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Does superdeterminism save QM? Or does it kill free will and destroy science?

#1
C C Offline
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2021/12...antum.html

EXCERPTS (Sabine Hossenfelder): Superdeterminism is a way to make sense of quantum mechanics. But some physicists and philosophers have argued that if one were to allow it, it would destroy science. Seriously. How does superdeterminism work, what is it good for, and why does it allegedly destroy science? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

First things first, what is superdeterminism? [...] Superdeterminism is exactly as deterministic as plain old vanilla determinism. ... According to superdeterminism, the reason we can’t predict the outcome of a quantum measurement is that we are missing information. This missing information is usually referred to as the “hidden variables”. I’ll tell you more about those later. But didn’t this guy what’s his name Bell prove that hidden variables are wrong?

No, he didn’t, though this is a very common misunderstanding, depressingly, even among physicists. Bell proved that a hidden variables theory which is (a) local and (b) fulfills an obscure assumption called “statistical independence” must obey an inequality, now called Bell’s inequality. We know experimentally that this inequality is violated. It follows that any local hidden variable theory which fits to our observations, has to violate statistical independence.

If statistical independence is violated, this means that what a quantum particle does depends on what you measure. And that’s how superdeterminism works: what a quantum particle does depends on what you measure...

[...] This is where the word “superdeterminism” comes from. Bell called a violation of statistical independence “superdeterminism” and claimed that it would require giving up free will. He argued that there are only two options: either accept spooky action and keep free will which would mean that Bell was right, or reject spooky action but give up free will which would mean that Einstein was right. Bell won. Einstein lost.

Now you all know that I think free will is logically incoherent nonsense. But even if you don’t share my opinion, Bell’s argument just doesn’t work. Spooky action at a distance doesn’t make any difference for free will because the indeterministic processes in quantum mechanics are not influenced by anything, so they are not influenced by your “free will,” whatever that may be. And in any case, throwing out determinism just because you don’t like its consequences is really bad science.

Nevertheless, the mathematical assumption of “statistical independence” has since widely been called the “free will” assumption, or the “free choice” assumption. And physicists stopped questioning it to the point that today most of them don’t know that Bell’s theorem even requires this additional assumption.

This is not a joke. All the alleged strangeness of quantum mechanics has its origin in nomenclature. It was forced on us by physicists who called a mathematical statement the “free will assumption”, never mind that it’s got nothing to do with free will, and then argued that one must believe in it because one must believe in free will.

If you find this hard to believe, I can’t blame you, but let me read you a quote from a book by Nicolas Gisin, who is Professor for Physics in Geneva and works on quantum information theory...

[...] Keep in mind that superdeterminism just means statistical independence is violated which has nothing to do with free will. However, even leaving that aside, fact is, the majority of philosophers either believe that free will is compatible with determinism, about 60% of them, or they agree with me that free will doesn’t exist anyway, about 10% of them.

But in case you’re still not convinced that physicists actually bought Bell’s free will argument, here is another quote [...] I assume you are shivering in fear of being robbed of your free will if one ever were to allow this. And not only would it rob you of free will, it would destroy science.

Indeed, already in 1976, Shimony, Horne, and Clauser argued that doubting statistical independence must be verboten. They wrote: “skepticism of this sort will essentially dismiss all results of scientific experimentation”. And here is one final quote about superdeterminism from the philosopher Tim Maudlin: “besides being insane, [it] would undercut scientific method.”

As you can see, we have no shortage of men who have strong opinions about things they know very little about, but not like this is news. So now let me tell you how superdeterminism actually works, using the double slit experiment as an example...

[...] And that’s what superdeterminism is. It takes our observations seriously. What the quantum particle does depends on what measurement will take place. Now you may say uhm drawing lines on YouTube isn’t proper science and I would agree. If you’d rather see equations, you’re most welcome to look at my papers instead.

[...] Okay, so I hope I’ve convinced you that superdeterminism doesn’t limit anyone’s free will and doesn’t kill science, now let’s see what it’s good for.

Once you understand what’s going on with the double slit, all the other quantum effects that are allegedly mysterious or strange also make sense...

[...] So, in my eyes, all those experiments have been screaming us into the face for half a century that what a quantum particle does depends on the measurement setting, and that’s superdeterminism. The good thing about superdeterminism is that since it’s local it can easily be combined with general relativity, so it can help us find a theory of quantum gravity.

Let me finally talk about something less abstract, namely how one can test it. You can’t test superdeterminism by measuring violations of Bell’s inequality because it doesn’t fulfil the assumptions of Bell’s theorem, so doesn’t have to obey the inequality. But superdeterminism generically predicts that measurement outcomes in quantum mechanics are actually determined, and not random.

Now, any theory that solves the measurement problem has to be non-linear, so the reason we haven’t noticed superdeterminism is almost certainly that all our measurements so far have been well in the chaotic regime. In that case trying to make a prediction for a measurement outcome is like trying to make a weather forecast for next year. The best you can do is calculate average values. That’s what quantum mechanics gives us.

But if you want to find out whether measurement outcomes are actually determined, you have to get out of the chaotic regime. This means looking at small systems at low temperatures and measurements in a short sequence, ideally on the same particle. Those measurements are currently just not being done. However, there is a huge amount of progress in quantum technologies at the moment, especially in combination with AI which is really good for finding new patterns. And this makes me think that at some point it’ll just become obvious that measurement outcomes are actually much more predictable than quantum mechanics says. Indeed, maybe someone already has the data, they just haven’t analyzed it the right way.

I know it’s somewhat boring coming from a German but I think Einstein was right about quantum mechanics. Call me crazy if you want but to me it’s obvious that superdeterminism is the correct explanation for our observations. I just hope I’ll live long enough to see that all those men who said otherwise will be really embarrassed... (MORE - missing details)


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ytyjgIyegDI
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#3
Syne Offline
Always roll my eyes when I see the name Sabine.

(Dec 20, 2021 06:40 PM)C C Wrote: Bell proved that a hidden variables theory which is (a) local and (b) fulfills an obscure assumption called “statistical independence” must obey an inequality, now called Bell’s inequality. We know experimentally that this inequality is violated.
Yes, by being non-local.

Quote:It follows that any local hidden variable theory which fits to our observations, has to violate statistical independence.
Only if you presume local hidden variables.

Quote:If statistical independence is violated, this means that what a quantum particle does depends on what you measure. And that’s how superdeterminism works: what a quantum particle does depends on what you measure...
This ultimately must mean that not only are the results of distant measurements of two entangle particles correlated, but the choice of measurement of one scientist must correlate to the choice of measurement of another scientist, no matter how far away. This only makes "spooky action at a distance" more spooky, by coordinating the actions of humans.

Quote:Now you all know that I think free will is logically incoherent nonsense.
Which is why she's making ideological presumptions unfounded in science.

Quote:But even if you don’t share my opinion, Bell’s argument just doesn’t work. Spooky action at a distance doesn’t make any difference for free will because the indeterministic processes in quantum mechanics are not influenced by anything, so they are not influenced by your “free will,” whatever that may be. And in any case, throwing out determinism just because you don’t like its consequences is really bad science.
Why is it such people always foreshadow their own actions with projection? She deems free will incoherent, but then immediately makes an incoherent argument of her own. No one's ever claimed that free will has to influence the indeterministic processes of QM. The choice of what to measure doesn't change the probabilities of the results, only which results to examine.

Quote:All the alleged strangeness of quantum mechanics has its origin in nomenclature. It was forced on us by physicists who called a mathematical statement the “free will assumption”, never mind that it’s got nothing to do with free will, and then argued that one must believe in it because one must believe in free will.
Really? All the great minds who helped make QM one of the most experimentally well-verified theories have just been trying to keep you in the dark with "alleged strangeness." Lots of mental gymnastics with Sabine.

Quote:If you find this hard to believe, I can’t blame you, but let me read you a quote from a book by Nicolas Gisin, who is Professor for Physics in Geneva and works on quantum information theory...

[...] Keep in mind that superdeterminism just means statistical independence is violated which has nothing to do with free will. However, even leaving that aside, fact is, the majority of philosophers either believe that free will is compatible with determinism, about 60% of them, or they agree with me that free will doesn’t exist anyway, about 10% of them.
What does what the majority of philosophers believe (argumentum ad populum) have to do with statistical independence? Nothing.

Quote:But in case you’re still not convinced that physicists actually bought Bell’s free will argument, here is another quote [...]
Aside from Sabine's obviously biased arguments, why would anyone doubt Bell's arguments?

Quote:[...] Okay, so I hope I’ve convinced you that superdeterminism doesn’t limit anyone’s free will and doesn’t kill science, now let’s see what it’s good for.
No, because you've repeatedly argued against free will. If this was your goal, you failed miserably.

Quote:Once you understand what’s going on with the double slit, all the other quantum effects that are allegedly mysterious or strange also make sense...
Not in any experimentally verifiable way that differentiates your view from others.

Quote:[...] So, in my eyes, all those experiments have been screaming us into the face for half a century that what a quantum particle does depends on the measurement setting, and that’s superdeterminism. The good thing about superdeterminism is that since it’s local it can easily be combined with general relativity, so it can help us find a theory of quantum gravity.
Yes, only in your view.
So...where's the theory of quantum gravity then? This is Sabine just talking out of her ass.
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#4
C C Offline
(Dec 21, 2021 03:17 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: Perfect timing!

I used to have a link to one of Bell's lectures on the topic. I'll have to find it. 

Thanks, CC!

Got it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scPVeHUAnRg

Thanks for submitting it, SS. I wish that video had a transcript offered in the "..." so I could speed through and see if he ever addressed the following. But surely these quotes of Sabine's are sufficient for the ensuing matter. 

Which is to say, the issue of science itself not being compatible with determinism. Since Sabine indirectly introduced that as a co-topic itself in the video ("destroy science"), maybe I should have brought that up here rather than giving such its own thread. Bell's influences are the source of it.

Those following Bell's view contend that science is necessarily dependent on experimenters having free will.

In a 1983 BBC interview he [Bell] said the following:

There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic, with not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but with our behavior, including our belief that we are free to choose to do one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined, including the “decision” by the experimenter to carry out one set of measurements rather than another, the difficulty disappears.

This is where the word “superdeterminism” comes from. Bell called a violation of statistical independence “superdeterminism” and claimed that it would require giving up free will. He argued that there are only two options: either accept spooky action and keep free will which would mean that Bell was right, or reject spooky action but give up free will which would mean that Einstein was right. Bell won. Einstein lost.

[...] But in case you’re still not convinced that physicists actually bought Bell’s free will argument, here is another quote from a book by Anton Zeilinger, one of the probably most famous physicists alive. Zeilinger doesn’t use the word superdeterminism in his book, but it is clear from the context that he is justifying the assumption of statistical independence. He writes:

[W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist. This is the assumption of free will… This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science.

So he too bought Bell’s claim that you have to pick between spooky action and free will. At this point you must be wondering just what this scary mathematical expression is that supposedly eradicates free will. I am about to reveal it...


Thus, if going with that incompatibilism espoused by Bell and others like Zeilinger, determinism also disparages the results of science (from their perspective, anyway) -- if not making the products outright invalid. Since there was never any genuine choice-making involved in the process.   

This might circularly reflect upon the beliefs of a determinist, also, since the determinist never had any option but to become a determinist. That is, the premises used and the "rationality" by which they arrived at determinism never had the freedom to arrive at any outcome but determinism.

Now... like the majority of people (discounting those appealing to the supernatural), this "science is not compatible with determinism" orientation apparently considers "randomness" to be what the "free" adjective of FW should mean. Rather than my preference that "free" denotes "autonomous" operation of an agent [the latter not being a puppet all the time of whatever proposed _X_].

I'm setting aside that kettle of worms since it's yet another major detour in its own right. Surely we can all agree that absolute randomness doesn't equate to FW, since that would mean the dissolution of an organism's organization and existence, including elimination of a governed system that makes decision-making possible in the first place. 

The "determinism" addressed in all the above is absolute determinism, but incompatibilists who believe determinism to be the case usually seem to grant little or no credence to the idea of randomness at the particle and atomic level accumulating enough to throw the trajectory of biological or human processes off track. As well as unswayed by even meager random contributions (via QM) qualifying as choice-making on the part of the agent (i.e., the randomness is treated as just another invasive external factor, or an ungoverned puppet-master). 

It is surprising that 60% of philosophers are compatibilists. As if they are actually pessimistic enough to feel that "adequate determinism" isn't going to be sufficient to stop the persuasive rhetoric of determinists who are incompatibilists.

But is it really necessary to design FW to be invulnerable to all major threats? For instance, human rights and "all individuals deserve a modicum of dignity, respect", etc --  is pretty much invented BS necessary to either hold civilization together or make ordinary life tolerable. It is enforced not by nature (the non-artificial), but by a large enough section of society slash administration adhering to it, even if they know it's BS.

So arguably the same might apply to FW, if the incremental march of determinists eventually sways the majority. Or that is already the case -- why the average scientist appends "we still need to believe in free will as if it were true" after trashing FW.

- - - EDIT (added later) - - -

Here is part of Anton Zeilinger's extended quote:

The second important property of the world that we always implicitly assume is the freedom of the individual experimentalist. This is the assumption of free will. It is a free decision what measurement one wants to perform. In the experiment on the entangled pair of photons, Alice and Bob are free to choose the position of the switch that determines which measurement is performed on their respective particles. It was a basic assumption in our discussion that that choice is not determined from the outside. This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science. If this were not true, then, I suggest, it would make no sense at all to ask nature questions in an experiment, since then nature could determine what our questions are, and that could guide our questions such that we arrive at a false picture of nature.” --Dance of the Photons

Apparently, what Zeilinger is against in the above (because of its damage to free will and consequently science) is absolute determinism, not something like adequate determinism.

Though not every adequate determinist construes free will as being compatible with adequate determinism, as is the case here: "Adequate determinism gives compatibilists the kind of free will that they need and that they say they want, namely the causal connection between motives, feelings, reason, character, values, etc. and the actions chosen from freely generated possibilities."

Adequate determinists can alternatively dismiss quantum affairs as being relevant at the biological or macroscopic level.
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#5
Syne Offline
(Dec 22, 2021 05:08 AM)C C Wrote: Which is to say, the issue of science itself not being compatible with determinism.
Who claimed that science wasn't compatible with determinism? Sounds like you're conflating determinism with superdeterminism.

Quote:Thus, if going with that incompatibilism espoused by Bell and others like Zeilinger, determinism also makes the results of science invalid (for their perspective, anyway). Since there was never any genuine choice-making involved in the process.   
There is no incompatibilism, of the sort that denies determinism, expressed by Bell or Zeilinger.
As I've said elsewhere, determinism only requires causality, that every effect have a cause. Determinism doesn't require that every cause be a previous effect, leading to an infinite regress. This is why people want to shoehorn determinism into QM, because they cannot reconcile random, nor even intentional, inputs into their worldview.

Quote:This might circularly reflect upon the beliefs of a determinist, also, since the determinist never had any option but to become a determinist. That is, the premises used and the "rationality" by which they arrived at determinism never had the freedom to arrive at any outcome but determinism.
Which necessarily means that a determinist, by their own argument, has no real reason for their view, and thus no grounds to object to competing views.

Quote:Now... like the majority of people (discounting those appealing to the supernatural), this "science is not compatible with determinism" orientation apparently considers "randomness" to be what the "free adjective" of FW should mean. Rather than my preference that "free" denotes "autonomous" operation of an agent [the latter not being a puppet all the time of whatever proposed _X_].
Nope. Determinists always try that straw man. Randomness just demonstrates that not all causes are deterministic effects.
And you're still conflating determinism with superdeterminism. They are not the same thing. Bell never denied determinism.

Quote:I'm setting aside that kettle of worms since it's yet another major detour in its own right. Surely we can all agree that absolute randomness doesn't equate to FW, since that would mean the dissolution of an organism's organization and existence, including elimination of a governed system that makes decision-making possible in the first place. 
As I've said many times, determinism is necessary for genuine free will. No one of any merit claims free will is randomness.

Quote:The "determinism" addressed in all the above is absolute determinism, but incompatibilists who believe determinism to be the case usually seem to grant little or no credence to the idea of randomness at the particle and atomic level accumulating enough to throw the trajectory of biological or human processes off track. As well as unswayed by even meager random contributions (via QM) qualifying as choice-making on the part of the agent (i.e., the randomness is treated as just another invasive external factor, or an ungoverned puppet-master). 
I admit that the randomness of the action potential of when a synapse fires contributes, just as any external experience does. It would be foolish to claim that things like abuse have no lasting or transformative effects on human behavior. After all, evolutionary psychology is all about the affect of experience on behavior. But neither quantum randomness nor experience can be shown to be collectively or individually wholly causative.

It takes a much higher degree of faith to believe that your own experiences are illusions while you have no way to demonstrate the ultimate causes for anything you do.

Quote:But is it really necessary to design FW to be invulnerable to all major threats? For instance, human rights and "all individuals deserve respect", etc --  is wholly invented BS necessary to either hold civilization together or make ordinary life tolerable. It is enforced not by nature (the non-artificial), but by a large enough section of society adhering to it even if they know it's BS.
Only morally bankrupt people require society to tell them what is moral. But that's the whole point of believing in determinism. To absolve one of accountability.
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#6
C C Offline
(Dec 22, 2021 05:54 AM)Syne Wrote:
(Dec 22, 2021 05:08 AM)C C Wrote: Which is to say, the issue of science itself not being compatible with determinism


Who claimed that science wasn't compatible with determinism? Sounds like you're conflating determinism with superdeterminism.


That's what subtle signposts like "from their perspective, anyway" are for. (I.e., indicating an exploration of what falls out of stuff espoused in the video/blog-entry.)

Sabine: "Superdeterminism is exactly as deterministic as plain old vanilla determinism. [...] Superdeterminism returns us to determinism."

Bell: [...] “There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic...

Zeilinger: “[W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist. This is the assumption of free will… This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science.”

Quote:
Quote:Thus, if going with that incompatibilism espoused by Bell and others like Zeilinger, determinism also makes the results of science invalid (for their perspective, anyway). Since there was never any genuine choice-making involved in the process.   

There is no incompatibilism, of the sort that denies determinism, expressed by Bell or Zeilinger.


??? I would hope so. IOW, where was libertarianism mentioned anywhere? If there's a "total absence of free will" due to absolute determinism, then obviously Bell is expressing an incompatibilist view for his thought scenario. (And that's certainly not libertarianism as one of the options, since his scenario doesn't entail determinism being false.)

Surely it doesn't have to be pointed out that what he was illustrating is not a reflection of him personally believing in hard determinism, etc, IF he didn't want to escape the "spooky action" that his suggestion was proposed as a remedy to.

Quote:
Quote:This might circularly reflect upon the beliefs of a determinist, also, since the determinist never had any option but to become a determinist. That is, the premises used and the "rationality" by which they arrived at determinism never had the freedom to arrive at any outcome but determinism.

Which necessarily means that a determinist, by their own argument, has no real reason for their view, and thus no grounds to object to competing views.


Much clapping and applause from the onlooking producer: "Yay! They got it! The audience got the irony! Yay!"

Quote:
Quote:Now... like the majority of people (discounting those appealing to the supernatural), this "science is not compatible with determinism" orientation apparently considers "randomness" to be what the "free adjective" of FW should mean. Rather than my preference that "free" denotes "autonomous" operation of an agent [the latter not being a puppet all the time of whatever proposed _X_].

Nope. Determinists always try that straw man. Randomness just demonstrates that not all causes are deterministic effects.

And you're still conflating determinism with superdeterminism. They are not the same thing.


You do understand that this is an exploration working off of what's in that video/blog-entry? (I.e., what falls out of this stuff?) That's what signposts like "from their perspective, anyway" are for.

Sabine: "Superdeterminism is exactly as deterministic as plain old vanilla determinism. [...] Superdeterminism returns us to determinism."

Bell: [...] “There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic...

Zeilinger: “[W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist. This is the assumption of free will… This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science.”

Quote:Bell never denied determinism.

He apparently didn't want absolute determinism slash redundant "super-deterministic" to be the case. He or Zeilinger need only have been the equivalent of adequate determinists to deem that free will applies enough so that science isn't compromised (in the context of that view of theirs).

"Adequate determinism gives compatibilists the kind of free will that they need and that they say they want, namely the causal connection between motives, feelings, reason, character, values, etc. and the actions chosen from freely generated possibilities." https://www.informationphilosopher.com/f...inism.html

However, as I mentioned elsewhere, an adequate determinist could just as much flip the other way. It's no guarantee they will be compatibilists. But the landscape is cluttered with many versions of determinism. If one doesn't fit their tastes, maybe another one that they trip over does...
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#7
Syne Offline
(Dec 22, 2021 01:27 PM)C C Wrote:
(Dec 22, 2021 05:54 AM)Syne Wrote: Who claimed that science wasn't compatible with determinism? Sounds like you're conflating determinism with superdeterminism.

That's what subtle signposts like "from their perspective, anyway" are for. (I.e., indicating an exploration of what falls out of stuff espoused in the video/blog-entry.)

Sabine: "Superdeterminism is exactly as deterministic as plain old vanilla determinism. [...] Superdeterminism returns us to determinism."

Bell: [...] “There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic...

Zeilinger: “[W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist. This is the assumption of free will… This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science.”
Justifying one conflation with another doesn't really justify anything. At best, it's an appeal to the authority of Sabine.
Superdeterminism is as deterministic as hard determinism (fatalism), not "vanilla determinism."

Quote:
Quote:
Quote:Thus, if going with that incompatibilism espoused by Bell and others like Zeilinger, determinism also makes the results of science invalid (for their perspective, anyway). Since there was never any genuine choice-making involved in the process.
There is no incompatibilism, of the sort that denies determinism, expressed by Bell or Zeilinger.

??? I would hope so. IOW, where was libertarianism mentioned anywhere? If there's a "total absence of free will" due to absolute determinism, then obviously Bell is expressing an incompatibilist view for his thought scenario. (And that's certainly not libertarianism as one of the options, since his scenario doesn't entail determinism being false.)

Surely it doesn't have to be pointed out that what he was illustrating is not a reflection of him personally believing in hard determinism, etc, IF he didn't want to escape the "spooky action" that his suggestion was proposed as a remedy to. 
Only you and Sabine are presuming an incompatibilist "absolute determinism." You know, the aforementioned fatalism. Bells said the only alternative was superdeterminism, not that he, personally, espoused an incompatibilist view. Bells and Zeilinger believed in spooky action at a distance. And libertarianism is obviously not the only alternative to fatalism.

Quote:
Quote:Which necessarily means that a determinist, by their own argument, has no real reason for their view, and thus no grounds to object to competing views.

Much clapping and applause from the onlooking producer: "Yay! They got it! The audience got the irony! Yay!"
Irony? Seems a pretty straightforward consequence. Albeit, one many determinists might not readily admit. The only surprise is someone admitting they might not have any real reason for arguing what they're in the process of arguing. Luckily, my view doesn't suffer from that fatal flaw. Either I'm right or we have no reason to believe that anyone is right. But again, that's the whole point of determinism...to absolve one of judgement and accountability.

Quote:
Quote:Nope. Determinists always try that straw man. Randomness just demonstrates that not all causes are deterministic effects.

And you're still conflating determinism with superdeterminism. They are not the same thing.

You do understand that this is an exploration working off of what's in that video/blog-entry? (I.e., what falls out of this stuff?) That's what signposts like "from their perspective, anyway" are for.

Sabine: "Superdeterminism is exactly as deterministic as plain old vanilla determinism. [...] Superdeterminism returns us to determinism."

Bell: [...] “There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic...

Zeilinger: “[W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist. This is the assumption of free will… This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science.”
Repeating your appeal to a conflation still ain't helping you.

Quote:
Quote:Bell never denied determinism.

He apparently didn't want absolute determinism slash redundant "super-deterministic" to be the case. He or Zeilinger need only have been the equivalent of adequate determinists to deem that free will applies enough so that science isn't compromised (in the context of that view of theirs).

"Adequate determinism gives compatibilists the kind of free will that they need and that they say they want, namely the causal connection between motives, feelings, reason, character, values, etc. and the actions chosen from freely generated possibilities." https://www.informationphilosopher.com/f...inism.html

However, as I mentioned elsewhere, an adequate determinist could just as much flip the other way. It's no guarantee they will be compatibilists. But the landscape is cluttered with many versions of determinism. If one doesn't fit their tastes, maybe another one that they trip over does...
It doesn't follow that a compatibilist could "just as much" become an incompatibilist.

[Bell] makes it clear, however, that no metaphysical hypothesis of experimenters exempt from the laws of physics need be invoked. What is needed is something considerably weaker than the condition that the variables not be determined in the overlap of the backward light cones of the experiments. What is needed is that they be “at least effectively free for the purpose at hand.” Bell argues that a deterministic randomizer that is extraordinarily sensitive to initial conditions would suffice to provide the requisite independence, and that variables of this type may be treated as if they have implications only for events in their future light cones.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bell-theorem/


IOW, a deterministic randomizer, like the deterministic Schrodinger equation of QM, can provide a point in the causal chain sufficiently unaffected by past events to allow the effective freedom for scientific inquiry to be meaningful.

Does that mean full-throated free will? No. But neither does it espouse any incompatibilist view. You actually can't get to a libertarian view as a compatibilist, as it's usually defined.
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#8
Secular Sanity Offline
(Dec 22, 2021 05:08 AM)C C Wrote: Thanks for submitting it, SS. I wish that video had a transcript offered in the "..." so I could speed through and see if he ever addressed the following. But surely these quotes of Sabine's are sufficient for the ensuing matter.
 
Whew! There's a lot that's being discussed and I'm short on time. I'll have to play catch up after the holidays, but here's a transcript of his is talk in 1990 at Cern, page 78 contains his lecture, which is word for word in the video that I linked.

"I have a question .. . .. . Is it correct to say that indeterminism is not a necessary condition for a coherent quantum theory?
Bell: I would agree with that, yes.
Question: OK. But quantum theory is not incompatible with indeterminism. Also, quantum theory is compatible with indeterminism.
Bell:I believe that quantum theory is compatible both with determinism and with indeterminism.
Question: With both?
Bell: With both.
Question: Depending on locality or nonlocality?
Bell: That's right. If it's deterministic. Well, I think it must be nonlocal, whether it's deterministic or indeterministic. I think you're stuck with the nonlocality. I don't know any conception of locality which works with quantum mechanics. So, I think we're stuck with nonlocality. Whether we're stuck with determinism or indeterminism is another question. I know that if you didn't worry about Lorentz invariance, you can make explicit deterministic models which agree with all the experiments. But they're not Lorentz invariant. You have an ether, in there, and that's hard to swallow. It may be that Lorentz invariance plus quantum mechanics is incompatible with determinism, but I don't know that. That's a possibility."

Side note: Some have suggested that despite not satisfying Reichenbach’s principle, correlations violating Bell inequalities are due to a common cause in their past, namely, the process that created entanglement.

And here’s something that I didn’t pay much attention to. Everyone knows that Alice and Bob cannot pass information. This would violate causality, but I didn’t know that Bell’s Theorem asserts that there’s 'NO ACTION' at a distance. No transfer of information or energy. Literally no action!

"Question: There is a word .. of language .. which confused me. When .. there is a word interaction, action at a distance, or cause, causality. I think in general this involves a force or a transfer of energy, through a signal. And then you say that is no signal, there is information involved but not energy transfer. Is it right?
Bell: There is no energy transfer and there is no information transfer either. That's why I am always embarrassed by the word action, and so I step back from asserting that there is action at a distance, and I say only that you cannot get away with locality. You cannot explain things by events in their neighborhood. But I am careful not to assert that there is action at a distance."

Syne Wrote:But again, that's the whole point of determinism...to absolve one of judgement and accountability.

I think that most people not only feel like they have free will but highly desire it. I desire it. Invictus is one of my favorite poems. Even if free will didn't exist, I'd still have to think of myself as a contributing factor.

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#9
Syne Offline
(Dec 23, 2021 01:00 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: "I have a question .. . .. . Is it correct to say that indeterminism is not a necessary condition for a coherent quantum theory?
Bell: I would agree with that, yes.
Question: OK. But quantum theory is not incompatible with indeterminism. Also, quantum theory is compatible with indeterminism.
Bell:I believe that quantum theory is compatible both with determinism and with indeterminism.
Question: With both?
Bell: With both.
True, but deterministic interpretations of QM are less parsimonious, as they must postulate extraneous things, like pilot waves or superdeterminism, that cannot be experimentally verified. You have to take those deterministic interpretations more on faith.

Quote:Question: Depending on locality or nonlocality?
Bell: That's right. If it's deterministic. Well, I think it must be nonlocal, whether it's deterministic or indeterministic. I think you're stuck with the nonlocality. I don't know any conception of locality which works with quantum mechanics. So, I think we're stuck with nonlocality. Whether we're stuck with determinism or indeterminism is another question. I know that if you didn't worry about Lorentz invariance, you can make explicit deterministic models which agree with all the experiments. But they're not Lorentz invariant. You have an ether, in there, and that's hard to swallow. It may be that Lorentz invariance plus quantum mechanics is incompatible with determinism, but I don't know that. That's a possibility."

Side note: Some have suggested that despite not satisfying Reichenbach’s principle, correlations violating Bell inequalities are due to a common cause in their past, namely, the process that created entanglement.

And here’s something that I didn’t pay much attention to. Everyone knows that Alice and Bob cannot pass information. This would violate causality, but I didn’t know that Bell’s Theorem asserts that there’s 'NO ACTION' at a distance. No transfer of information or energy. Literally no action!

"Question: There is a word .. of language .. which confused me. When .. there is a word interaction, action at a distance, or cause, causality. I think in general this involves a force or a transfer of energy, through a signal. And then you say that is no signal, there is information involved but not energy transfer. Is it right?
Bell: There is no energy transfer and there is no information transfer either. That's why I am always embarrassed by the word action, and so I step back from asserting that there is action at a distance, and I say only that you cannot get away with locality. You cannot explain things by events in their neighborhood. But I am careful not to assert that there is action at a distance."
Only physical effects must propagate at a finite speed. IOW, the transfer of forces/carrier particles with an energy/mass that is subject to the speed of light limit. Only an assumption of locality requires a physical effect. Common cause correlations only explain how whether Alice or Bob making the first measurement determines that of the other, if you presume superdeterminism controlling the choices of both Alice and Bob. So you have to assume locality (measurement determined by the local particle...which must have somehow carried an effect on the two remote scientists), which requires superdeterminism. Bell's view is that the effect is nonlocal, whether indeterministic or not. But nonlocality does away with the extraneous need to presume superdeterminism on faith. Superdeterminism is just the latest version of an ether theory...postulating something that cannot be experimentally verified.

It's easy to understand if you assume the wave function of the entangled particles, or more likely an underlying reality it approximates, is objective and actually spreads over the distance between the two particles. The first measurement then has no need to transmit any information to the second particle. The wave function spread between the two simply collapses, leaving the second particle with the definite remainder of the superposition.

(Dec 23, 2021 01:00 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: I think that most people not only feel like they have free will but highly desire it. I desire it. Invictus is one of my favorite poems. Even if free will didn't exist, I'd still have to think of myself as a contributing factor.

Odd, you do not act or argue like you desire it. You only proclaim it, as if it's something you think you're supposed to do. But then "contributing factor" is a hedge...trying to allow for it while minimizing its significance.
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#10
Secular Sanity Offline
(Dec 23, 2021 03:11 AM)Syne Wrote: Odd, you do not act or argue like you desire it. You only proclaim it, as if it's something you think you're supposed to do. But then "contributing factor" is a hedge...trying to allow for it while minimizing its significance.

Then you haven't been paying attention. By 'contributing factor' I meant something similar to what CC was referring to. CC’s answer is great!
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