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Entanglement Could Be a Deterministic Phenomenon
KentuckyFC writes "Nobel prize-winning physicist Gerard 't Hooft has joined the likes of computer scientists Stephen Wolfram and Ed Fredkin in claiming that the universe can be accurately modeled by cellular automata. The novel aspect of 't Hooft's model is that it allows quantum mechanics and, in particular, the spooky action at a distance known as entanglement to be deterministic. The idea that quantum mechanics is fundamentally deterministic is known as hidden variable theory but has been widely discounted by physicists because numerous experiments have shown its predictions to be wrong. But 't Hooft says his cellular automaton model is a new class of hidden variable theory that falls outside the remit of previous tests. However, he readily admits that the new model has serious shortcomings — it lacks some of the basic symmetries that our universe enjoys, such as rotational symmetry. However, 't Hooft adds that he is working on modifications that will make the model more realistic (abstract)."
Free will is a sham. Of course, believe whatever you will. It's not like you have a choice.
Bell's inequalities fall apart if current particles can "know" about future measuring devices. However, for particle physics, neither direction of time is privileged. Particles are just as likely to be influenced by future interactions as they are by past interactions. Because of this, there is no "action at a distance". Influences travel along the backwards light cone and remain perfectly relativistic.
This simple, straightforward solution has been largely ignored.
Note that most interpretations of quantum mechanics are explicitly time asymmetric due to the "collapse" caused by observation. Cramer's transactional theory is an exception, it is symmetric and there is no collapse, but it doesn't get much attention.
If Stephen Wolfram turns out to be correct, his ego will collapse into a singularity form the rapid mass inflation it will under go, taking the Earth with him.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
It's not really valid, though; it makes a false distinction between "a hidden variable" and "a hidden variable controlled by another hidden variable" as if they were different. Bell's theorem covers (or at least appears to cover) any additional information or state, regardless of the theory or process involved, provided that state is "attached" to the entangled particles (that is, it's local).
When you model the universe in terms of will-less mechanisms, you will (amazing!) discover that free will is a logical impossibility.
Trying to model free will in terms of physics is like trying to describe the combustion engine using only the words found in a book on home gardening.
The only reason some people find this personally problematic is because they have decided that our current model of physics is also the concrete, accurately-represented holy truth. In fact, our current model is just an abstract representation of something we can't see, and it is just the best we've come up with so far (in fact, any scientist worth his salt will predict that our models will change in the future).
So the quantum-mechanical model of the universe is incompatible with any free-will-is-real model of the universe. So what? This incompatibility doesn't make either theory right or wrong. The evidence for each theory is all that matters.
As Epicurus (one of the fathers of the modern scientific method) advised, "if several theories are consistent with the observed data, retain them all."