Sabine Hossenfelder rethinks Superdeterminism and explains in very accessible terms why Superdeterminism should be taken seriously and has been unfairly characterized in the past. She says that violating statistical independence is the only way to solve the measurement problem in a way that is compatible with relativity.
For laymen who has followed determinism vs non-determinism (I’m a fan of the latter camp; Bell never ruled out determinism), this article is on the cusp of comprehensible.
There are definitely paragraphs that aren’t, but it’s still a good read.
The exciting point, though, is that super determinism isn’t merely an interpretation of QM. Given time, one expects these theories to be testable.
Wouldn't it be funny if it were established no one had any free will, in a strict sense, all along. We'd still feel like we had it but know that we didn't.
From this layman's emotional point of view I never really liked "many worlds" and that sort of thing. I'd be quite accepting if the answer turns out to be super-determinism.
Many worlds (by which I mean the Everett interpretation, not sure which you mean) is 100% deterministic.
The impact that apparent world branching has to domain of the free will question is purely due to the "amplification effects" that a complex control system like our brain can have in reaction to something perceived as a "measurement" result.
We cannot sense a superposition state directly. The moment we probe a particle, our instruments and us (the environment) becomes entangled with the observed particle. The instrument and later we the observers of the instrument are ourselves a quantum system with a well defined quantum stats, and a third observer not yet entangled with us can treat as still in a superposition state.
The idea is that everything evolves according to the Schrodinger equation. The wave function never really collapses. The illusion of wave function collapse springs out of the way that a control system like a brain or a mechanical automaton processes it's inputs while being in an entangled state with the thing they observe and thus react to it's state differently in the different superimposed states. This difference becomes amplified. A control system like a brain is not necessary; just pure macroscopic environments are enough to diverge the apparent state of the systems so that it's useful to think in terms of "world splitting"; but it's just a useful fiction; very useful because that's all we'll ever witness.
The amplification effect of control systems makes it easy to concoct extreme thought experiments. Let's imagine that spin up means you fire off a rocket and go to Mars and spin down means you stay put. All we did is that we managed to amplify the effect of this single superimposed state of one particle, into a macroscopic superposition of a rocket being on earth or on mars
Superdeterminism is very different from determinism, and IMO would be a much more shocking revelation than Everettianism (or Sean Carroll's so-called "mad-dog Everettianism").
I would argue that it's pretty obvious nobody has free will in the sense that there's some kind of "soul" controlling your thoughts and actions.
Your brain is a biological computer. You zap parts and it makes you move. You give it some chemical inhibitors or promoters and your mood changes. You give it drugs and it hallucinates and thinks differently.
The brain isn't supernatural and there is zero evidence that supports the concept of spiritual will influencing it. Just like there's zero evidence of psychics, magic wands, or physics-violating miracles. It's all make believe.
If you think it is that simple, then you do not quite understand superdeterminism and the hard problem of consciousness.
Also, your examples are not entirely accurate. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that zapping a part of the brain cannot consistently override the will, and the correlation to, for example, the motion of a limb to the activity of the brain does not stay consistent, but disappears after multiple attempts when the subject under experimentation resists. That doesn't prove that the will is independent from the brain, but so far, no one has found where the will expresses itself in the brain. Right now it is just taken on faith that it does so somehow.
And then there is perception. We can find general correlations for areas of the brain that respond to shape, color, smell, and kinesthetic sense, but nowhere where the various senses are assimilated and correlated into a cohesive perception.
We can alter mood, and induce hallucinations, but again, have no model as to how either translates to perception and self-awareness.
Before we can determine whether the will is free, we first need to define what the will and perception and self-awareness even is, and how it arises. And we don't have a clue where to start.
> for example, the motion of a limb to the activity of the brain does not stay consistent
That makes sense tho, because the motion of your limbs are controlled in part by neurons (and other things) that are not in your brain. Muscle memory, for example, isn't just a metaphor, you literally have neurons in your foot that have memory which allows you to react faster than it takes for signals to reach your brain, eg if you step on a bed of hot coals.
> no one has found where the will expresses itself in the brain
Why does there have to be one place? Your "will" is the combination of interactions between not only all parts of your brain, but all parts of your body.
> nowhere where the various senses are assimilated and correlated into a cohesive perception.
This is the part that gets me. I have a cohesive cognitive experience where I can sense and think many things simultaneously. I don't understand any reductionist explanation for the existence of my experience. It seems like an impossible thing for a collections of atoms in the brain to create. That hard problem of consciousness is really and truely hard.
However, "free will" to me seems easy by comparison. Your brain (and body) acts based on its structure. You are the structure, and the structure determines what you decide to do. You have some starting conditions, you use those starting conditions to decide to do things (go to school, find a job, cross the street) and at the end of it, you've changed the structure of your brain such that you'll make different decisions now. I think that's as free as free will gets really, despite the fact that we may live in a deterministic universe.
> This is the part that gets me. I have a cohesive cognitive experience where I can sense and think many things simultaneously. I don't understand any reductionist explanation for the existence of my experience. It seems like an impossible thing for a collections of atoms in the brain to create.
I only said that there's no spiritual force acting on the body. It's clearly evident by the fact brain damage can radically alter your personality. That wouldn't make sense with free will.
But I never claimed to know anything at all about the perception of existence, that's a much more prickly discussion because any answer is basically impossible to actually prove.
I personally see no contradiction with the reductionist model here though. You aren't one individual part of the system that has everything fed into you, you are the entire whole of moving parts in unison perceiving itself.
The problem some people have with this is that they think that because they are one person and perceive one "them" that their must be a single "thing" making that perception. The idea of consciousness as an abstract emergent property is therefore hard to accept. You don't feel like a billion neurons, you feel like Dave (sorry if your not Dave and I ruined the immersion).
But if those billion neurons are coordinating together to form a thought about feeling like Dave while juggling all those senses, the state exists in the system. Thus the abstract construct that believes itself is Dave exists in some ephemeral way. Dave exists because the state that makes up "Dave-ness" exists.
And even if there's an ethereal component, ultimately that ephemeral state is what determines all perception. They're instrinsically tied and therefore trying to distinguish them doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Especially when there is no reason to believe the ethereal exists at all.
I'll be completely honest, this paradigm shift was made easier for me from a couple acid trips back in the day. It's a lot easier to come to terms with if you're able to cast off the philosophical hindrance of an ego for a moment and think about how, say, an ant feels. And if the colony acts a single unit, does the colony experience "ant colony-ness" - whatever that may be? Does that emergence apply to molds? And why would this perception only apply to the biological state of nervous systems. Wouldn't such a perception of existence also apply to inanimate things like atoms "feeling" like an atom or enormous scales like ecosystems or planets as a whole?
So in my opinion (feel free to laugh or disagree, haha) it only makes sense that this fundamental perception is shared by all things that exist at every level and in all combinations of state. The state of my full brain's experience and senses and thoughts exist, and therefore I do as well. A little twist on Descartes. :)
Anyway, I find this desperate search for meaning lower and lower is counter productive. Your brain is segments. Your segments are nerves. Your nerves are cells. Your cells are organelles. Organelles are structures. Structures are molecules. Molecules are atoms. Atoms are, etc etc etc. Even if someone wants to look toward quantum mechanics for the soul, there would still not be one single place where this would happen, it would be the coordination of countless subatomic systems interacting and your experience of being you would still be emergent.
Sorry if I rambled a bit there. I hope you have a fantastic day!
> It's clearly evident by the fact brain damage can radically alter your personality. That wouldn't make sense with free will.
Definitely, in the sense of some "other" thing other than your brain making the decisions. Its clearly our brains doing the thinking and deciding.
>You aren't one individual part of the system that has everything fed into you, you are the entire whole of moving parts in unison perceiving itself.
Well, yes. However, I can see how I could be a robot that does stuff and acts pretty much exactly like me. What I don't understand is how I can simultaneously see, hear, feel, think etc. Why do I have a feeling of singular consciousness? How can that kind of thing be distributed among many neurons, many atoms?
> The idea of consciousness as an abstract emergent property is therefore hard to accept
Yes. However, I think this is different than literally all other emergent phenomena. Emergent phenomena can really be thought of as abstractions. Eg friction is a phenomena that emerges from the properties of surfaces that create heat when rubbed together. Convection is a phenomena that emerges from the newtonian physics of particles bouncing around randomly. However, I can't understand consciousness as simply an abstraction of different parts of a brain interacting.
> But if those billion neurons are coordinating together to form a thought about feeling like Dave while juggling all those senses
The fact that someone can feel anything is already a big question mark to me. Any experience at all that isn't a single bit of information at a time seems irreconcilable with the singularity of consciousness we experience.
> They're instrinsically tied and therefore trying to distinguish them doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me
You're saying that if we had some kind of "soul" or "non-physical" thing that caused our experience, it doesn't make sense to distinguish it? I think it makes all the sense in the world, if it were possible. It makes as much sense as distinguishing between the heart and the lungs, or distinguishing between separate neurons in the brain. If we could distinguish it we could learn how to teleport people's consciousnesses one day, or upload them without destroying them. There are really incredible possibilities there, but no one would want to be teleported anywhere if the result at the end isn't them and their experience ends with stepping into the teleporter.
> if the colony acts a single unit, does the colony experience "ant colony-ness"
I don't know. I wouldn't think so.
> why would this perception only apply to the biological state of nervous systems. Wouldn't such a perception of existence also apply to inanimate things like atoms "feeling" like an atom or enormous scales like ecosystems or planets as a whole?
Great questions. I think its important that one day we figure out the answer. However, I don't think we're anywhere close, scientifically speaking.
> it only makes sense that this fundamental perception is shared by all things that exist at every level and in all combinations of state
You mean that every combination of material in the universe has its own separate perception? That seems highly unlikely. For example, while my nerves would be a completely valid combination, its such an absurd coincidence that I can experience only through mechanisms that my body can physically react to. The chair I'm sitting in isn't a persistent part of my experience, neither is this computer, neither is a rock on the other end of the universe. It seems like the only reasonable explanation is that experience is correlated with our nervous system in some way. It seems likely that the structure of our bodies somehow creates the experience we have. I just don't understand how.
> the coordination of countless subatomic systems interacting
Its very clear how an audio speaker creates sound. A signal causes a magnet to drive a large piece of material that in turn moves the atoms of the air in a wave, which propagates until it hits other non-air things, like your ear, etc etc. That kind of emergent phenonmenon is very clearly described in a reductionist fasion. You can point to any little piece of the sound and trace it back to its roots. Ie, you could take a molecule's velocity in the air that has been hit by the sound wave, and trace back the pattern of collisions that brought it there, tracing back its wave energy to the speaker driver, and the movement of the speaker driver to the electromagnet. Each piece of the "emergent phenonmenon" is separate the whole way through. Not so with our experience. You can point to where light comes into your eyes, and what parts of the brain fire off because of it. But the experience of it itself, and the combination of vision, sound, thoughts, is not explained so easily. The parts are there, but the reason that it causes an experience like what we have is not at all clear. I hope one day we figure it out!
Eh, if you don't get it you don't get it. I'll give it one more try to explain myself clearly:
You are entering the question assuming your experience is a single point. But that feeling and thought only exists because there is the emergent abstraction of the state of your brain having that feeling and thought. You perceive a singular point of existence because that is the only way your existence can be perceived by the brain you have. That is the state of your brain and you cannot perceive it as separated because the state does not represent it that way. Anything else would require different state.
Remember, we've established that your "soul" cannot change the system, it's an observer. So even if there was no underlying perception of experience and you were a philosophical zombie (so-to-say), you would be saying the same exact thing and "feeling" that same individualism despite that not being true. The ethereal you isn't saying these things, the physical brain is. Your self awareness about your own perception is false, the state of your brain interprets it's own self awareness this way and therefore that's how you perceive it as an ethereal soul. Not the other way around.
But if you, say, take hard drugs, the state of that system can be different and you may not feel a singular perception point. You may feel like a billion neurons coordinating for a moment.
So you think you are a single thing because you have a human ego and your biological brain evolved to think of itself as a single construct with an individual perception.
Your trouble arises from the fact that you're still stuck in the mindset that you have a soul that can affect your thoughts. But that's backwards. Your brain cannot actually understand anything about its observer. The brain is programmed to self-reflect like this and therefore an observer must feel themselves self-reflect in the same way.
----
WRT combinatorial complexity, yes. Every combination of everything would have its own "perception" of existence in my philosophy. Because it's entirely emergent, it only makes sense to me that this underlying perception one might call a soul would be more accurately described as just... The nature of existence itself.
"I" exist because my brain exists. I cannot not exist because my brain does exists. That state is real. It has to be this way.
In that same way, if an atom exists, that atom exists. It must. It wouldn't experience existence in any fathomable way, but it still would. And so to would a tree or any colony or chair.
Your example of you and the chair is poor, because you are experiencing the existence of your brain. You are not experiencing the existence of individual parts of your brain or the chair and you as one thing, because your brain does not include that state and therefore the experience cannot be interpreted by a physical thing.
I hope all of that makes sense... But ultimately it's just something that has to "click" or you won't understand.
> we've established that your "soul" cannot change the system, it's an observer
That's only one possibility actually. Its very possible if there is some "soul" that it interacts with the system. As we know from QM, measurement changes the measured - there's no way to measure/perceive something without interacting with it in some way. But its possible that a philosophical zombie would actually not have the same perception and would not act the same. They might do most of the same things, but they may not be able to talk about the same kind of perceptual experience with coherent clarity.
> Your brain cannot actually understand anything about its observer
How do you know?
> if you, say, take hard drugs, the state of that system can be different and you may not feel a singular perception point
That's pretty interesting. Does taking enough acid get you there?
> because you have a human ego and your biological brain evolved to think of itself as a single construct with an individual perception
Maybe so, but even knowing that, it doesn't explain how it happens, only that it happens.
> you're still stuck in the mindset that you have a soul that can affect your thoughts
I'm not sure I believe in a soul, but in thinking about this kind of stuff, a soul-like thing does seem a lot more plausible to me than it did before I thought about the phenomenal experience in depth.
> Every combination of everything would have its own "perception" of existence in my philosophy
How does this relate to your thoughts on the brain, where you said the brain evolved to think of itself as a singular being with a singular perception. Surely this doesn't apply to, for example, rocks.
> "I" exist because my brain exists. I cannot not exist because my brain does exists. That state is real. It has to be this way.
I don't think anyone's arguing that you don't exist. Nor is anyone arguing that the phenomenal experience isn't real. The question is how is it created, not whether.
> Your example of you and the chair is poor
Ok.. harsh...
> You are not experiencing the existence of individual parts of your brain or the chair and you as one thing, because your brain does not include that state and therefore the experience cannot be interpreted by a physical thing.
So what evidence is there that such a combination of experience even exists? If no being we can interact with can tell us about that experience, I don't think we can say whether or not it exists.
I believe the Universe to be based on rules and therefore deterministic - the difference we're talking about is really just whether we can see inside the random number generator or not. A random number generator we can't peek inside doesn't make you any more free, you are still subject to making decisions based on variables outside of your control. There will always be far too much chaos to simulate large systems and make accurate/detailed long-term predictions.
In terms of free will, I believe it is really some manifestation of the human mind to fool ourselves into believing we are in control. This is useful of course, because if we act as if we have agency then we make better decisions as a result and the outcome is therefore better - despite it not being possible to have happened any other way.
What is free will anyway? Isn't it free will if the decisions you make is a result of the structure of your brain built up by what you've learned in life? Isn't that the free will you're looking for? If not, what else could it be?
I would so love for this to be true, but it's far outside my area of expertise. The important thing, though, is there have to be useful experimental predictions. The only reason I could ever reconcile my understanding of reality with QM is that it's an extremely good theory for making predictions.
QM interpretations don't really make predictions. They all use the same underlying math. They just rearrange the terms so that some of them correspond to something familiar, with the hopes of minimizing the confounding effects of the others.
They're all like trying to fold a map onto a globe: somewhere, something isn't going to fit. You just try to squeeze it into the parts you don't care as much about. Except somebody always cares.
It may be that somebody will discover one that's so effective that we declare it to be Correct. That's much like what we went through with heliocentrism. Geocentrism plus epicycles is also a perfectly valid interpretation, but it's vastly more complicated and less elegant. Even so it's incredibly useful and actually remains the dominant interpretation for a lot of activities.
It would be great if one such reformulation helped us reconcile with relativity, but I'll admit that I'm skeptical. I suspect that any unified theory will be so radically different in structure as to require a completely different interpretation, totally unrelated to any of the low-energy QM approximations.
I doubt any of them will be helpful -- especially superdeterminism, which I view as shoving the weirdness from "All events are decided randomly and then distributed FTL" to "All events were decided at the beginning but locked away so you can't know them until you get there". Neither one really gives us access to anything new -- which is to be expected.
I didnt mean quantum interpretations (which are boring to me). I mean: transisitor theory is quantum theory and we wouldn't have developed the transistor to the point we have if QM wasn't a great model for solid state physics.
Nobody thinks event outcomes are distributed FTL, that's the whole point of QM.
There are interpretations that make use of FTL communications, though they're not the most popular (and still don't actually allow you to communicate FTL).
It was just a way of making a contrast with superdeterminism, but I think I was talking at cross-purposes, so I made my own point moot. Sorry 'bout that.
If there's an interpretation that implies events are transmitted using FTL, then that interpretation almost certainly predicts that we could exploit the phenomenon (in the same way we exploit many other QM phenomena) to send data FTL. Much as I would like that to be true, until somebody shows it with an experiment the community can understand, believe, and reproduce, such theories are ... not useful.
De Broglie Bohm is highly underrated. It's deterministic but nonlocal, so it's not FTL (we agree on that). Personally, I prefer it to the Copenhagen interpretation and it even makes some interesting predictions that are supported by experiment. I see DBB as being on a continuum of deterministic theories.
On retrocasuality: I find it interesting, that not only people tend to outright reject the notion that future events can be causes for present or past events, but they also are wrong about assuming they are doing it (e.g. rejecting) consistently.
For example, common sayings such as "nothing ventured, nothing gained" or "today's seed - tomorrow's harvest" are actually casually bidirectional, especially the second one.
