIf superdeterminism is true your PRNG isn't random.
- magicalhippo 7y agoBut that would mean math is not math, which seems a rather hard pill to swallow.
- millstone 7y agoPRNGs need a seed, and that choice is superdetermined.
- magicalhippo 7y agoThe distribution of the experiment results, say correlation in a Bell test, should not matter (significantly) on the choice of seed. But the single electron being sent through the experiment still needs to "know" what the outcome of my PRNG is in order to "know" if it should be spin up or spin down this time. But the measurement setting (PRNG outcome) can be arbitrarily removed from the seed value (by combining PRNGs in various ways). So that doesn't sound very convincing to me.
- nl 7y agoIt's unclear if you mean PRNG (pseudo random number generator) which is already deterministic, or a true random number source (eg, radioactive decay or something). If you mean true random, then, yes, superdeterminism does indeed mean that number is predetermined. Math still works though - there is no way for someone to peek and see what that predetermined number is so it is still random for any observer.
- vardump 7y agoPRNG by definition is not random. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorandom_number_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorandom_number_generator "A pseudorandom number generator (PRNG), also known as a deterministic random bit generator (DRBG)..."
- chopin 7y agoI was referring to the seed.
- tylerjwilk00 7y agoThis always seemed like the easiest way to explain superdeterminism. It's a universe where the laws of physics do not permit you to generate a truly random number.
- phyzome 7y agoThen you've used a worse randomness source.
- o_p 7y agoI see it more as if the universe was a 4D picture, with time as the 4th dimension, any concept of time "going forward" is just an illusion by how our brains work (we need time to compute every moment), so the outcomes are already written, we just havent seen it.
- ebg13 7y agoIn that framework something most still be moving through an external time to be experiencing individual parts of it sequentially.
- o_p 7y agoWhat do you mean by experiencing sequentially?
- tylerjwilk00 7y agoHe means We (you, me, other humans) experience time passing consciously and sequentially. We are on the inside of a 4 dimensional bulk. We are traveling through the temporal dimension. As opposed to outside of it looking in. In which case we would "see" past, present, and future simultaneously.
- ebg13 7y agoBetter yet, if we're traveling through that temporal dimension there must be real time. Otherwise how would we be traveling?
- gicop 7y agoHere's a thought experiment, similar to the one-electron universe thought experiment: there exists one particle, the "consciousness particle," which randomly jumps around throughout 4D space. Whenever it appears at a 4D position, consciousness is experienced as computed by integrated information theory (or a similar model) [1]. When you experience a moment of consciousness at a specific 4D position, you experience all the memories of the "past" that are in your brain. Thus, the consciousness particle interpretation of consciousness is compatible with your direct perception of living a 3D life along a time dimension. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory
- neltnerb 7y agoThis does not sound that absurd to me, just wildly different. It would require evidence to believe, of course.
- Grieverheart 7y agoI do not understand your statement. Superdeterminism does not imply QM is wrong. You can not dismiss superdeterminism with the pretext that it would render everything pointless as our paths are predetermined. Basically you are arguing that you choose not to consider superdeterminism because you have free will. What sounds more absurd? I suggest you read the original paper for a better reply to your argument.
- wnoise 7y agoIt's not literally saying QM is false in the sense of "gives wrong predictions", but it is saying it is not "what is really going on", because it is incomplete. > it would render everything pointless as our paths are predetermined The objection is subtler than this. It's that it's pointless because it's not a productive stance. Science is in large part about predicting results of interventions. It throws its hands up and says everything happens for essentially conspiratorial reasons, and taken fully doesn't admit the possibility of interventions. Further this is stronger than the normal determinism of classical mechanics -- there, even if we believe in determinism, nondeterminism with respect to unobserved things (such as experimenters brains) is a useful stance for discovering truths about the universe. In contrast, with superdeterminism, any possible "intervention" in this stance is "compensated for" by the initial conditions. It explains quantum mechanics only by saying "initial conditions did it", which is no better than "God did it" of medieval philosophy. In neither case can we usefully ask further questions.
- Grieverheart 7y agoIf you go down that route, you can always dismiss objective reality. There is no way of knowing that what we experience is actually happening. But we still assume it does. The same holds for superdeterminism. You can say we have no way of knowing if what we measure is not a conspiracy, but that doesn't hinder us from doing science as we know it.
- akvadrako 7y agoWithout conspiracies it isn’t superdeterminism and you won’t get the right outcomes.
- millstone 7y agoIn QM, configurations may be "close together" in a way that defies intuition. An example is spatially separated, entangled particles. So why can't configurations be "far apart" in a way that defies intuition? We model measuring at 45.01° as a perturbation of 45°, but perhaps these are very distant configurations.
- mihaaly 7y agoThe way I get is that we are measuring something with itself. Measuring an unknown attribute with something (actually the same thing) having the same unknown attribute. We cannot predetermine the settings of the measurement as we do not know its attributes or parameters. We have no means of calibrating something we do not know. It does not have to be an atom from a distant galaxy - very well may be, we do not know yet - but unknown underlying interdependence locally. The superposition of unknown number of underlying unknowns combine into what happens when we measure an unknown with an other unknown. We measure our universe with itself, the taste of an apple with an other apple.
- ur-whale 7y agoWeren't all particles pretty darn correlated at t=0 (big bang)?