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I just want to correct some comments that say we are certain there are no local variables and that they have been ruled out experimentally.

This is false information and even Bell himself knew it:

"There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will."

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



That's not local variables, that's a global conspiracy. And it's an unfalsifiable cop-out to the problem.


Regarding global conspiracy:

"Explicit construction of Local Hidden Variables for any quantum theory up to any desired accuracy"

https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.04335

Regarding unfalsifiable, from [0] "If engineers ever succeed in making such quantum computers, it seems to me that the CAT is falsified; no classical theory can explain quantum mechanics." By "such quantum computers" he means computers that can run Shor's algorithm. "...but factoring a number with millions of digits into its prime factors will not be possible – unless fundamentally improved classical algorithms turn out to exist."

[0] - https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548

Now, this does not mean these theories are ready, but they are being worked on.


Physicists have a term for conspiracies, they call them symmetries.


I'd say superdeterminism is an even stronger version of global hidden variables


Okay, I just want to correct you that superdeterminism is not a local hidden variable theory.


"Explicit construction of Local Hidden Variables for any quantum theory up to any desired accuracy"

https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.04335

Or right in the page I linked: "This makes it possible to construct a local hidden-variable theory that reproduces the predictions of quantum mechanics, for which a few toy models have been proposed."


From Wikipedia about superdeterminism: "By postulating that all systems being measured are correlated with the choices of which measurements to make on them, the assumptions of the theorem are no longer fulfilled"

By assuming superdeterminism you can indeed construct a valid local hidden variable theory. But there is no way you can say superdeterminism is by itself a local theory, and no physicts will call it so. It's as far from "local" theory as possible, it's actually global.


So, what is supposed to be wrong with "the complete absence of free will"?

It reads like some sort of religious objection. If the data leads you there, you go there.

Sabine, particularly, goes there. Apparently there are no actual problems with giving up the illusion of "free will", whatever the hell it was supposed to mean in the first place.

Distaste seems pretty rich coming from people promoting MWI.


Chess is superdeterministic as all the moves are known in advance, but free will is still there. The "reality" might be such a superdeterministic playground that simply tells what the possible next moves are, while the players keep a pointer to one "chess" position and advance it one step at a time with their free will.




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