Does superdeterminism undermine the scientific method?

[wittgenstein]

It seems to me that Zellinger's point is a metaphysical point (that free will is necessary for rationality) rather than a scientific one.
Cool mint. I agree the brain does create all our thoughts. We may disagree tho on the idea that the brain can violate cause and effect. I think it cannot.

 

[CoolMint]

It's weird. Cells communicate to ensure the biological functions necessary for survival. Cell communication producing higher thoughts, introspection, philosophy, imagination... is the epitome of survival skills. Survival taken to its most extreme form. And it's all in the dna. There are 10 transcription factors that guide dna alterations( 'mutations') which are necessary for new traits be made in just a couple of generations. Your reasoning in this thread is also a form of survival taken to its most extreme form.
Survival is the meaning of life. You would not have a chance at surviving better if everything was predetermined. It isn't.

 

[zonde]

I think SD, at least Sabine's version of it, is trying to be minimally presumptuous. It's just saying the correlation exists when we measure the particle, and technically that could just extend to some hidden connection with whatever went into those specific measurements and the particle. We would need to examine the union of all factors that have gone into Bell tests, and consider a minimal common denominator that needs a connection to produce the bias. Or something of that sort.

And two of the factors are Justin Bieber and One Direction fan tweets: https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.05705
How is that "minimally presumptuous"?

 

[PeroK]

But if this were what SD was saying, then SD would be easily disproved and be incompatible with chaos theory wouldn't it?

I think SD, at least Sabine's version of it, is trying to be minimally presumptuous. It's just saying the correlation exists when we measure the particle, and technically that could just extend to some hidden connection with whatever went into those specific measurements and the particle. We would need to examine the union of all factors that have gone into Bell tests, and consider a minimal common denominator that needs a connection to produce the bias. Or something of that sort.

If SD put some limit on where you could obtain data, then there should be some point at which QM breaks. I.e. eventually you would get data from two sources that are disconnected physically, hence not statistically correlated (in just the right way). That's why Hossenfelder claims that ALL data is statistically correlated. Ironically, that's an admission that the rules of QM are always going to hold!

A bolder version of SD would be to claim that there is some uncorrelated data (e.g. the digits of $\sqrt 2$ and $\sqrt 3$) and claim that if such data were found, then the rules of QM would be violated.

That, to me, is the final irony. The superdeterminists don't want to accept QM, so they've invented a theory that starts by assuming the results of QM hold in all cases! A real theory would say where QM breaks down.

 

[Jarvis323]

And two of the factors are Justin Bieber and One Direction fan tweets: https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.05705
How is that "minimally presumptuous"?

The problem is that correlation structures can be enormously complex. For example, A and B, and also A and C, can be mutually independent yet A can depend on B and C. And the more variables you have the complicatedness of possible correlations structures explodes.

Anyways my point is just that SD where every pair of events is correlated with each other is easy to disprove, and incompatiable with deterministic chaos. So the only way SD is not able to be just thrown out entirely is through hypothesised mysterious complicated non-linear multivariate correlation structures that are maybe beyond our ability to fathom.

I agree SD is an extreme stretch. But there should be a space of things which we can and can't directly disprove in terms of how super determinism can be. I would think so at least.

Another way of thinking about it is that chaos theory, and thermodynamics, each place some limits on how much order can exist in the universe. We can't just easily rule out the existence of some bizarre sets of order nestled within all the chaos, but we can rule out everything being bizzarely ordered, I would think.

Maybe not.

 

[Jarvis323]

It seems to me that Zellinger's point is a metaphysical point (that free will is necessary for rationality) rather than a scientific one.
Cool mint. I agree the brain does create all our thoughts. We may disagree tho on the idea that the brain can violate cause and effect. I think it cannot.

I don't know what is in Zellinger's mind exactly. But when you say science implicitly assumes free will of the experimenter, you could interpret that as meaning that we at least must assume that the will (free or not) of the scientisit is statistically independent of the outcome of the experiment. This means we need to assume our thoughts don't bias the outcome of the experimental results beyond some threshold of significance. And that is believed to be able to be assumed, at least approximately, both with pure determinism and with non-determinism for many cases.

If we can't make that assumption, even approximately, in a given experiment, then we can't rely on the result.

 

[Jarvis323]

If SD put some limit on where you could obtain data, then there should be some point at which QM breaks. I.e. eventually you would get data from two sources that are disconnected physically, hence not statistically correlated (in just the right way). That's why Hossenfelder claims that ALL data is statistically correlated. Ironically, that's an admission that the rules of QM are always going to hold!

A bolder version of SD would be to claim that there is some uncorrelated data (e.g. the digits of $\sqrt 2$ and $\sqrt 3$) and claim that if such data were found, then the rules of QM would be violated.

That, to me, is the final irony. The superdeterminists don't want to accept QM, so they've invented a theory that starts by assuming the results of QM hold in all cases! A real theory would say where QM breaks down.

This is a fair point.

 

[zonde]

The problem is that correlation structures can be enormously complex. For example, A and B, and also A and C, can be mutually independent yet A can depend on B and C. And the more variables you have the complicatedness of possible correlations structures explodes.

Anyways my point is just that SD where every pair of events is correlated with each other is easy to disprove, and incompatiable with deterministic chaos. So the only way SD is not able to be just thrown out entirely is through hypothesised mysterious complicated non-linear multivariate correlation structures that are maybe beyond our ability to fathom.

I agree SD is an extreme stretch. But there should be a space of things which we can and can't directly disprove in terms of how super determinism can be. I would think so at least.

Another way of thinking about it is that chaos theory, and thermodynamics, each place some limits on how much order can exist in the universe. We can't just easily rule out the existence of some bizarre sets of order nestled within all the chaos, but we can rule out everything being bizzarely ordered, I would think.

Maybe not.

Well, in order to understand what to do with SD it seems reasonable to look what this arguments by itself represents.
First, it's not a theory. So there is no point disproving it.
It is rather a loophole for Bell inequality. But it is a type of loophole that we can never close in actual experiments.
So do you discard Bell inequality? Bell inequality basically says that certain type of hypothetical theories are falsified if certain experimental results are observed. Would you still want to try to develop theories like the ones that Bell inequality excludes?
But then again SD loophole says that you won't be able to confirm these theories because nature is conspiring against you to pretend that it obeys QM predictions (as PeroK pointed out). So what would be the point of developing theories that can't violate Bell inequalities if you can never verify them?

So it seems to me that SD serves no purpose in science. It does not matter if it's right or wrong, it's a dead end.

 

[Fra]

FWIW, from the prespective of the agent interpretation of QM, this is how I see the matter of "free will":

"freedom of action" of an inside agent/observer
(The exeprimenters free will is a special case of this, but for me the logic is more easily seen in the general case I think)

From the perspective of the agent itself, this "freedom" is just a manifestation of the limited predictive power and control of the environment. In this sense, the freedom is related to the potential to learn. No freedom would correspond to the case where the agents dice has only one outcome to choose from, and the observer thinks it can predict the future with certainty. From the point of an inference machinery that makes sense either:

- the agent is completely dominant and literally has all it's environment under controls (ie it rules the future), whatever this means, a big "black hole agent" that consumes rather than communicates?

- the agent have acquired an illusion of certainy, which intuitively is like an unstable condition, which would spontaneously be broken and destroy the agent

In this sense, I agreee that freedom is always nautrally there without any assumptions. But the freedom is constrained by the dice, which in turn is causally related to it's fulll interaction history since big bang. And the dice corresponds the agents eolved and tuned knowledge. It is rather tha LACK of freedom, that is the assumption in my eyes and that needs motivation.

/Fredrik

 

[PeterDonis]

"If a theory is deterministic all the way, it implies that not only all observed phenomena, but also the observers themselves are controlled by deterministic laws. They certainly have no ‘free will’, their actions all have roots in the past, even the distant past. ... The notion that, also the actions by experimenters and observers are controlled by deterministic laws, is called superdeterminism." [Italics in original, LJ]

At the end, one can stop here if one assumes that we have superdeterminism.

No, one can't, because superdeterminism as the term is used by, for example, Hossenfelder means more than just determinism. It means determinism, plus the assertion that the deterministic laws plus the initial conditions enforce correlations between measurement settings and preparations of measured systems that nullify any attempts to infer the laws of nature from measurement results.

All what one does, writes or thinks has at the end no influence on the future course of events.

Determinism says no such thing. Determinism does not say you cannot influence events. All it says is that "you" are part of a deterministic physical system, so whatever influence you have on events is done by means of deterministic laws. If the deterministic chain of causation of some event goes through you, then you influence that event.

 

[PeterDonis]

Zellinger however, implies that we are separate from nature.

Zeilinger implies no such thing. I have already explained how his "freedom of the experimentalist" does not mean what you are claiming it means.

 

[PeterDonis]

It seems to me that Zellinger's point is a metaphysical point (that free will is necessary for rationality) rather than a scientific one.

It is no such thing. See the responses I have already given. Zeilinger was speaking as a physicist, not a philosopher or a metaphysician. Since there is a simple and obvious physical interpretation of what he said, there is no need to go off into the weeds and read mystical implications into his words.

I agree the brain does create all our thoughts.

Some biologists would say it's our brain plus body that does, but in any case it's a physical system that does. Yes, this is part of the viewpoint called "physicalism", and most physicists subscribe to it.

We may disagree tho on the idea that the brain can violate cause and effect. I think it cannot.

Of course not. The brain + body is a physical system and cannot violate physical laws.

This is not a philosophy forum so claims about " free will" in the philosophical sense are really off topic here, but you should know that there is an extensive philosophical literature on "compatibilism", which is the viewpoint that there is a useful and meaningful sense of the term "free will" that is perfectly compatible with everything, including human brains and bodies, being governed by physical laws, even deterministic ones. I would recommend Daniel Dennett's books Elbow Room and Freedom Evolves as good lay person's introductions to the field. For this thread, though, the key question is not "free will" in any philosophical sense but physical laws and their implications for doing science.

 

[wittgenstein]

I am familiar with Dennett. My degree is in philosophy. My point is that even if we say that Zellinger meant, " This means we need to assume our thoughts don't bias the outcome of the experimental results beyond some threshold of significance. [ Jarvis} " his reasoning still falls short. Just because our brain is predetermined does not mean that it cannot make unbiased decisions. Computers do that all the time.

 

[wittgenstein]

I am only talking about "free will" because it seems to be central to the Zellinger quote, even if "free will" is defined as unbiased.

 

[PeterDonis]

even if we say that Zellinger meant, " This means we need to assume our thoughts don't bias the outcome of the experimental results beyond some threshold of significance. [ Jarvis} "

I'm not Jarvis and did not make his claims. If you are going to respond to me, please respond to what I said Zeilinger meant. Responses to what Jarvis said should be directed to Jarvis.

Just because our brain is predetermined does not mean that it cannot make unbiased decisions.

Zeilinger never makes any such claim. You are attacking a straw man.

I am only talking about "free will" because it seems to be central to the Zellinger quote

And I have already explained, multiple times now, how "free will" as you are using the term has nothing to do with what Zeilinger meant by "freedom of the experimenter". What Zeilinger meant by "freedom of the experimenter" is perfectly possible in a deterministic universe and does not require any notion of compatibility between "free will" in any philosophical sense and determinism. It's a simple statement about independence of measurement settings and preparations of measured systems, which superdeterminism says must be false in all possible scenarios, even ones involving extreme forms of isolation between measurement settings and preparations of measured systems.

 

[PeterDonis]

Just because our brain is predetermined does not mean that it cannot make unbiased decisions. Computers do that all the time.

What Zeilinger meant by "freedom of the experimenter" is perfectly possible in a deterministic universe and does not require any notion of compatibility between "free will" in any philosophical sense and determinism.

Note that what I am saying in the quote from me above is in agreement with what you (@wittgenstein) are saying in the quote from you above. So your apparent belief that Zeilinger's claims are opposed to yours is simply wrong. Zeilinger's statements are perfectly consistent with your claims. Zeilinger's claim is basically that superdeterminism requires that the simple, straightforward belief of practically all physicists, that experimental situations can exist in which the determination of measurement settings is independent of the preparation of measured systems (and both of these things can be done by automated processes which involve no human intervention, so the question of "free will" doesn't even arise), must be false. And that claim (that superdeterminism makes) seems outlandish. You appear to be saying the same thing.

 

[wittgenstein]

Thank you for your help. Zellinger must have been writing to professionals. To a layman it sounded like he was saying that superdeterminism cannot be true because if our thoughts are predetermined, they cannot be objective, which is clearly false. My brain hurts! LOL But now (because of your help) I can see that he was not saying that.

 

[PeterDonis]

Zellinger must have been writing to professionals.

What you quoted from him, I believe, was from a peer-reviewed paper directed at other physicists, so yes, he was.

 

[RUTA]

Some additional reflections:

1. I personally disagree with Sabines analysis to use superdeterminism to escape Bells inequality: I don't think statistical independence is the problem, for me the more likely problem is our incomplete understanding of the nature of causality.

But Einsteins quest for a casaul mechanism is IMO rational. Correlations begs an explanation. But IMO the partitioning of probabilities into the sum over hidden variable is contains implicitly preconceptions on the nature of causality, not sure why, but this is rarely mentioned. It sticks out to me. But the alternative causal mechanism is not yet understood. But I think it's the place to look for progress. Superdeterminism itself has to me no mechanisms with explanatory value, as has been mentioned by others as well, it's more like an excuse to keep a loophole open, that will not be useful. I think it's the wrong hole.

/Fredrik

It’s ironic that Einstein gave up looking for a constructive account of time dilation and length contraction, opting finally for a principle account that also explains Bell state correlations. Indeed, the relativity principle resides at the very foundation of QM, yet Einstein never stopped searching for a constructive account of it.

 

[Fra]

It’s ironic that Einstein gave up looking for a constructive account of time dilation and length contraction, opting finally for a principle account that also explains Bell state correlations. Indeed, the relativity principle resides at the very foundation of QM, yet Einstein never stopped searching for a constructive account of it.

I share the view that the underlying principles have some common denominators, between QM and Relativity, and while your principle account is nice, the desire for a constructive account is strong and the constructive account of QM (that is in my vision) necessarily includs a constructive account also of the key postulates of SR, such as thee existence of a sup signalspeed limit that is invariant. In a way I think the underlying observer equivalence principles of relativity, can be generalized. In the most abstract "agent picture", that agent is not something living in spacetime, spacetime is rather an inferred map of the environment. And the "constructive account" is to explicitly show how this spontaneously selforganizes into maps that are "tuned" in the classical correspondence. If that ever works out in the future, I think it would satisfy even Einstein as it would be taking the principle of relativity to the next level.

/Fredrik

 

[CoolMint]

The issue of free will is a biological one. Not philosophical.

What people term "intelligence" is the ability of life to adapt and to find additional ways to explore the environment and its laws(physics, science in general).

Why dies life need to do so?
Survival.
Then the question arises, Schroedinger's style, 'What is life?'

And why must it survive

 

[Fra]

Then the question arises, Schroedinger's style, 'What is life?'

And why must it survive

There is no constraint to survive.

Agents are free to make bad decisions, even fatal ones. But those will not be ubiquitous and thus have marginal contribution to the environment.

So natural ubiquitous agents must asymptotically learn how to learn. Beeing able to adapt is more essential than to be right at a particular case.

/Fredrik

 

[CoolMint]

There is no constraint to survive.

Agents are free to make bad decisions, even fatal ones. But those will not be ubiquitous and thus have marginal contribution to the environment.

So natural ubiquitous agents must asymptotically learn how to learn. Beeing able to adapt is more essential than to be right at a particular case.

/Fredrik

Not so. Bad decisions also mean withdrawal from the gene pool. Nature knows best

 

[Fra]

Not so. Bad decisions also mean withdrawal from the gene pool. Nature knows best

Yes but this is what what i wrote supposedly means in the agent view as well. Of course the mechanisms for the "reproduction" equivalent ia different, also the conceptual dna of physical law. But i agree with your comment in its essence. The problem ia just what exactly os the "gene pool" in the abstrqct agent/observer view? At thia point we risk going into deep speculation though so i settle with the conceptual level.

/Fredrik

 

[Lord Jestocost]

Determinism says no such thing. Determinism does not say you cannot influence events. All it says is that "you" are part of a deterministic physical system, so whatever influence you have on events is done by means of deterministic laws. If the deterministic chain of causation of some event goes through you, then you influence that event.

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington in “THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD” (Cambridge, At the University Press (1929), Chapter CAUSATION):

"Causation and Time’s Arrow.

Cause and effect are closely bound up with time’s arrow; the cause must precede the effect. The relativity of time has not obliterated this order. An event in Here-Now can only cause events in the cone of absolute future; it can be caused by events in the absolute past; it can neither cause nor be caused by events in the neutral wedge, since the necessary influence would in that case have to be transmitted with a speed faster than light.

But curiously enough this elementary notion of cause and effect is quite inconsistent with a strictly causal scheme. How can I cause an event in the absolute future, if the future was predetermined before I was born? The notion evidently implies that something may be born into the world at the instant Here-Now, which has an influence extending throughout the future cone but no corresponding linage to the cone of absolute past. The primary laws of physics do not provide for any such one-way linkage; any alteration in a prescribed state of the world implies alterations in its past state symmetrical with the alterations in its future state. Thus in primary physics, which knows nothing of time’s arrow, there is no discrimination of cause and effect; but events are connected by a symmetrical causal relation which is the same viewed from either end." [bold by LJ]

 

[Jarvis323]

Maybe you will find this paper interesting?

The dominant paradigm in physics relies on the idea that systems evolve through time according to dynamical laws, with the state at a given time determining the entire history of the system.

General relativity challenges this view. The Einstein equations, describing the relationship between spacetime geometry and mass-energy [1], have counterintuitive solutions containing closed time-like curves (CTCs) [2–17]. An event on such a curve would be both in the future and in the past of itself, preventing an ordinary formulation of dynamics according to an 'initial condition' problem. The question then arises whether some more general type of dynamics is possible.

Although it is an open question whether CTCs are possible in our Universe [18–22], considering dynamics beyond the ordinary temporal view is relevant to other research areas as well. In a theory that combines quantum physics with general relativity, it is expected that spacetime loses its classical properties [23, 24], possibly leading to indefinite causal structures [25–27]. In a quite different direction, it has been suggested that quantum physics could be reduced to some kind of 'retrocausal' classical dynamics [28–39].

The main problem arising when abandoning ordinary causality is the so called 'grand father paradox' [40]: a time traveller could kill her own grandfather and thus prevent her own birth, leading to a logical inconsistency. A popular approach holds that the grandfather paradox makes CTCs incompatible with classical physics, while appropriate modifications to quantum physics could restore consistency [41–56]. A common feature of the proposals within this approach is that they postulate a radical departure from ordinary physics even in regions of space-time devoid of CTCs, or in scenarios where the time traveling system does not actually interact with anything in the past [57, 58].

...

First considered in the quantum context, this approach has been applied to classical physics too, with the remarkable discovery of classical processes that are incompatible with any causal order between events [75–77].

...

Our results show that CTCs are not only compatible with determinism and with the local 'free choice' of operations, but also with a rich and diverse range of scenarios and dynamical processes

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6382/aba4bc

 

[wittgenstein]

Lord Jestocost
One domino causes a domino to fall. That domino causes the next to fall. The fact that the first domino started the chain does not mean that the second domino did not cause anything. If you are correct, then we cannot cause anything (unless you are saying that our brains transcend cause and effect). Are you saying that our brain is an uncaused causer? I find the idea of an uncaused causer too mystical for me. https://www.godcontention.org/compare-religions/how-can-god-be-an-uncaused-cause#:~:text=The uncaused cause argument is often misunderstood by,being depends upon something else for its existence. BTW Order can emerge from disorder. That is important for evolution to exist. One can start with relative chaos (after the big bang) and billions of years later end up with a highly ordered object like a brain. Are you saying that the brain causes our thoughts (I agree) but that nothing caused the order in our brain that makes thoughts possible? I strongly disagree with the idea that rationality requires free will. If that is so, then evolution is nonsense. I believe in evolution. Also, suppose nothing causes the actions of our brain. That means we did not cause the actions of our brain. I agree that we (our consciousness) did not cause any action in our brain. My point is that even if you say that nothing causes what our brains think, even then there is no free will.

 

[wittgenstein]

I do not believe that our brains are an uncaused cause and that we transcend the material world. "Uncaused causer" belongs in theology and perhaps metaphysics not science. I am glad that Zellinger was not talking about that!

 

[PeterDonis]

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington in “THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD” (Cambridge, At the University Press (1929), Chapter CAUSATION):

This is what today we would call a pop science book. It is Eddington's personal opinions, not Eddington's published peer-reviewed science. As such, it is not a valid reference here.

 

[PeterDonis]

The OP's question has been sufficiently discussed, and the thread is veering off into philosophy. Thread closed.