
Quantum Randomness (2014) - Tomte
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.16217,y.2014,no.4,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx
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naasking
> However, it seemed to me that Wolfram’s idea was ruled out on much simpler
> grounds, namely Bell’s theorem.

It's actually not. See Gerard 't Hooft's "The Cellular Automaton
Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" [1].

Preferred reference frames aren't necessary, you just have to give up the
assumption that experimenters are actually free to configure their
experiments, aka superdeterminism.

The article refers to this derisively as a "cosmic conspiracy", which seems to
be a common "attack" against this sort of interpretation, but it frankly has
no teeth. The "cosmic conspiracy" charge is really just restating the fact
that any particles with a common history are entangled, even particles in our
brain, and since we all share a common history owing to the Big Bang,
experimenters are _not_ free to configure their experiments, but their
decision is actually predetermined by this shared history.

Scientists have also gone on to claim that this sort of interpretation would
make science impossible, but that's simply not true, any more than it's
impossible for a deterministic algorithm like hill climbing to fully search a
state space.

[1]
[https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319412849](https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319412849)

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monktastic1
Superdeterminism would, by definition, restrict the experimenters' freedom. Of
course, it's untestable, and it seems independent of whether or not there are
remaining entanglements from the big bang. Unless I'm missing something?

Suppose we are entangled in some state:

|we choose to measure observable A> @ |x> \+ |we choose B> @ |y>

Why would this determine which choice we make?

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naasking
> Superdeterminism would, by definition, restrict the experimenters' freedom.

Yes, I said as much. That still doesn't entail that science is impossible
though.

> Of course, [superdeterminism is] untestable

As is every other interpretation of QM.

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monktastic1
Yeah, sorry, I wasn't contradicting you. Mostly curious how entanglement
relates to the superdeterminism. As best I can tell it shouldn't.

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lisper
Whether quantum randomness is "really" random or not is something we cannot
ever know for certain. The reason for this is that at any point in time we can
only ever have a finite amount of experimental data, and that data will always
be consistent with an infinite number of theories. In particular, any finite
data set will always be consistent with the "cosmic Turing machine" (CTM)
theory, which states that all quantum experimental results are determined by
the CTM computing (say) the digits of pi (assuming pi is normal). No
experiment can ever refute this theory, and so it can only be rejected on
philosophical grounds.

