←back to thread

Gravity can explain the collapse of the wavefunction

(arxiv.org)
18 points dboreham | 2 comments | 14 Oct 25 12:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.398s | source
Show context
justonceokay ◴[14 Oct 25 15:39 UTC] No.45581355[source]▶
“We know from Bell’s theorem [7, 8] that any locally causal model that correctly describes observations needs to violate measurement independence. Such theories are sometimes called ‘superdeterministic’ [9, 10]. It is therefore clear that to arrive at a local collapse model, we must use a superdeterministic approach.”

I only got the first 1/2 of my physics degree before moving on to CS, but to me this reads as “We know eternal life can only be obtained from unicorn blood, so for this paper we must use a fairytale approach.”

replies(1): >>45581783 #
krastanov ◴[14 Oct 25 16:12 UTC] No.45581783[source]▶
"deterministic", "superdeterministic", "measurement independence", "local", "causal" and more are well defined terms (with potentially poorly chosen names) in quantum information science and "quantum foundations". She is a crank, but a paragraph like that can be found in essays by well-respected mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists.
replies(1): >>45582702 #
1. justonceokay ◴[14 Oct 25 17:36 UTC] No.45582702[source]▶
Maybe I wasn’t being clear enough. I know that all those terms have definitions. But in my opinion superdeterminism is not really falsifiable, and in fact very much more problematic than nonlocality as it actually appears in QM contexts.

In the most plain terms, the author is claiming that the collapse of the wave function can be explained deterministically if you just accept that it was preordained.

replies(1): >>45596753 #
2. jfengel ◴[15 Oct 25 18:41 UTC] No.45596753[source]▶
Superdeterminism is an interpretation, not a theory. It's only falsifiable by falsifying the theory -- which would also falsify any other interpretation.

Which means that "we must use a superdeterministic approach" is incorrect. It means that you may use a superdeterministic approach. If that approach is productive, that may cause people to favor your interpretation. But it does not rule out other interpretations. At most, it can make them sufficiently inconvenient as to dismiss them.