"Counterfactual definiteness" vs. "free will"

[Demystifier]

Or, show how $\pi$ and $e$ depend on the initial conditions at the Big Bang.

That's a wrong question. Alice could use the digits of the constant $d=34275.2998$ (it's called Demystifier constant, by the person who first introduced it a minute ago) in her measurement setup, would you in that case ask how $d$ depends on the initial conditions at the Big Bang?

 

[PeroK]

That's a wrong question. Alice could use the digits of the constant $a=34275.2998$ in her measurement setup, would you in that case ask how $a$ depends on the initial conditions at the Big Bang?

Assuming Alice decided on all those digits, then by the hidden variables controlling her thought processes.

As long as Alice keeps making the decision about what digit to use, all the data is ultimately the result of a physical process controlled to a greater or lesser extent by the laws of physics.

If Alice decides to use prime numbers, then the initial decision is controlled by the laws of physics, but the full set of data (the set of prime numbers) is then subsequently independent of the laws of physics.

Two sets of coin tosses could be correlated (theoretically); but, one set of coin tosses cannot be correlated with the set of prime numbers.

 

[Demystifier]

Assuming Alice decided on all those digits

But she didn't. It was me who decided to give this number a name, but this number existed before I or anyone else gave it a name. Alice saw this constant here on forum and decided to use it in her experiment.

 

[PeroK]

But she didn't. It was me who decided to give this number a name, but this number existed before I or anyone else gave it a name. Alice saw this constant here on forum and decided to use it in her experiment.

We've been round this loop. I don't want to spend any more time on this thread, because obviously I'm the only one that sees mathematics as a problem for SD. Maybe it isn't a problem and maybe it is.

It can't be resolved here other than to accept the status quo that SD is impregnable. But, I simply do not understand why it is impregnable and why mathematical data (independent of the laws of physics) cannot be used by physicists in their experiments). I wish I understood, but I don't.

Sorry to have wasted everyone's time.

 

[Demystifier]

But, I simply do not understand ... why mathematical data (independent of the laws of physics) cannot be used by physicists in their experiments). I wish I understood, but I don't.

Because physicists themselves are physical objects, not mathematical objects.

But if you are interested in a deeper thinking about such questions (relations between physical objects, mathematical objects and the mind), I recommend the book R. Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind.

 

[Lynch101]

We've been round this loop. I don't want to spend any more time on this thread, because obviously I'm the only one that sees mathematics as a problem for SD. Maybe it isn't a problem and maybe it is.

It can't be resolved here other than to accept the status quo that SD is impregnable. But, I simply do not understand why it is impregnable and why mathematical data (independent of the laws of physics) cannot be used by physicists in their experiments). I wish I understood, but I don't.

Is there perhaps a hidden assumption about the nature of mathematics or with what the results are correlated?

If we think about the process by which Alice comes to know the digits of pi. It's a process which occurs entirely in her own brain. We might add in that she has learned them in school. This would be explained by SD as a deterministic process, inevitable from the big bang.

We can however, for the sake of argument, assume that Alice is the first person to discover pi. So, we need to examine the process by which she discovers it. There are an abundance of examples as to how she may have discovered it but if we imagine that Alice sees a prisoner of war tethered to a pole. The POW wants to get as much exercise as possible so he walks as far as the rope will allow him. This happens to trace out a circle around the pole with a radius the length of the rope. After a while the prisoner gets bored of this route and decides to change the path, so he walks to the centre of the circle and out to the edge of the circle on the other side.

Alice is interested to see the ratio of the two routes so she cuts a number of lengths of rope, the length of the diameter of the circle, and lays them out around the circumference. On the basis of this, she creates abstractions of similar scenarios with varying radii. She finds that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is the same in each case. She carries out tests with varying lengths of rope and finds that this holds true.

In this case, the nature of matter [as determined at the big bang] is such that the circumference of a circle [traced out using some form of matter of a given length] will always have the ratio pi to the diameter of that circle.Even if we ascribe some transcendental qualities to pi and other mathematical constants, the process by which experimenters come to discover and know them is a physical process, which SD would say is determined from the big bang.

 

[stevendaryl]

According to our usual view of how our "making choices" works, yes. But according to superdeterminism, no, you might not be able to carry out that idea--at least not the way you are conceiving it. Your conceiving it and carrying it out, if it were possible at all, would have to be set up by the initial conditions of the universe in such a way that the measurement results you got could not prove superdeterminism to be wrong. So if you had the intuitive idea that you could somehow "test" superdeterminism in this way, your intuitive idea would be wrong if superdeterminism were true.

Certainly, you can never absolutely falsify superdeterminism, but we can certainly falsify the claim that it's impossible to choose EPR settings according to the digits of $\pi$.

 

[stevendaryl]

If superdeterminism is true, then they are--the initial conditions of the universe are set up just right so that the digits of $\pi$ correlate with the photon polarizations at the times Alice makes her measurements. Of course this means that Alice is not actually free to choose the times at which she makes her measurements; the initial conditions determine those times just as they determine everything else.

As I said already, there are two ways for Alice's choices to be correlated with the hidden variables of EPR so as to reproduce the predictions of QM: (1) Alice's choices might be constrained in the appropriate way, or (2) the hidden variables might be chosen taking Alice's (future) choices into account. The second possibly doesn't require a conspiracy for Alice's choices, it only requires that they be predictable.

 

[PeterDonis]

The laws of physics do not determine which numbers are prime. But, the laws of physics do determine the data from a sequebce of coin tosses.

No, the laws of physics plus the initial conditions determine the data from a sequence of coin tosses. And there is nothing logically impossible about having a set of initial conditions that, combined with the applicable laws of physics, leads to the data from a sequence of coin tosses being correlated with the digits of $\pi$, or prime numbers, or any other mathematical pattern. It's highly implausible, but not logically impossible.

You have already made this argument and had this same response given to you several times now, but you have never addressed the response; you have just repeated the argument.

 

[PeterDonis]

It can't be resolved here other than to accept the status quo that SD is impregnable.

Nobody is claiming that superdeterminism is impregnable, period. All we are saying is that the arguments you have been making do not show that superdeterminism is logically impossible. They only show that it's highly implausible (and I don't think anyone disagrees about that).

 

[PeroK]

Nobody is claiming that superdeterminism is impregnable, period.

Certainly, you can never absolutely falsify superdeterminism,

 

[stevendaryl]

Well, being unfalsifiable is a strike against superdeterminism, from the point of view of science.

I'm pretty sure that it is impossible to disprove the claim that everything was fixed from the beginning of the universe, because whatever happens is consistent with the claim that that is the only possible thing that could have happened.

But that doesn't mean that you can't falsify a very specific superdeterministic theory. The theory that says that I'm destined to never utter the numbers "3", "1", "4", "1", "5", "9" is falsified by my saying them.

(I just did, so I falsified that theory.)

 

[PeterDonis]

Nobody is claiming that superdeterminism is impregnable, period.

Certainly, you can never absolutely falsify superdeterminism,

As @stevendaryl's response in post #102 shows, "unfalsifiable" is not the same as "impregnable".