Refutation of "Superdeterminism"

[Joy Christian]

.
I am reproducing my refutation of superdeterminism from this thread because it seems to be getting lost in that thread in some tangential noise:



Happy New Year!
.

[FrediFizzx]

Yeah, good idea. The Bell fanatics like to engage in pure nonsense all the time! But that is a really good refutation.

Happy New Year!
.

[gill1109]

Yeah, good idea. The Bell fanatics like to engage in pure nonsense all the time! But that is a really good refutation.
Happy New Year!

Fred: superdeterminism is proposed by anti-Bellists like Tim Palmer and Sabine Hossenfelder. They do believe that Bell’s theorem as mathematics is a true theorem, but they believe it is irrelevant. Bell fanatics like me think that superdeterminism is a logical possibility not worth serious consideration since it explains everything while having no predictive power.

Joy: you write about a, b and lambda and it seems you think of a and b as being outcomes, not inputs.

In these discussions on the other thread we had measurement settings or inputs a and b, and measurement outcomes or outputs x and y.

Some writers exchange the roles of a,b and x, y because they think of observables A, B and eigenvalues a, b. Since the choice of setting in QM implies the choice of observable to measure, they would say A is the setting and a is the outcome. Or they would introduce families of observables A_x and B_y so now x and y are settings.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Tip: if you didn’t do so already, watch “Don’t look up”.

Other news. Brian Sanctuary and I are holding a new 5000 Euro bet. He believes that *he* is going to disprove Bell’s theorem *and* be recognised for having done so by the majority of physicists. Join in the conversation at https://gill1109.com/2021/12/22/the-bel ... challenge/

[FrediFizzx]

... Other news. Brian Sanctuary and I are holding a new 5000 Euro bet. He believes that *he* is going to disprove Bell’s theorem *and* be recognised for having done so by the majority of physicists. Join in the conversation at https://gill1109.com/2021/12/22/the-bel ... challenge/

I knew you wouldn't be able to resist posting that nonsense on this forum. It's 2022 and already you are starting off the new year on the wrong foot.
.

[Joy Christian]

Joy: you write about a, b and lambda and it seems you think of a and b as being outcomes, not inputs.

No, that is incorrect.

a and b in the above refutation are experimental settings, such as angles specifying the orientations of the analyzers.
.

[gill1109]

Joy: you write about a, b and lambda and it seems you think of a and b as being outcomes, not inputs.

No, that is incorrect.

a and b in the above refutation are experimental settings, such as angles specifying the orientations of the analyzers.
.

Alice and Bob choose their settings: “a” and “b” respectively. In an ideal EPR-B experiment, a particle always arrives at both Alice and Bob’s measurement devices. There are always detection events on both sides of the experiment. So I don’t understand your (2), (3) and (4). I don’t understand what are p_1(a, lambda), p_2(b, lambda), p_12(a, b, lambda).

[Joy Christian]

Joy: you write about a, b and lambda and it seems you think of a and b as being outcomes, not inputs.

No, that is incorrect.

a and b in the above refutation are experimental settings, such as angles specifying the orientations of the analyzers.
.

Alice and Bob choose their settings: “a” and “b” respectively. In an ideal EPR-B experiment, a particle always arrives at both Alice and Bob’s measurement devices. There are always detection events on both sides of the experiment. So I don’t understand your (2), (3) and (4). I don’t understand what are p_1(a, lambda), p_2(b, lambda), p_12(a, b, lambda).

They are defined in Section II, equations (1) and (2) of Clauser and Horne: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.10.526. As a self-proclaimed "expert", you should not have had any difficulty understanding the equations of Clauser and Horne, published in their famous paper of 1974. You are a fake "expert."

Note also that my refutation of "superdeterminism" is in response to Michel's claim that he is only assuming p(h | a, b) =/= p(h) [my eq. (1) above] without committing to its usual interpretation of superdeterminism. What I have shown is that Michel's claim is wrong. The assumption p(h | a, b) =/= p(h) is not required for reproducing quantum mechanical probabilities, unless one is explicitly committed to either superdeterminism or retrocausality, or both.
.

[gill1109]

No, that is incorrect.

a and b in the above refutation are experimental settings, such as angles specifying the orientations of the analyzers.
.

Alice and Bob choose their settings: “a” and “b” respectively. In an ideal EPR-B experiment, a particle always arrives at both Alice and Bob’s measurement devices. There are always detection events on both sides of the experiment. So I don’t understand your (2), (3) and (4). I don’t understand what are p_1(a, lambda), p_2(b, lambda), p_12(a, b, lambda).

They are defined in Section II, equations (1) and (2) of Clauser and Horne: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.10.526. As a self-proclaimed "expert", you should not have had any difficulty understanding the equations of Clauser and Horne, published in their famous paper of 1974. You are a fake "expert."

Note also that my refutation of "superdeterminism" is in response to Michel's claim that he is only assuming p(h | a, b) =/= p(h) [my eq. (1) above] without committing to its usual interpretation of superdeterminism. What I have shown is that Michel's claim is wrong. The assumption p(h | a, b) =/= p(h) is not required for reproducing quantum mechanical probabilities, unless one is explicitly committed to either superdeterminism or retrocausality, or both.

The Clauser-Horne paper is about the detection loophole, and about early experiments in which the outcomes were not “plus”, “minus”, or “no detection”, but only “plus” or “no detection”.

The Clauser-Horne paper is indeed easy to understand. Read it again, take note of Figure 1.

Your claim “The assumption p(h | a, b) =/= p(h) is not required for reproducing quantum mechanical probabilities, unless one is explicitly committed to either superdeterminism or retrocausality, or both” contradicts mathematical formulations of Bell’s theorem. Palmer, Hossenfelder et al accept the usual mathematics. You don’t.

It’s trivial that:

IF Bell’s theorem is false, THEN the assumption p(h | a, b) =/= p(h) is not required for reproducing quantum mechanical probabilities, unless one is explicitly committed to either superdeterminism or retrocausality, or both.

Here, “Bell’s theorem” is the mathematical theorem distilled from Bell’s physics papers, as written out in recent publications by Hossenfelder, Palmer, yours truly, and others.

[Joy Christian]

.
Complete hogwash. You always have stupid things to waffle about everything. I am not going to worry about what you delude yourself with.
.

[gill1109]

Complete hogwash. You always have stupid things to waffle about everything. I am not going to worry about what you delude yourself with.

“Complete hogwash”. Now there’s a subtle argument. Hm… have to think about those wise words.

Right, I have given your response some careful thought. Here is my response: “Fine by me. If you don’t want to be worried that you might be wrong, you should take no notice of anyone who disagrees with you.”

Niels Bohr, on the contrary, said: “Now we have a contradiction. Now we can make progress!”