[ExI] Google’s Willow Quantum Chip: Proof of the Multiverse?

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 1:30 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 8, 2025, 1:10 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 1:04 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
>> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> > How would you describe the difference between "determinism" and "superdeterminism?"
>> >
>> > From all your writings on superdeterminism, you never seem to suggest any difference between the two. Do you think they are equivalent?
>>
>> That depends on your definitions of the term.  I must insist that you
>> go first, as my usual experience on this topic is that any explanation
>> I give is immediately strawmanned into someone else's definitions, who
>> then claims they are "right" when they have actually given
>> non-sequiturs.
>
> Let's go with what Google's AI gave me when I searched: difference between determinism and superdeterminism
>
> This is what it provided:
>
> "Determinism states all events are causally inevitable, while superdeterminism is a stricter version that adds the assumption that the choices of experimental measurements are also predetermined and correlated with the system being measured. This means that not only are the outcomes of experiments fixed, but the very act of setting up the experiment is coordinated with the outcome, making it impossible to test for randomness and free will in the conventional sense.
>
> Determinism
>
> Definition: All events, including human decisions, are predetermined by prior causes and conditions.
>
> Example: A simple physics example is predicting a ball's trajectory based on its initial position and velocity. A more complex one is that every event in the universe is the inevitable result of the laws of physics acting on the initial conditions of the universe.
>
> Key principle: Causes lead to effects in a predictable chain.
>
> Superdeterminism
>
> Definition: A more extreme version of determinism where the choices made by experimenters (like selecting a measurement setting) are also part of the predetermined chain of events, correlated with the system being measured.
>
> Example: In a quantum experiment, a superdeterministic universe would ensure that the choice of measurement setting and the outcome of that measurement are correlated from the beginning of time. The "randomness" is an illusion, as the experiment was pre-arranged to produce a specific result.
>
> Key principle: The assumption of measurement independence, which is central to how scientists design experiments and interpret results, is violated."
>
>
> I find these definitions perfectly acceptable and standard.
>
> Do you agree with them?
>
> Under these definitions, do you see a difference between determinism and superdeterminism?
>
> Under these definitions, do you believe in this version of superdeterminism?
>
> For reference: I believe in determinism, but I reject superdeterminism. They are (in my view ) not at all the same thing. One makes science possible, the other makes science impossible.

Fair enough.  Then by that...what I believe in is somewhere between
the two, that I don't have a good term for yet.  I use
"superdeterminism" as it's more than strictly local determinism.
Maybe "superdeterminism lite" would be more accurate?

In every observed case, it has not been ruled out that the backstop
for where the states were defined is not just further back than is
being discussed.  (In particular, people keep talking about quantum
entanglement as if the states do not exist until measured, but if they
exist before measurement it would explain a lot.  In the
three-particle experiment I quoted, the phrasing of the experiment
definition suggests that the results are preordained from when the
detectors are set up, possibly before, despite the detectors being
independent after being set up.)

Full superdeterminism - all the way back to the Big Bang or beyond -
has not been proven and might not be provable, but neither is it
strictly necessary.  The theoretical delta is one of the angles
through which "free will", however one defines it, and true randomness
may be able to come in.

It is also of note that the full set of initial conditions appears to
potentially be unknowable, at least within the same universe.  For
instance, this implies that a transporter-like device, which reads
every quantum state of the transported object and then does something
with that information, may be impossible - or at least would require
much more information storage than is inherent in matter that
constitutes the object being transported.  Even uploaded copies of
organic brains might theoretically be imperfect, although if they can
be gotten close enough - if the delta in being is equal to or less
than the natural delta in being that people experience over a few
months (or whatever adjustment time is seen as reasonable) anyway,
especially after major life changes comparable to switching to a new
body - then it may not matter in practice.

This technically makes absolute perfect determinism impossible,
although it is often possible to know the initial conditions well
enough for practical use.  (I can't know for certain that, after I
kick a ball in front of me, every particle in the ball will not
suddenly teleport behind me - but I know the odds against that are
high enough that I can assume it will go forward in practice.)  This
colors the desire for knowledge or prediction of the initial states
for superdeterminism: even if one could theoretically model a set of
values to fit the observed result, it might not matter if no actual
case was ever able to measure or screen for that set of values.

Part of this, I admit, is cynicism after seeing so many examples that
I have lost count where things were supposed to be independent or
random, but subsequently turned out to be provably rigged - and worse,
when I leaned into the assumption that things were rigged (when
fairness and justice demanded that one act as if they were not), I was
often ultimately rewarded if I could figure out how I could exploit
it.  Figuring out the initial values of human systems is easier than
figuring out the initial values of large sets of particles.