Rethinking Superdeterminism

Abstract

Quantum mechanics has irked physicists ever since its conception more than 100 years ago. While some of the misgivings, such as it being unintuitive, are merely aesthetic, quantum mechanics has one serious shortcoming: it lacks a physical description of the measurement process. This "measurement problem" indicates that quantum mechanics is at least an incomplete theory -- good as far as it goes, but missing a piece -- or, more radically, is in need of complete overhaul. Here we describe an approach which may provide this sought-for completion or replacement: Superdeterminism. A superdeterministic theory is one which violates the assumption of Statistical Independence (that distributions of hidden variables are independent of measurement settings). Intuition suggests that Statistical Independence is an essential ingredient of any theory of science (never mind physics), and for this reason Superdeterminism is typically discarded swiftly in any discussion of quantum foundations. The purpose of this paper is to explain why the existing objections to Superdeterminism are based on experience with classical physics and linear systems, but that this experience misleads us. Superdeterminism is a promising approach not only to solve the measurement problem, but also to understand the apparent nonlocality of quantum physics. Most importantly, we will discuss how it may be possible to test this hypothesis in an (almost) model independent way.

23 pages, 2 figures, typos fixed, references added

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• A Toy Model for Local and Deterministic Wave-function Collapse
• Aspects of Superdeterminism Made Intuitive
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• Incompatibility in restricted operational theories: connecting contextuality and steering
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• Analysis of the superdeterministic Invariant-set theory in a hidden-variable setting
• Experimental Tests of Invariant Set Theory
• Is the Statistical Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics $\psi$-Ontic or $\psi$-Epistemic?
• My discussions of quantum foundations with John Stewart Bell
• Strong Determinism
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• The Quantum Measurement Problem: A Review of Recent Trends
• Weak versus deterministic macroscopic realism, and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen's elements of reality
• Witnessing Bell violations through probabilistic negativity
• Cellular automaton ontology, bits, qubits, and the Dirac equation
• A statistical model for quantum spin and photon number states
• Master equations for Wigner functions with spontaneous collapse and their relation to thermodynamic irreversibility
• Causal Networks and Freedom of Choice in Bell's Theorem
• Quantum entanglement partly demystified
• Comment on "Experimentally adjudicating between different causal accounts of Bell-inequality violations via statistical model selection"
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• Implications of Local Friendliness violation for quantum causality
• Bohmian mechanics is not deterministic
• Solitons, chaos, and quantum phenomena: a deterministic approach to the Schrödinger equation
• Explaining Bell Locally
• Contextuality and correlation loopholes are equivalent
• Quantum theories with local information flow
• The Simplicity of Physical Laws
• What does it take to solve the measurement problem?
• Comment on "Nonlocality claims are inconsistent with Hilbert-space quantum mechanics"
• A mechanical analog of Bohr's atom based on de Broglie's double-solution approach
• Forward-backward stochastic simulations: Q-based model for measurement and Bell-nonlocality consistent with weak local realistic premises
• Comparing the cost of violating causal assumptions in Bell experiments: locality, free choice and arrow-of-time
• Minimal Proper Time and Deterministic Microstates: Emergent Quantum Fields and Relativistic Spacetime
• Quantum Monogamy with Predetermined Events
• Bell Meets General Philosophers of Science : Reassessing Measurement Independence
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