Talk:Superdeterminism

Reference
In an The Illuminatus! Trilogy appendix, Robert Anton Wilson noted this; SUPERDETERMINISM: The approach to quantum theory urged by Dr. Fritjof Capra in The Tao of Physics. This interpretation rejects "contrafactual definiteness"; that is, it assumes that any statements about what could have happened are meaningless. A consequence of this view is that all distinction between observer and observed, or self and universe, also becomes meaningless; I had no choice about writing this book, Dell Books had no choice about publishing it, and you had no choice about reading it, since there is only one thing happening and we are all seamlessly welded into it.

Marasmusine 13:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * So an appendix to a novel is the only verifiable reference we currently have for this term. That helps explain "The concept has not received widespread attention among physicists." I will look some more ... but ... the term neologism comes to mind ... --Keesiewonder talk 10:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not trying to defend the article in particular, but I'm sure there will be more references out there somewhere. For a phrase that's been around since at least 1970, I don't think 'neologism' is entirely appropriate. On the other hand I have no appropriate source material to hand. Maybe the article should be scrapped for now, but I've flagged it for attention for physics experts in the meantime. Marasmusine 10:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Did a quick internet search; not sure about the reliability of these sources; but Bell and Superdeterminism are mentioned here : and there are some further references at the bottom of this:, this paper being the most relevent. Unfortunately they only mention superdeterminism in passing but at least it shows the original editor isn't making it up. Marasmusine 11:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, those look more promising. Thank you, and nice work! I would like to see the BBC reference migrate out of the article - until we can prove the blockquote comes from a true BBC interview - and these other materials migrate in. Keesiewonder talk 12:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Proof needed of the John Bell and BBC connection
Searching all of the BBC for the term "superdeterminism" yields one hit. Near the bottom of the page with the search results is the disclaimer "The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites." the sole hit points to h2g2 which is described (here) as "an unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything, an encyclopaedic project where entries are written by people from all over the world." The BBC provides their own disclaimer at the bottom of this page stating "Most of the content on h2g2 is created by h2g2's Researchers, who are members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of the BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced." Furthermore, when you go to the h2g2 instance of superdeterminism, neither the name John nor the name Bell appears on the page. There's no BBC interview that I have found containing the term superdeterminism. Please provide verifiable resources to back up the content expressed and quoted in this article. --Keesiewonder talk 10:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No, h2g2 isn't what I'd call a reliable source. But if such an interview had taken place, it may have been pre-WWW. Hopefully the original editor will come back with a reference. Marasmusine 10:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

New Scientist Magazine refers to the BBC source. I own the Bell book but was never able to find those quotes there. I will try to find the New Scientist reference. If I find it tonight will report it. 216.16.57.233 04:51, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

'''                   Title:  The man who proved Einstein was wrong. New Scientist 24 Nov.1990 pages 43-45. ''' 216.16.57.233 05:09, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Cool, that's this article: I'll add it to the list of references. Marasmusine 07:18, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Marasmusine for  hunting down the reference. Now I ask of Marasmusine (you have something to do with mice?) to forget about the other references, because this page is about John Bell and those quotes. Your references are oblique to those quotes. Start a page on the concept of counterfactual whatever elsewhere for it does not tie logically to those quotes. It does not elucidate the quotes, and does not logically tie into them. What I have written explains the quotes so your charge of original research or unreferenced is a bogus charge. Under your misconception of editing, then every word in a entry has to be referenced, which is obviously hyper-silly. The thing about a good entry is that it explains clearly and flows together. Yours is a cobbled mess of nonfitting three pieces. If you persist in joining your unrelated and oblique references that never explain the Bell quotes, would force me to take out the quotes altogether and leave you with your garbled two references that explain almost nothing of what this page is all about. 216.254.227.167 08:49, 12 May 2007 (UTC)AP
 * Well not quite every word, but ideally every statement, yes. We only report what has already been reported elsewhere, including explainations and metaphores. I've had a look at the full New Scientist article but Superdeterminism wasn't actually mentioned. But now I have access to their online articles I'll look for other references. Marasmusine 17:50, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Rats, I've searched the NS archive - lots of articles discussing determinism but no mention of superdeterminism :/ Marasmusine 15:52, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous user, you removed maintainance tags, categories and references. I've retained your lead text, with 'citation needed' tags where appropriate (Where does Bell talk about 'puppets' and 'controlling entities'? How about 'determinism is often analogized by a pool or billards'?). Marasmusine 21:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Complaint
Identify the person Ehheh in Wikipedia who uses this encyclopedia as a game of harrassement. Bends all rules to his means of attacking people. Finds out what ticks off certain people and then plays games for ad hominem amusement. Editors like him cause for Wikipedia to be never a good encyclopedia but a form of malignancy. Characters like him have now forced me to remove myself from Wikipedia altogether for it is a waste of my time when jerks like this play these games. And if I return, ever, I will need the full name of Ehheh 216.16.54.147 17:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Merger into Loopholes in Bell test experiments
This concept isn't notable enough by itself to merit a separate article. I propose the article be trimmed down to just an explanation of what the loophole is, and added to Loopholes in Bell test experiments, where there is already a proposal on the talk page to add the information. Jim E. Black 03:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Looking at this again, I don't think the material belongs in the "Loopholes" article, because that seems to be a discussion about experimental issues. Jim E. Black 03:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

On third thought, it seems to be relevant despite the slight difference in subject, so I am going ahead with the "merger" (with complete rewrite) Jim E. Black (talk) 06:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The rewrite wasn't very good, and it is a different subject. Undoing. Jim E. Black (talk) 21:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I suggest, rather than merging this article back in with Bell's Inequality, to leave it separate or rather merge it into some other treatment of determinism. Personally I have never heard the term "superdeterminism" before now and consider it to be somewhat ridiculous that Bell would coin such a phrase. The concept is identical to that of "hard" determinism, strict causality or predestination and deserves to be treated in a larger, metaphysical sense. Benjamindees (talk) 19:09, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The use of the term "Loophole" is not appropriate for this, though it will be familiar to many. For example, the naive locality "loophole" can be physically excluded by separating the detectors and acting to set their state at a time when the information could not travel to the other detector at or below the speed of light in the future. That loophole is closed. Superdeterminism, however, is an INTRINSIC conflict within Bell's theorem. He assumes a local deterministic (hidden variable) universe which he then sets out to disprove. He does this by making what he calls a "vital assumption" (Einstein agreed) that the measured state is independent of the measurement settings on the detectors. But that is strictly false under a deterministic cosmology (everything is jointly interdependent). Zeilinger also notes this in his 2010 PNAS paper that the only way to "close" this "loophole" is to "presuppose non-determinism" in the first place which requires alternative evidence from another experiment (not Bell type experiments). As such it is not a loophole, but a class of interpretations of the results of Bell's experiment that is intrinsic to the theory and cannot be rejected by Bell type experiments. Using the term loophole is revealing of an community's metaphysics and inappropriate for this class of theories. In C.H. Brans 1988 paper titled "Bell's theorem does not eliminate fully causal hidden variables", he writes of this conflict and offers the rhetorical question, "How can we have part of the universe determined by [hidden variables] and another part not?" Superdeterminism is one of a class of possible EXPLANATIONS of the results of Bell's theorem and it cannot be closed without presupposing or independently demonstrating non-determinism or some form of causal disconnection in the cosmos (e.g. a substance dualism) which seems to be in the realm of metaphysics, not physics. Ogdin (talk) 19:33, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Irony
"Bell acknowledged the loophole, but argued that it was improbable." This is quantum mechanics. XD

Although I am a determinist, this particular attempt does not convince me: "There is no need for a faster than light signal to tell particle A what measurement has been carried out on particle B, because the universe, including particle A, already "knows" what that measurement, and its outcome, will be." I believe that the events of the universe travel in a line void of ramifications, with only one possible route (complicated by relativity), but for particles or the universe to "know", some sort of conscience is implied, perhaps supporting the argument for a passive but creator god. Of course, I'm atheist, so this doesn't work for me, either. Time to read De Broglie–Bohm theory. XD MichaelExe (talk) 16:37, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not the point. It's not that the universe knows, it says the initial condition will give a result in accordance with the observation because there is a 1 to 1 correlation. The big problem is the sensitivity of the hidden variable.Klinfran (talk) 23:56, 22 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I have read that De Broglie-Bohm's explanation can remain deterministic because it posits non-local hidden variables (action at a distance). A good case is made for that interpretation here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/. Still, I have also heard that De Broglie-Bohm has so far failed to be made to fit aspects of special relativity, so I am back to where I started: waiting for quantum physicists to start agreeing on something and hoping I'm right and it's deterministic. Tesseract2 (talk) 14:18, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect quotes removed
I've removed the second paragraph of the John Bell blockquote because it appears to be a combination of a non-quote, and an out-of-context quote.

The first portion, "The only alternative to quantum probabilities, superpositions of states, collapse of the wave function, and spooky action at a distance, is that everything is superdetermined." are the words (with some changes) of John Gribbin in the November 24, 1990 New Scientist article, "The man who proved Einstein was wrong".

The second portion, "For me it is a dilemma. I think it is a deep dilemma, and the resolution of it will not be trivial; it will require a substantial change in the way we look at things." are the words of John Bell, but regard a different topic: The hypothetical choice of realism versus locality. They come from his interview in The Ghost in the Atom (p. 48):

Interviewer: "'Bell's inequality is, as I understand it, rooted in two assumptions: the first is what we might call objective reality -- the reality of the external world, independent of our observations; the second is locality, or non-separability, or no faster-than-light signalling. Now, Aspect's experiment appears to indicate that one of these has to go. Which of the two would you like to hang onto?'"

John Bell's response: "'Well, you see, I don't know. For me it's not something where I have a solution to sell! For me it's a dilemma.  I think it's a deep dilemma, and the resolution of it will not be trivial; it will require a substantial change in the way we look at things...'"

J-Wiki (talk) 21:05, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Issues Summary
Here's a summary of issues above, that remain to be adressed:
 * Is this topic notable? I think it is becauase 1) it is one of the escape routes from Bell's theorem. 2) it could conceivably engender much debate.
 * Is it correctly named? In philosophy, this seems to go under a different name. Is the name 'superdeterminism' in wide-spread use, or should this article be renamed? (or redirected to another article in philosopy, covering the same material?) I don't know.
 * Lack of authoritative references. I'd like to see at least one reference to something authoritative, e.g. a stanford encyc. of philosophy article, or an arxiv post, or even a book chapter, that goes into greater detail. Because right now, we have a genreal sketch of the idea, unreferenced, and some referenced quotes from TV shows and passing mentions.
 * Lack of a theory. The article on Bell's theorem intimates that there exist 'theories of superdeterminism'; whereas this article lists exactly zero of such theories, nor does it even imply that any such theories exist.  To me, a theory would be some list of axioms, and some collection of mathematical levers and knobs that articulate and lead to some sort of equational predictions.  If there aren't any such theories, lets come out and state this clearly!  If there are theories, lets list at least one!

These are the issues that merit the 'expert attention' tag up top the aritcle.

BTW, I think the above are all points of philiosphy, rather than physics. Viewing this article as a mathematical physicist, I see nothing particularly wrong with it. I don't see anything that a physicist per-se could add, improve or clarify. I know of no axiomatic approach to QM that includes an 'axiom of superdeterminism' or something like that. BTW, Page and Wootters' ideas of "static" time may come close, but are never actually called superdeterminism. (BTW, we have no WP article on static time, despite it being 30 years old now, multi-authored, and recently experimentally tested. Wootters bio does not mention it.)

Anyway, this is more of a meta-physics, meta-science topic. User:Linas (talk) 18:03, 17 November 2013 (UTC)


 * "BTW, we have no WP article on static time, despite it being 30 years old now, multi-authored, and recently experimentally tested." Well, it's not really sourced, but there is a page for it to which this page now links in the "See also" section, and vice versa. Thank you, and you're welcome. 71.236.253.188 (talk) 05:12, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Regardingauthoratative references see http://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.3612v2.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.13.61 (talk) 01:15, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Can this article be expanded?
This seems like a limited amount of content for such an interesting concept. This is at least connected to relevant science today, because Bell's Theorem is defacto. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.204.98.70 (talk) 00:11, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Improving a quote?
Strangely, a quote from Zeilinger was edited by User:J-Wiki. I did not see that book, but I wonder: is it now the exact quote, or "better than Zeilinger"? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:45, 5 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Tsirel, the quote that I had originally placed in the article (in June 2012) is this:
 * "[Assuming superdeterminism,] everything is predetermined, including the decision of the observer about what he wants to measure... [S]uch a position would completely pull the rug out from underneath science... [A]n experiment is asking nature a question.  If nature determines the question, then we might as well not ask that question at all."
 * It is from the appendix of Dance of the Photons (p. 287). After placing it in the article, I realized that Zeilinger presents the appendix as being "authored" by a fictional alter-ego, "Professor A. Quantinger".  The quote is therefore fictional, so inappropriate for inclusion in the article.


 * The quote that I replaced it with (in August 2012) is:
 * "[W]e always implicitly assume the freedom of the experimentalist... 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."
 * This is a direct quote (without any changes of wording) from page 266, in the last chapter of the main body of the book, entitled "What Does it All Mean?", and is clearly from the nonfictional Zeilinger himself. J-Wiki (talk) 13:52, 5 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I see. Nice. Thanks for the detailed explanation. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 14:26, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Regarding "Unambiguous Empirical Evidence"
In order to have a topic about a "super-deterministic" universe as described by physicists John S Bell:

"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."

... philosophy cannot be used as a basis for this topic because metaphysics is not physics. Either the universe is absolutely deterministic or it is not, ambiguity of any kind is not acceptable including opinions, my own included. If the findings from the Tempt Destiny experiment which show that it was impossible to conduct an experiment without a selection event first being made are true then they also need to be true about our own existence or the findings are erroneous. Again, we are not talking about metaphysical assumptions or statistical degrees of certainty. Only absolute value, not opinions, will suffice. What this means is that not a single human being can be the source of a "super-deterministic" universe only nature itself. Thus, the Final Selection Thought Experiment was designed for all to confirm for themselves if the act of selection is a cognitive function of our reality or a physical necessity of our existence.

The first editor who has conducted the thought experiment in real life and then continues his/her existence without the ability to select has the unequivocal authority to dictate his terms on this topic. Until then, only nature can be considered the source of a super-deterministic universe and the research conducted by Morales serves only as a conduit about such a source.

Moving forward, I would like to propose that John S Bell's comment above be the starting point of this topic since he is the originator of the topic and that the content that follows deals with physical discussion not metaphysical assumptions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prephysics (talk • contribs) 04:03, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

The section about unambiguous empirical evidence was added, to my knowledge, by Manuel Morales himself, who is praising his own "evidence". The references he cites (5 through 7) are not to peer-reviewed journals. The General Science Journal is one that explicitly allows publication without impediment by "prejudice", i.e. without peer-reviewing. The other two references are at the preprint stage. Since this is pretended to be the result of twelve years of research, the lack of serious publications would suggest that the scientific world does not agree with Morales. In my opinion, the whole section about "Unambiguous Empirical Evidence" would best be removed. For the time being, I have put in the modifier "Claim of" in the title and added "according to his claim" and "claims to" in the appropriate places. Also I have put two sentences at the end of the section, pointing out that the preceding statements do not really seem to address the question of superdeterminism. If somebody decides to remove the section, these sentences should of course also be removed. My changes have been made only to mitigate the impression that this is endorsed as serious scientific work by Wikipedia.

Krenska (talk) 09:41, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

His summary "Logic or philosophy can never supersede reality" to this edit makes me suspect that he is not a physicist, and even, perhaps, а crank. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 09:59, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

And another pearl in the same style (but anonymous): "The peer for the findings is nature itself" (here). Wow! By the way, the correct link to the "peer-review article" mentioned is ; not unexpectedly, the author is Manuel Morales. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 07:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Note the link update of the recently hacked (http://temptdestiny.com/pdf/Nobel_laureate_AntonZeilinger_response.pdf) publisher of the "peer-review article" is: https://www.fundamentaljournals.org/index.php/ijfps/article/view/114/195 173.71.75.73 (talk) 14:27, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

By the way, I fail to find this author in INSPEC, INSPIRE, Scitation, WebOfSciences. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 08:47, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Surely a crank. No need to collect his pearls as I did above; better, just look here and you'll get much, much more. A single example: "What Do We Replace Science And Religion With?" Boris Tsirelson (talk) 12:58, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

The tag about improper references to self-published sources is certainly justified. Morales has - so far - added 6 references, 4 of which are to self-published stuff. One is a Wikipedia reference, not supporting any of his claims. Of his 5 own "papers", 3 are not papers, one is an in an online journal without peer reviewing, and one has been published in a Nigerian journal with an impact factor below 0.2. They probably get so few submissions that they will gladly accept everything for which a minor publication fee is paid. (I found out recently that some journals will publish your paper for 15 €...) The scientific quality of his utterances is zero. Krenska (talk) 20:49, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree, Morales is a crank. I would suggest to remove the whole "Unambiguous Empirical Evidence" part. What remains about superdeterminism after this seems ok, and it is also appropriate for superdeterminism to have a wiki page, given its importance in the discussions about Bell's inequality. But the Morales nonsense should be removed. Max Schmidt — Preceding unsigned comment added by Max Schmidt (talk • contribs) 11:19, 10 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes. Really, after this AfD discussion I hope for a major change by (at least) User:Count Iblis and User:TimothyRias. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 13:22, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I will gladly remove the "Claim of Unambiguous Empirical Evidence" immediately after anyone conducts the thought experiment in real life and continues their existence which will then show that the evidence is erroneous. Since the findings are unambiguous due to the source, i.e., Nature, our opinions to the contrary are irrelevant. Prephysics (talk) 20:00, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

ultra-windbag-ism
This article is ultra-windbag-ism.Chjoaygame (talk) 02:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

But it "is within the scope of WikiProject Physics"; if physicists prefer to keep away from it, then delete this confusing template and feel no more responsible for the content of this article. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 10:08, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Should be deleted. The article is ridiculous and not scientific at all — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.48.19.157 (talk) 13:52, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Crankery or not
The so-called "Unambiguous Empirical Evidence" is a crankery in the opinion of User:Krenska, User:Tsirel, User:Max Schmidt, User:Chjoaygame and IP 138.48.19.157 (see this talk page), as well as User:Headbomb, User:TimothyRias and IP 2.31.27.153 (see Articles_for_deletion/Superdeterminism, and in addition, User:Bkolaric1969, see User talk:Prephysics/Pre-physics. It is not a crankery in the opinion of User:Prephysics only. Well, also in the opinion of the nature (!!), according to User:Prephysics. :-) A consensus, or not yet? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 23:04, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Even more important than our opinions is policy. This is a rather exceptional claim and therefore requires exceptional sources. Since no such sources are provide other than that this is the WP:TRUTH. There is no basis for this section to stay in the article.TR 08:08, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. This editor is inclined to exceptional claims. His "What Do We Replace Science And Religion With?" (from his site, not from his contributions to WP, for now) is probably the most exceptional of all claims that I ever saw. It is hard to imagine, what kind of source could be enough for such claim. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 11:06, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Hypocrisy of Viewpoints
The opinions of the individuals as mentioned in the "Crankery or not" comment have outright failed to refute the unambiguous empirical evidence of a super-deterministic universe yet for some perverse reason think that shared ignorance is a valid position. It is one thing to express one's opinions in contradiction of such evidence but to lack the integrity to support one's opinions when provided the opportunity to do so via the Final Selection Thought Experiment is nothing short of hypocrisy.

No one is entitled to their own facts, including myself. To the "crankery" bunch, show some integrity by conducting the thought experiment in real life or at least stop making Wikipedia look like a farce with your transparent bias. Prephysics (talk) 02:51, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a place to discuss fact or the WP:TRUTH. Wikipedia is a tertiary information source. For the integratity of Wikipedia it is therefore essential that all non-trivial claims are supported by reliable secondary sources. The material you want add is only supported by WP:PRIMARY sources. Moreover, these are rather questionable primary sources is shaky journals.
 * Not that it is not Wikipedia or our job to refute any original claims. We simply have to wait for any such claims to be corroborated (or disproven) in the secondary literature before including them. Now please stop trying to use Wikipedia as your personal WP:SOAPBOX.TR 11:24, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * As noted by TimothyRias comments, policy supersedes opinions. However, he overlooked the fact that policy cannot supersede Nature itself which is indeed the topic at hand. If Wikipedia wishes to appear unbiased it needs to address what "superdeterminism" is, i.e., absolute determinism - the absence of free will. Up until now, superdeterminism was treated as conjecture by using philosophy as its foundation. This false assumption was based on reasoning not on empirical evidence. If unambiguous empirical evidence is considered an exceptional claim it is due to our lack of understanding of what is being claimed. All the more reason why the Final Selection Thought Experiment was needed to illustrate to all how unexceptional the claim truly is. There is but one source for such a claim and that is Nature itself. If anyone wishes to argue directly with Nature he/she has the means via the thought experiment to do so. Since no single editor wishes to argue with Nature in order to continue their existence and subsequently validate their opinions in contradiction to Nature's laws, there is no basis whatsoever for this topic not to be include the "Unambiguous Empirical Evidence" section. Until someone does show that they can indeed violate the laws that govern our existence, I will continue to insist that censorship of such evidence by the "crankery bunch" not be allowed. Prephysics (talk) 13:46, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * To Prephysicist: No one is entitled to remove or edit other's comments. Be informed that doing so you take the risk of being banned. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 14:07, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I understand that you feel a prophet of Nature. The problem is that others do not share your feeling. See But I know the truth!:
 * " For example, before Pasteur everybody considered the spontaneous generation theory to be true, and they were mistaken. Even so, if Wikipedia had existed before Pasteur, it should have treated it as an accepted theory.
 * And in this hypothetical scenario, what if Pasteur fixed the article on spontaneous generation after proving it was wrong? It wouldn't have been accepted."
 * Please understand that Wikipedia is not the place for brand new revelations.
 * Boris Tsirelson (talk) 14:12, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * To Boris Tsirelson, you stated, "No one is entitled to remove or edit other's comments." yet that has been repeatedly done to my comments. You are applying a double standard. Either no one is allowed to edit or everyone is allowed to edit as per Wikipedia "The Free Encyclopedia". Prejudice to which editors are allowed to edit and which ones are not is a violation of free speech in the United States and a contradiction to a "Free Encyclopedia".


 * No, this is a misunderstanding. Signed comments on talk pages is one thing, and (unsigned) edits to articles is a completely different thing. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 16:21, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Nature is not a "feeling" or a theory. Either it is "superdeterministic" or it is not, hence, absolute. Philosophy has nothing to do with the laws that govern our existence. Please feel free to conduct the thought experiment to prove Nature wrong and the "crankery bunch" opinions are valid. If you understood what the meaning of absolute meant you would have also understood that opinions in contradiction to Nature's laws will always be invalid. Prephysics (talk) 15:10, 11 September 2015 (UTC) — Prephysics (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * See above (again). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 16:23, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Boris, Nature is not a theory. Any consensus to the contrary of the attributes of Nature needs to be supported by conducting the thought experiment in real life. No one, including myself, is entitled to their own facts. It is foolish to think that consensus supersedes Nature, yet here we are. Prephysics (talk) 16:53, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Edit war
The single-purpose account "Prephysics" made 4 reverts (or even 5 reverts? see the edit of Sep 11 03:40) between Sep 10 22:39 and Sep 11 20:54 (and another revert at Sep 10 19:48), in violation of the three-revert rule. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 06:56, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree with you Tsirel, you have indeed initiated an edit war. I present facts, you inject conjecture as if they supersede facts and then continuously delete such facts: 20:15, 20 August 2015‎ Tsirel (talk | contribs)‎ . . (10,798 bytes) (+276)‎ . . (Undid revision 677043642 by Prephysics (talk) I revert unexplained revert of well-explained edit)

If the initial "well-explained edit" was valid then why have you not conducted the the thought experiment to validate your opinions? Are your opinions not worth validating?

Additional information: according to his talk page, the "Prephysics" account is owned by Manuel Morales himself. Thus, he is advocating his own opinion. See Conflict of interest:
 * "COI editors causing disruption may be blocked. Editors with a COI are strongly encouraged to follow Wikipedia policies and best practices scrupulously:
 * You can propose changes on the article talk page by using the template. These proposals may or may not be acted upon."

See also Conflict of interest:
 * "Using material you have written or published ... should not place undue emphasis on your work. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion."

And Neutral point of view:
 * "If you can prove a theory that few or none currently believe, Wikipedia is not the place to present such a proof."

And Fringe theories:
 * "Proponents of fringe theories have in the past used Wikipedia as a forum for promoting their ideas. Existing policies discourage this type of behavior: if the only statements about a fringe theory come from the inventors or promoters of that theory, then various "What Wikipedia is not" rules come into play. Wikipedia is neither a publisher of original thought nor a soapbox for self-promotion and advertising. The notability of a fringe theory must be judged by statements from verifiable and reliable sources, not the proclamations of its adherents. ... A conjecture that has not received critical review from the scientific community or that has been rejected may be included in an article about a scientific subject only if other high-quality reliable sources discuss it as an alternative position."

And Fringe theories:
 * "Note that fringe journals exist, some of which claim peer review. Only a very few of these actually have any meaningful peer review outside of promoters of the fringe theories, and should generally be considered unreliable."

Boris Tsirelson (talk) 18:34, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

'''Once again, Nature is not a "fringe" theory. Making excuses for lack of integrity to support one's opinions is a shameful practice. I have repeatedly asked the "Crankery Bunch" to support their opinions via the thought experiment but not a single one of you will do so. Instead you have chosen to delete what you have the lack of integrity to contest. Such hypocrisy screams loudly of bias, censorship, and prejudice!''' Prephysics (talk) 21:11, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Just an observation: on a much more active page "Higgs boson" a similar edit war "Morales against consensus" took 2 hours (and 10 minutes), with no trace at all on the talk page. :-) See history there on 28 Aug at 14-16. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 08:06, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Dispute resolution requested
Dispute_resolution_noticeboard

Boris Tsirelson (talk) 17:47, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Discussion closed. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 21:19, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Now archived: Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_123. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 19:49, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

't Hooft's views
Crankery aside, after this AfD discussion I hope for a major change by (at least) User:Count Iblis and User:TimothyRias, mostly, in relation to works of 't Hooft. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 15:57, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree, we then need to think about how best to do that. 't Hooft has written quit a few articles about his models and also why they are not a priori ruled out by invoking superdeterminism. Then in response to criticism that superdeterminism cannot possibly save any genuine scientific theory (pretty much based n the same argument as presented in he introduction of our wiki article, basically that everything is assumed to be predetermined then that's an unfalsifiable assumption not open to scientific inquiry), 't Hooft explained how superdeterminism can be invoked without the science becoming pathological. These more general arguments in the papers are what we need, because we need to avoid including too much details about models that only one or two scientists are working on. The people who voted for deletion in the AFD were concerned about a lack of secondary references, and this is indeed a borderline case where there aren't many different authors working on many different models, so we need to do an extra effort here to make sure what we write about superdeterminsm isn't "contaminated" by the details of how this concept is invoked in a particular case. Count Iblis (talk) 17:01, 13 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes! It is really important to know, "how superdeterminism can be invoked without the science becoming pathological" (quite nontrivial, even surprising). Please try. And indeed, his model(s) should be treated elsewhere (if at all). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 17:07, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Superdeterminism and Fate
What is the difference between superdeterminism and fate? If superdeterminism is just a fancy name for a common idea, is this not worth comment? And if it is not, is that not worth comment also? RQG (talk) 12:09, 16 September 2015 (UTC).


 * A matter of terminology. How do I know what exactly do you mean by "fate"? In some sense, "superdeterminism" is rather a synonym to "hard determinism" treated in Determinism. But if a word is used both in physics and in humanities, then inevitably its meaning is not exactly the same, do you agree? Look at the AfD discussion. There I wrote:
 * looking in "The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" by 't Hooft I see the word "superdeterminism" once in the abstract and then 1+3 times in Sect. 14.3 "Superdeterminism and Conspiracy" starting with:
 * "Superdeterminism may be defined to imply that not only all physical phenomena are declared to be direct consequences of physical laws that do not leave anything anywhere to chance (which we refer to as ‘determinism’), but it also emphasises that the observers themselves behave in accordance with the same laws. They also cannot perform any whimsical act without any cause in the near past as well as in the distant past. By itself, this statement is so obvious that little discussion would be required to justify it, but what makes it more special is that it makes a difference."
 * The rest of his text uses the term "determinism" (occurs about 120 times).
 * You see, he agrees that this is just the deteminism... and at the same time, not exactly... for an atheist, maybe. But if non-material souls exist, then probably not the same... a lot of nuances here.Boris Tsirelson (talk) 12:59, 16 September 2015 (UTC)


 * For many people, "fate" means that some prediction about me will come true inevitably, in one form or another, in one way or another, while the form and the way do depend on me (on my free will). Far from the "microscopic" determinism of the classical mechanics. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 13:23, 16 September 2015 (UTC)


 * As long as we think about physics (rather than, say, hard problem of consciousness, philosophical zombie etc.), free will is not really relevant. What is really relevant is, existence of local pseudorandom number generators that are, for all practical purposes, random (and local). In classical physics (mechanics plus statistical physics), such generators are abundant. Accordingly, one may well believe that the future is predetermined, but only in principle, while for all practical purposes we have free will. I think so. Do you agree? But in quantum physics, this harmony is undermined by Bell theorem. This is the context in which the term "superdeterminism" is used by Gerard 't Hooft and some others. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 13:37, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Confusing article
I think I understand many physics article, but this one confuses me. I don't know that to make of it. This "superdetermism" is presented as some exotic idea and expressions like "arguably unlikely" are used. Is it not just those two assumptions: 1) Humans are not exempt from the laws of physics just because we would like it to be so, and 2) what happens is a consequence of the state of the universe and not because of chance. Or am I mistaken?

I can understand that physicists would discuss 2), and I know they do since a long time (see God does not play dice). But is is possible that 1) is really a serious issue for real physicists? Like "no, we cannot construct our theories in a way that they apply to ourselves as well"? Not doing the obvious for religious reasons, in order to have a "true free will", or some kind of "soul"?

(I certainly live in the illusion of having a free will, and that's good enough for me. I don't care so much if what I do is determined by the physical state of the universe or by random quantum mechanical processes; I don't have a "true" free will in any way and I fail to see the difference it would make for my life. As an analogy: Falling dice seem random enough, whether they fall truly randomly or whether it just seems so because of the chaotic nature of what happens when they fall.) --167.0.112.239 (talk) 14:17, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * After reading more carefully the discussion above I found the quote by 't Hooft which seems to confirm that it's really just about "1)" and "2)". This also confirms my issues with this article. --167.0.112.239 (talk) 14:24, 17 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes... but did you see the last paragraph before your new section "confusing article"? And yes, it would be good, to base this article mostly on recent ideas of 't Hooft. Regretfully, no one volunteers this (for now). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 15:04, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

No Boundary Proposal and Lack of Boundary Conditions Upon which to specify Initial Conditions in the Universe
Forgive me if I have misunderstood the meaning of 'No Boundary' in the 'No Boundary Proposal' BUT if there is no Boundary, doesn't that mean there are no boundary conditions? So exactly where are the initial conditions defined, for those initial conditions that determine the future evolution of the universe in this deterministic model? I added a 'citation needed' tag at the relevant point which mentions that the correlations are defined 'at the big bang' (assuming that it is possible to talk of an 'at the big bang' as, possibly, there is no 'at the big bang' if (i) you believe in the instanton model, there is no boundary (I believe the instanton model is part of the no boundary proposal) AND (ii) Singularities might not exist at all, dependant upon your views of singularities.

I could be missing the mark quite considerably in the above comments - especially as this is not the easiest area of knowledge to understand. ASavantDude (talk) 22:25, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

This article is not encyclopedic in nature - it is not neutral
The final bit that the reader is left with is a nonsense.

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

You put a lump of Plasticine on a trolley and you use it to discern the laws of nature - this sort of experiment has been extremely useful to mankind. Whether the experimenter has free will or not is irrelevant - and it does not have to be assumed.

I won't try modifying the article - my experience is there would be a revert. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2Je2 (talk • contribs) 13:21, 15 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I agree, and the final comment strikes me as dogmatic and even a bit partisan. Science also plays the role of providing a more concise description of nature; especially in the case of cosmology, where there is no notion of "repeatability" or "the experimenter controls the pre-sets", etc. The central issue here is: is science solely about test & control + prediction, or is it about algorithmic compression; i.e. finding descriptions of the universe, or parts of it, of a complexity that more and more closely approximate the Kolmogorov complexity of what is being described?

Needs Updating
Since numerous loophole free results are in now and local realism/hidden variables has been definitely disproved, either a tag or actually doing the update is appropriate. A drastic step but justifiable step would just be deletion. At this point just looked at lede. 98.4.124.117 (talk) 18:09, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Tests regarding Bell's theorem are irrelevant with respect to superdeterminism. As the article states, superdeterminism evades Bell's theorem.J-Wiki (talk) 06:27, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
 * OK. In response to another comment in side/back matter here, I saw an expression of outrage in the use of the term "Free Will" in a physics context. This too was my reaction until reading a blog piece on Scientific American with a title like "Coming to grips with implications of Quantum Mechanics" by one of the proponents of this (FW in physics) this last week. What they are saying is that mind is emergent in the universe in an analogous way as it does from a human brain and the main evidence for this being the relation of measurement to superposition and entanglement. The latter show the transpersonal mind in the same way that language and culture and other manifestations of it do the human mind. I am not fully buying this but I do now see it as no less cogent and perhaps more so, albeit in a very incomplete way, than other, mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics. So the free will in question is the operation of this impersonal mind as seen when superposition and entanglement collapse in measurement. I would say this was midway between pilot wave and many worlds in terms of offending the sense of reason and the latter is not generally so received so I would expect more development of it (FW/kosmos as nous). 98.4.124.117 (talk) 13:33, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Removal of unpublished pre-print
Tsirel, let's not start an edit war. The addition of that pre-print clearly violates Wikipedia policy. WP:RS clearly states that "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Hossenfelder is an expert on quantum gravity, and Palmer is an expert in meteorology. Neither is an expert in quantum foundations, therefore their paper must be peer-reviewed before being accepted here. Also, it violates WP:DUE because they are defending a fringe view, and citing it as the first reference on superdeterminism, to support the sentence "In quantum mechanics, superdeterminism is a hypothetical class of theories that evade Bell's theorem by virtue of being completely deterministic" is clearly giving it undue weight. After it has been peer-reviewed, it can be added to note that these researchers are defending this fringe view, much like 't Hooft is being noted. Tercer (talk) 21:47, 14 January 2020 (UTC)


 * OK; I'd only say that this is worth to discuss with User:John Baez. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:06, 15 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Since he didn't show up I just removed it again. Tercer (talk) 07:54, 16 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Sorry for violating this policy. I added the reference because it starts with a good overview of superdeterminism and the history of this idea.  If I remember, I'll put the reference back in when it's published.  But I probably won't remember. John Baez (talk) 16:47, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything about the history of the idea there. If that's what you're after, this peer-reviewed paper by an established expert does give the definition and the history: arXiv:1407.0363 (actually, I'll include it anyway as this article is in a sorry state). I'm really opposed to the inclusion of this reference defending a fringe point of view. Tercer (talk) 18:20, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I think the source under discussion here was published on 6 May 2020, and so should perhaps be considered for inclusion: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2020.00139/full#h7. Crust (talk) 02:03, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Tercer, you've removed the reference to this paper by Sabine Hossenfelder and Tim Palmer 3 times in recent days, after it was added by 3 different people, including John Baez, yes this John Baez. You also previously removed it multiple times when it was an arXiv preprint, citing WP:RS grounds. Now your grounds are that it is in your view "fringe". Clearly, support for superdeterminism is very much a minority view -- I don't think anyone would dispute that -- but I don't think Hossenfelder and Palmer could fairly be described as "fringe", nor Baez who is a well-respected theoretical physicist (who I think disagrees with the article but views it as meriting inclusion). The article is about superdeterminism, so including a respected viewpoint in favor of it seems appropriate to me. I will put it back in a second time and walk away, but I strongly suggest you not revert it a 4th time (not counting your previous reversions when it was a preprint) and instead try to convince others here of your view that it should be excluded. Crust (talk) 22:16, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The paper has been added by John Baez and re-added by Naasking before you. I did explain my reasoning of why the paper shouldn't be added (see last section of the talk page), and they didn't reply further nor added the paper again, so I assumed I did manage to convince them. In my original comment I mentioned that it was a violation of WP:RS and WP:DUE. As it got published, it might not be a violation of WP:RS anymore (might because it's a crap journal), so I'm arguing about WP:DUE now. Simply put, we talk about flat Earth, but not from the flat Earther point of view. And yes, the paper by Hossenfelder and Palmer is in flat-Earther territory. They are defending an idea that, in the words of actual experts on nonlocality, is about as plausible, and appealing, as, belief in ubiquitous alien mind-control.
 * There's also a problem with the specific edit I'm reverting. It writes that However, recent work on superdeterminism has disputed claims of "conspiracy" and "fine-tuning", essentially because these are properties of specific superdeterministic theories, not all possible superdeterministic theories, but this is not true at all. First because "fine-tuning" is a property of all possible superdeterministic theories, this is a well-known theorem, and second because Hossenfelder and Palmer are not claiming that, what they claim is simply that "fine-tuning" is not a problem.
 * So yeah, I'm reverting it again. Tercer (talk) 23:19, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

You haven't convinced me of anything, but I have better things to do with my time. John Baez (talk) 00:14, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Neither am I convinced, but discussion on talk pages rarely goes anywhere in my experience. Truth will out. Re: fine-tuning, many scientific theories are "fine-tuned" in a general sense as the paper points out. The argument against superdeterminism is that is fine-tuned in a specifically objectionable way. This is what everyone means when they invoke "fine-tuning", so you're equivocating when you say that fine-tuning is a feature of all superdeterministic theories (true of the more general meaning which isn't objectionable) while also saying that everyone objects to it (true only of the specific type classically attributed to superdeterminism but which the paper disproves as a necessary property). That description you quote was thus a correct summary of this point, although more elaboration may be warranted when this work is eventually widely accepted and becomes worthy of mention on Wikipedia. Naasking (talk) 16:36, 28 Februrary 2021 (UTC)

Wording of intro
Reference 1 of the article contains the following statement: "'It is possible that all events in the universe share common causes, a philosophical view called superdeterminism'" This was cited to support the first sentence of the article: "In quantum mechanics, superdeterminism is a loophole in Bell's theorem, that allows one to evade it by postulating that a system being measured is necessarily correlated with the choice of which measurement to make on it." However, this wording is ambiguous, because "necessarily correlated" could be understood to imply that the cause must be deterministic (i.e., due to "necessity"), but the cause could be non-deterministic. For example, for argument's sake, the correlations could be due to an an advanced alien intelligence just messing around. To avoid the ambiguity, I have reworded the first sentence: "In quantum mechanics, superdeterminism is a loophole in Bell's theorem, that allows one to evade it by postulating that all measured systems are causally correlated with the choices of which measurements to make on them." J-Wiki (talk)
 * There is nothing about determinism in the word "necessity". It just means that the correlations are necessarily there, that is, it is not possible not to have them. I don't see how your alien intelligence argument follows. If it's due to somebody else messing with our experiments, and not due to the laws of physics themselves, that's not superdeterminism.
 * Also, I'm unhappy with the expression "measured system" in your version of the sentence. It suggests the existence of a "measured" category for systems, a dualistic classification completely absent from the source. Tercer (talk) 07:49, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
 * - Another term for physical determinism is "nomological necessity".
 * - John Bell, introducing the term superdeterminism:
 * "You know, one of the ways of understanding this business is to say that the world is super-deterministic. That not only is inanimate nature deterministic, but we, the experimenters who imagine we can choose to do one experiment rather than another, are also determined. If so, the difficulty which this experimental result creates disappears... In the analysis it is assumed that free will is genuine, and as a result of that one finds that the intervention of the experimenter at one point has to have consequences at a remote point, in a way that influences restricted by the finite velocity of light would not permit. If the experimenter is not free to make this intervention, if that also is determined in advance, the difficulty disappears. (The Ghost in the Atom, P.C.W. Davies and J. Brown, ch.3, p.47)"
 * If the advanced alien intelligence could mess with the laws of physics, then this would seem to qualify, and be causal yet not "necessary". Again, this is just for argument's sake.
 * - I agree with your point regarding the expression "measured system", and will change it.
 * J-Wiki (talk) 04:26, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The "alien intelligence" idea is from you, not from any reliable source. It wouldn't qualify, precisely because it wouldn't be necessary. Also, the common meaning of necessary is perfectly clear. It doesn't involve determinism. Tercer (talk) 07:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have not indicated otherwise regarding the casual (and unserious) example I provided. The point of my edits has been to avoid ambiguous wording, that does not align with a cited reference.  Consideration of only a common meaning of a word is not appropriate here, as it would be in the Simple English Wikipedia.  This article is on a topic that is within the realm of philosophy, where the word "necessity" does have clear relation to determinism, so implicit consideration of such a connotation is appropriate.J-Wiki (talk) 05:20, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * No, the word "necessity" is not related to determinism, in either philosophical or common speech. Except of course in the sense that the presence of the correlation is deterministic, which is precisely what we are trying to say. It is always there, it is unavoidable. Tercer (talk) 09:34, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Reference added, deleted
I added a useful reference to a detailed, clear, refereed paper on superdeterminism:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphy.2020.00139/full

Tercer reverted my edit, claiming that this is a "fringe" paper. But I'll leave it to the rest of you to sort this out. John Baez (talk) 03:06, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It is a matter of fact that this paper is defending a fringe point of view: virtually everyone in the foundations community disagrees with it. Tercer (talk) 08:35, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm curious where you've seen a survey of physicists' opinions on this paper or superdeterminism in general that you can conclude that "virtually everyone in the foundations community disagrees with it". Naasking (talk) 20:25, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm a physicist working on foundations myself, and I have talked about it with my colleagues, who all agree that it is downright embarrassing. Not that my anecdotal evidence matters for Wikipedia, or even an actual survey of physicist's opinions. What matters is that superdeterminism is often not even mentioned in papers on nonlocality, as it is not worth mentioning, and in the rare occasions when it it is mentioned it is summarily dismissed as a terrible idea. Tercer (talk) 20:50, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That fact that it is published in frontiers is not great. - MrOllie (talk) 20:52, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Tercer seems to be in the habit of removing all references to things he disagrees with. Superdeterminism is pretty silly in my opinion but the reference John Baez supplied is a pretty complete description of it and thus is fine in an article on the topic. Antony Valentini even references the paper and he is an expert on quantum foundations. Surely that is enough. 64.43.31.141 (talk) 16:31, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This IP user is desperately trying to insert some nonsense in the Wave function collapse article and decided to WP:HOUND me here because I'm not allowing them. Tercer (talk) 16:45, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Well I simply tried to put in references to the work of Belavkin, Peres, Buchholz and Omnes. Your insistence that this was nonsense despite making basic errors about C*-algebraic states made me curious what other articles you were trying to control and remove all reference to things you didn't like and I found this one. If that's "hounding" far enough, but what you're doing is daft. 64.43.31.141 (talk) 17:37, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Superdeterminism seems silly to me. But that's irrelevant: you don't need to believe in superdeterminism to realize that it's one of the logically possible ways around Bell's arguments against local realistic theories: Bell's arguments assume free will, in the sense that the two experimenters are free to independently decide what they measure. There are theorems to this effect, and the paper by Sabine Hossenfelder and Tim Palmer is a great source of information on such theorems. But whatever. It's okay if Tercer defends the honor of Wikipedia by preventing an article on theory X to refer to that gives a clear explanation of theory X on the grounds that theory X is silly. People who want to understand superdeterminism will just need to go elsewhere. John Baez (talk) 18:55, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * No, the paper is not a great source of information on superdeterminism, precisely because it's advocating a fringe point of view on it. My position is of course not that we are not allowed to give clear explanations of silly theories. My position is that we should explain them from the mainstream point of view, which is in fact Wikipedia policy. We don't discuss the flat Earth idea from a flat Earther point of view. And there are mainstream papers, from actual experts on nonlocality and foundations, giving a clear explanation about superdeterminism. For example, the article by Larsson which is ref 1 in this article. If you find Larsson's paper wanting for some reason I can give you other references.
 * (digressing a little bit, the assumption in Bell's theorem is not "free will", one could not hope to prove a theorem based on such a vague idea! The actual assumption is that one can prepare a physical system that's uncorrelated with the measurement settings. This can be done in a completely mechanical way, without anyone's free will being involved. And this is in fact how it's done in actual Bell tests, except of course the BIG Bell test.) Tercer (talk) 19:46, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * There's disagreement on that though. See Landsman's reformulation of the Kochen-Conway theorem where the choice of apparatus can't be modeled via hidden variables, even stochastic ones. I'm not really interested if that's the same as a philosopher's notion of Free Will, but it does make it less clear that it can be completely mechanical (Depending on what one means by mechanical). 64.43.31.141 (talk) 20:51, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Superdeterminism isn't directly or clearly defined in the lead
What I've learned from the lead:


 * 1) Superdeterminism is a loophole to yada yada.
 * 2) A hidden variable theory which is superdeterministic--which is still not defined--satisfies Bell's notions of local causality while still "violat[ing] the inequalities derived from Bell's theory."
 * 3) Superdeterminism is somehow "misleading" because superdeterministic models are "deterministic in some sense" (I'm shocked) but also postulate correlations of yada yada and so forth.

I'd rewrite this lead but since I actually came here to find out what superdeterminism is I'm probably not qualified to do so at this time. Rev Prez (talk) 00:37, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

The name "superdeterminism" is not clearly misleading
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ,

"It should be noted that superdeterminism is a condition that is considerably stronger than mere determinism. It is uncontroversial that the sort of devices that Bell speaks of, which have the effect of making the choice setting of an experimental parameter depend on initial conditions in a way that is highly sensitive to small perturbations and which would ordinarily be accepted as effectively randomizing the choice, do exist. Superdeterminism requires these settings to be nonetheless determined by the conditions at some past time, in such a way that the settings are distributed in just the right way to produce the quantum statistics in Bell-type experiments, despite the underlying physics being local, no matter what randomization method is employed."

Emphasis mine. The statement that superdeterminism is the same as determinism, as laid out in the lead, is wrong. I have removed the sentence. AndreasBM (talk) 18:45, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Is Physics Essays a reliable source?
I am attempting to add a citation to Dr. Johan Hansson's article in Superdeterminism. His article is published in Physics Essays. The article can be found here: FULLTEXT01.pdf (diva-portal.org)

According to Wikipedia, Physics Essays is a reliable source. Physics Essays - Wikipedia

Tercer claims that Physics Essays is unreliable and also claims that the unreliable.js script marks it unreliable. However, the unreliable.js script is inoperable on my page and Tercer did not give me any instructions on how to use the script. In any event, does anyone have any objections to me adding Dr. Hansson's article to the Superdeterminism page? ScooterMcGruff (talk) 23:36, 22 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia's article on the journal does not say that it is a reliable source (it wouldn't, that would be a self-reference). You have misunderstood. You've been reverted by two people, so we obviously both object. You would need a secondary source to write about something like this - a primary source does not establish that it should have a mention here. MrOllie (talk) 23:42, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Physics Essays is a dubious source at best. Not all papers are utterly terrible, but there's something very suspicious about the reviewing process over there. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:51, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I remain unconvinced that there is a reviewing process over there. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 00:20, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I simply trying to add Dr. Hansson's paper to the Superdeterminism page. Who here is willing to read this 3 page paper and explain to me what is wrong with the physics, if anything?  FULLTEXT01.pdf (diva-portal.org) ScooterMcGruff (talk) 00:24, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * We're not going to debate the content of the paper with you, we're not a discussion forum. MrOllie (talk) 00:30, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * You cannot cite papers as unreliable as evidence of the unreliability of a journal, and then not read the paper at issue as relevant to the question of the reliability of the journal. That's totally inconsistent. ScooterMcGruff (talk) 00:31, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * No, it's entirely consistent. Physics Essays publishes total garbage, therefore Physics Essays is unreliable, therefore we don't use Physics Essays as a source for Wikipedia. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 00:33, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * That's your baseless opinion. ScooterMcGruff (talk) 00:35, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Will you read the Dr. Hansson's paper and discuss any errors in the physics you find? It's only 3 pages long. Here's the article:FULLTEXT01.pdf (diva-portal.org) ScooterMcGruff (talk) 00:35, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * No, again, we're not going to look for errors in the paper. That doesn't matter. We rely on the authority of the publisher, and this publisher has none. MrOllie (talk) 00:35, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Another baseless opinion. ScooterMcGruff (talk) 00:36, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * You're welcome to think so, but that is what Wikipedia policy states (WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR). If you want to edit here you will have to learn to work within our system. MrOllie (talk) 00:37, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Does any expert on theoretical physics have the courage to read Dr. Hansson's three page paper and discuss any errors in the physics? Anyone?  Here's the article:FULLTEXT01.pdf (diva-portal.org)  ScooterMcGruff (talk) 00:38, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * No. Stop posting the same thing over and over. Thanks! MrOllie (talk) 00:38, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The OP has been blocked as a sockpuppet. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:12, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Sentence clarification
I request clarification for the sentence: <>


 * 1) Please fix the English! It is not understandable what is the statement.
 * 2) Is the referred Bell's expression relevant here? Am not en expert but the full sentence from the Bell's article: "The vital assumption [2] is that the result B for particle 2 does not depend on the setting a, of the magnet for particle 1, nor A on b." describes a Parameter Independence statement while superdeterminism is about assuming no Statistical Independence, i.e. hidden variables probability distribution CAN depend on the experimental settings. Can an expert in the field please refer to a very relevant Bell's article pointing out the key assumption that is denied by superdeterminism?

Ang1972 (talk) 17:10, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Please state clearly that no superdeterministic theories have yet been formulated.
The first sentence of the article almost suggests that superdeterminism is an existing theory,and does not make clear that it is only a loophole. Many laypersons refer to it as if it were an existing theory. That is harmful. 143.177.147.157 (talk) 11:37, 14 November 2023 (UTC)


 * You're right. I've reverted the article to the state it was before these misleading edits were made. Tercer (talk) 11:56, 14 November 2023 (UTC)