Why all the rejection of superdeterminism?

[ueit]

Physics Forums is for the discussion of mainstream physics and refereed papers.

OK, and I have presented such a paper:

Stochastic electrodynamics as a foundation for quantum mechanics
Physics Letters A - Volume 56, Issue 4, 5 April 1976, Pages 253-254

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0375960176902978

It presents a theory along the lines I am arguing. Is Physics Letters A not good enough for you?

I also don't see the mainstream papers supporting your stance.

 

[stevendaryl]

OK, and I have presented such a paper:

Stochastic electrodynamics as a foundation for quantum mechanics
Physics Letters A - Volume 56, Issue 4, 5 April 1976, Pages 253-254

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0375960176902978

It presents a theory along the lines I am arguing. Is Physics Letters A not good enough for you?

I can't read it without paying. It doesn't sound relevant, because you're talking about deterministic theories, while "stochastic" implies nondeterminism.

I also don't see the mainstream papers supporting your stance.

Bell is pretty mainstream.

 

[ueit]

I can't read it without paying. It doesn't sound relevant, because you're talking about deterministic theories, while "stochastic" implies nondeterminism.

The word stochastic is no important here. The theory is just classical electrodynamics with a primordial field added. This field plays the role of the vibrating oil bath in Couder's experiments. The field is described by Maxwell's theory so the theory is deterministic.

I have also presented a link to a book describing an updated version of the theory:

The Emerging Quantum
https://loloattractor.files.wordpre..._marc3ada_cetto_andrea_valdc3a9bookzz-org.pdf

This is not peer-reviewd although it is based on published articles and it is free. It has a whole chapter on entanglement.

Bell is pretty mainstream.

I don't remember Bell claiming that the appearance of correlations in a system described by a field theory requires the system to be simple enough to be computable or predictable or something of that sort. This seems to be your main argument against superdeterminism, and I am not convinced it is mainstream.

Also, in a continuous universe like ours you need infinite precision so even simple systems are not exactly computable.

 

[stevendaryl]

The word stochastic is no important here. The theory is just classical electrodynamics with a primordial field added. This field plays the role of the vibrating oil bath in Couder's experiments. The field is described by Maxwell's theory so the theory is deterministic.

I have also presented a link to a book describing an updated version of the theory:

The Emerging Quantum
https://loloattractor.files.wordpre..._marc3ada_cetto_andrea_valdc3a9bookzz-org.pdf

The issue being discussed is whether a deterministic local theory can reproduce the predictions of QM for the EPR experiment. That is not done in that paper. I don't see the relevance of that paper to this thread about superdeterminism.

 

[ueit]

The issue being discussed is whether a deterministic local theory can reproduce the predictions of QM for the EPR experiment. That is not done in that paper. I don't see the relevance of that paper to this thread about superdeterminism.

If a superdeterministic theory is shown to give the QM formalism (which is the claim of the paper) it will reproduce all predictions of QM, including EPR.

 

[stevendaryl]

If a superdeterministic theory is shown to give the QM formalism (which is the claim of the paper) it will reproduce all predictions of QM, including EPR.

It depends on what you mean by "giving the QM formalism". The standard "recipe" for QM has the following parts:

1. The system is described by a wave function, which is a square-integrable function on configuration space.
2. The system evolves according to Schrodinger's equation.
3. When a measurement is performed, the result is always an eigenvalue of the operator corresponding to the quantity being measured.
4. The probability of getting a particular eigenvalue is given by the square of the projection of the wave function onto the corresponding eigenstate.

The results of EPR don't follow just from Schrodinger's equation alone, but also the interpretation of measurements given by 3 & 4.

It's 3&4 that are not easily described by a deterministic local realistic theory. (Some would say it is impossible to describe them that way---as a matter of fact, there is a theorem to that effect.)

 

[stevendaryl]

It depends on what you mean by "giving the QM formalism". The standard "recipe" for QM has the following parts:

1. The system is described by a wave function, which is a square-integrable function on configuration space.
2. The system evolves according to Schrodinger's equation.
3. When a measurement is performed, the result is always an eigenvalue of the operator corresponding to the quantity being measured.
4. The probability of getting a particular eigenvalue is given by the square of the projection of the wave function onto the corresponding eigenstate

There is a little complication in rigorously discussing the EPR in these terms, because a couple of aspects of the experiment---no FTL interactions, the use of particle spin and/or photons--goes beyond nonrelativistic quantum mechanics.

 

[PeterDonis]

Thread closed for moderation.

Edit: Thread will remain closed.