Rethinking superdeterminism

Journal article

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 non-locality of quantum physics. Most importantly, we will discuss how it may be possible to test this hypothesis in an (almost) model independent way.

Authors: Hossenfelder, S; Palmer, T

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Frontiers
• Journal: Frontiers in Physics
• Volume: 8
• Article number: 139
• Publication date: 2020-05-06
• Acceptance date: 2020-04-08
• DOI: 10.3389/fphy.2020.00139
• EISSN: 2296-424X
• ISSN: 2296-424X
• Language: English
• Keywords: FFR; superdeterminism; causality; Bell theorem; free will; quantum measurement; quantum mechanics