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Yep. Superdeterminism as a particular physical hypothesis has nothing to do with a philosophical notion of determinism or debates about free will. The latter is

Yep. Superdeterminism as a particular physical hypothesis has nothing to do with a philosophical notion of determinism or debates about free will. The latter is really the subject of metaphysics which by definition is not physics. It is like mixing implementation details of a particular Python script with a theory of programming languages.

zelphirkalt 7y ago
Someone who knows, that determinism can be a metaphysical concept (depending on which determinism one is talking about). Not many people get that. Good to see some people actually read about it or thought about it. This is what I always try to explain to people trying to counter it with quantum mechanics, as if it was a proof against determinism.
- feanaro 7y ago
  I'm interested. Could you expand a bit more on this? You imply there are different types (levels?) of determinism. Which are those?
  - fpoling 7y ago
    I can try for grandparent. In physics all equations including quantum mechanics are deterministic in the sense that if one knows the initial state of the universe then one knows evolution of the universe after and before. Moreover, in classical physics the assumption was that if one knows the state of some local patch of the universe at some moment, then one in principle can tell the near future and past of that local patch without knowing the state of the rest of the universe. Experimental observations of violations of Bell equations tell that no, one cannot tell the evolution of the local patch from the patch alone. Standard interpretation of quantum mechanics and physical super-determinism are just different ways to explain this. In particular the standard quantum mechanics assumes that things are still local, but the wave function is not observable in principle so we can only talk about statistical properties. Super-determinisme assumes that things are not local and tries to explain how. In philosophy determinism is essentially the opposite of free will. It implies that what people perceive as personal free will is an illusion. But this has nothing to do with the determinism of physical models. In particular, free will is compatible with physical determinism of what one perceives as an external world. One possible explanation of how this is possible is that the act of free will changes both future and past. So it looks like the future state reflecting the choice of will is deterministically follows from the past. It is just the past is different from what would be if the choice would be different. Stanford encyclopedia entry on free will has more splendid explanations.
    - GoblinSlayer 7y ago
      Evolution of the local patch is predictable from the patch alone. Violation of inequation is when this evolution has correlation with a distant patch. Copenhagen interprets this correlation as causation, hence FTL.
      - zelphirkalt 7y ago
        > Evolution of the local patch is predictable from the patch alone. How do you know, that there is no non-local influence, that makes your predictions "from the patch alone" incorrect? I don't think this can be easily excluded as a possibility. We can assume that there is no non-local influence and try to make progress from there, but we might be wrong about it, which is what the article is getting at, if I understand it correctly.
        GoblinSlayer 7y ago
        The article describes nonlocality, but doesn't support it. Instead it supports superdeterminism, which is local.
      - feanaro 7y ago
        > Evolution of the local patch is predictable from the patch alone. Only if you take the experimenter and his decision as part of the local patch, and take the decision to be determined by the same state which also determines the experiment's outcome, which is essentially what superdeterminism is, no?
        GoblinSlayer 7y ago
        Predictability is essentially determinism, not necessarily superdeterminism.
    - feanaro 7y ago
      Thanks, this was very clearly written, though I'm already familiar with it. If I got it right, you're saying that the levels of determinism refer to the difference between physical determinism and metaphysical ideas (of which the idea that a conscious being's will influences both the past and the future is an example)? > But this has nothing to do with the determinism of physical models. It seems rather confusing to state it has nothing to do with determinism of physical models. More accurately, it does have to do with determinism of physical models if you assume a physicalist perspective, but it might not, though then you have to resort to much more involved and comprehensive models of what consciousness and will are (like changing both the future and past).
  - zelphirkalt 7y ago
    Every time I search for it, I seem to need to go through many websites with wishy-washy explanations. Then I found: http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam051/2004045179.pdf http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam051/2004045179.pdf where it lists 4 types in the table of contents (just search for "determinism" in the document). However, some other websites list more types, where some of them imply the others. For example: https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_determinism.html https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_determinism.html Recently I had an interesting discussion with a coworker, but I cannot find the website we shared to clarify, what I meant by "deterministic". Basically the metaphysical determinism says, that everything is predetermined and if something seems random, it is simply because of something we do not know yet or something that is too complex to be calculated, so that we cannot predict the event that seems random. Whatever physicists come up with, for example quantum whatever, one can always say: Well, it seems random, but I believe, that there is something we have not yet discovered or don't yet know about, which makes things behave exactly as they are, completely deterministic. At that point it becomes a believe, not a science. You can always add an unknown (or "hidden variable"). Personally, I do not think this believe is in any way worse, than the believe, that something "simply happens at random" with "no theoretical way of explaining why". Probably metaphysical determinism in one way or another has always been a big motivator for scientists to continue research.

zelphirkalt 7y ago

Someone who knows, that determinism can be a metaphysical concept (depending on which determinism one is talking about). Not many people get that. Good to see some people actually read about it or thought about it. This is what I always try to explain to people trying to counter it with quantum mechanics, as if it was a proof against determinism.

feanaro 7y ago
I'm interested. Could you expand a bit more on this? You imply there are different types (levels?) of determinism. Which are those?
- fpoling 7y ago
  I can try for grandparent. In physics all equations including quantum mechanics are deterministic in the sense that if one knows the initial state of the universe then one knows evolution of the universe after and before. Moreover, in classical physics the assumption was that if one knows the state of some local patch of the universe at some moment, then one in principle can tell the near future and past of that local patch without knowing the state of the rest of the universe. Experimental observations of violations of Bell equations tell that no, one cannot tell the evolution of the local patch from the patch alone. Standard interpretation of quantum mechanics and physical super-determinism are just different ways to explain this. In particular the standard quantum mechanics assumes that things are still local, but the wave function is not observable in principle so we can only talk about statistical properties. Super-determinisme assumes that things are not local and tries to explain how. In philosophy determinism is essentially the opposite of free will. It implies that what people perceive as personal free will is an illusion. But this has nothing to do with the determinism of physical models. In particular, free will is compatible with physical determinism of what one perceives as an external world. One possible explanation of how this is possible is that the act of free will changes both future and past. So it looks like the future state reflecting the choice of will is deterministically follows from the past. It is just the past is different from what would be if the choice would be different. Stanford encyclopedia entry on free will has more splendid explanations.
  - GoblinSlayer 7y ago
    Evolution of the local patch is predictable from the patch alone. Violation of inequation is when this evolution has correlation with a distant patch. Copenhagen interprets this correlation as causation, hence FTL.
    - zelphirkalt 7y ago
      > Evolution of the local patch is predictable from the patch alone. How do you know, that there is no non-local influence, that makes your predictions "from the patch alone" incorrect? I don't think this can be easily excluded as a possibility. We can assume that there is no non-local influence and try to make progress from there, but we might be wrong about it, which is what the article is getting at, if I understand it correctly.
      - GoblinSlayer 7y ago
        The article describes nonlocality, but doesn't support it. Instead it supports superdeterminism, which is local.
    - feanaro 7y ago
      > Evolution of the local patch is predictable from the patch alone. Only if you take the experimenter and his decision as part of the local patch, and take the decision to be determined by the same state which also determines the experiment's outcome, which is essentially what superdeterminism is, no?
      - GoblinSlayer 7y ago
        Predictability is essentially determinism, not necessarily superdeterminism.
  - feanaro 7y ago
    Thanks, this was very clearly written, though I'm already familiar with it. If I got it right, you're saying that the levels of determinism refer to the difference between physical determinism and metaphysical ideas (of which the idea that a conscious being's will influences both the past and the future is an example)? > But this has nothing to do with the determinism of physical models. It seems rather confusing to state it has nothing to do with determinism of physical models. More accurately, it does have to do with determinism of physical models if you assume a physicalist perspective, but it might not, though then you have to resort to much more involved and comprehensive models of what consciousness and will are (like changing both the future and past).
- zelphirkalt 7y ago
  Every time I search for it, I seem to need to go through many websites with wishy-washy explanations. Then I found: http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam051/2004045179.pdf http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam051/2004045179.pdf where it lists 4 types in the table of contents (just search for "determinism" in the document). However, some other websites list more types, where some of them imply the others. For example: https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_determinism.html https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_determinism.html Recently I had an interesting discussion with a coworker, but I cannot find the website we shared to clarify, what I meant by "deterministic". Basically the metaphysical determinism says, that everything is predetermined and if something seems random, it is simply because of something we do not know yet or something that is too complex to be calculated, so that we cannot predict the event that seems random. Whatever physicists come up with, for example quantum whatever, one can always say: Well, it seems random, but I believe, that there is something we have not yet discovered or don't yet know about, which makes things behave exactly as they are, completely deterministic. At that point it becomes a believe, not a science. You can always add an unknown (or "hidden variable"). Personally, I do not think this believe is in any way worse, than the believe, that something "simply happens at random" with "no theoretical way of explaining why". Probably metaphysical determinism in one way or another has always been a big motivator for scientists to continue research.