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

[Jason Resch]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 1:06 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 12:29 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 12:04 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >> On Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 9:32 AM John Clark via extropy-chat
> >> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >> > On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 1:05 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >> >> > How would you describe the difference between "determinism" and
> "superdeterminism?"
> >> >
> >> > Determinism simply says that the present is uniquely caused by the
> past, that's it. It says nothing about initial conditions. Superdeterminism
> makes the additional assumption that out of the infinite number of states
> the past could've been in, it was actually in the one and only state that
> invalidates the scientific method and always makes fools of anybody who
> tries to investigate the fundamental nature of reality.
> >>
> >> To say that it "always makes fools of" implies a conscious desire and
> >> intent.  No such thing is in evidence.
> >>
> >> One makes a fool of oneself if one insists that everything must be
> >> only a certain way despite the evidence, but it is neither the
> >> evidence nor reality itself that is doing the fool-making in this
> >> scenario.
> >
> > I think the problem here is that you are using the word
> "superdeterminism" to mean something else (to refer to your own theory),
> rather than what is conventionally understood to be meant by the word.
> >
> > If you follow the standard definition of superdeterminism, then
> *something* is operating to fool us.
>
> No, no such thing is.  It doesn't matter if you go by strict/maximum
> superdeterminism or my "superdeterminism lite": neither theory
> involves any conscious entity with that sort of malicious intent.
>

Note: nowhere in my explanation did I make any reference to consciousness,
maliciousness, nor an entity.

If you want to understand why I, John, and so many others have such a
strong distaste for superdeterminism, you must fully understand what is
involved in the ordinary definition of it. If it were regular determinism,
and if it could explain away the quantum statistics, I would be 100% on
board with you, this is the simplest theory, we don't need FTL influences
or other universes. But that is not what superdeterminism is.


>
> > The statistics make it impossible for any ordinary system of hidden
> variables to work, but if superdeterminism is true, then then there really
> are hidden variables, but the assignment of these variables operates in a
> manner that guarantees (however we may try to avoid it) that we see
> statistics that make us believe it just couldn't possibly be hidden
> variables. This is what John and I mean when we say that the universe
> operates in a way to "fool us."
>
> Problem is, "fool us" means there is conscious intent.  That's the
> standard definition: "fool" here is a verb, therefore, something is
> doing the action upon "us", the noun, and "fool" involves conscious
> intent by definition.
>
> It's the definition of "fool us", not the definition of
> "superdeterminism", that's causing the issue here.
>

Do you understand why "fool us" is the most appropriate verb to describe
what must be involved in a superdeterministic universe? If not, then I
would have to conclude you are not fully appreciating the difference
between determinism and superdeterminism.


>
> > All quantum theories are many-worlds theories. It is just that some
> quantum theories propose that all the other branches suddenly disappear
> (under conditions they can neither define, nor test).
>
> Are you saying that superdeterminism is a many-world theory?  I
> thought that the former was explicitly not, and is an alternative to,
> the latter set.
>

Full many-worlds (in contast to the "semi-many-worlds" other theories) says
that the branches continue to exist after a conscious measurement. The
other theories say the other worlds only exist so long as we're not looking.

But any quantum theory that describes the two-slit experiment, necessarily
involves unobserved "mirror photons" that are there and have real-world
observable effects (like interference). These mirror photons represent
other possible states the (multi)/(uni)verse is simultaneously in.

So to the extent that superdeterminism explains the two-slit experiment, it
too would be a quasi-many worlds theory. It just (like all the others)
assumes other branches stop existing after a measurement is made.

Normally superdeterminism is put forward only as a means to explain Bell
inequalities, and usually it is silent on conventional/standard QM ideas
like the two-slit experiment, so I don't know how a usual
superdeterministic would explain the mirror photon and its interference
effects.


>
> > But photons having hidden variables assigned in a way that anticipates
> what a human brain, or a radioactive source, or a computer generating
> digits of sqrt(19) will be doing 10 light years away, no.
>
> No such anticipation is needed.  Conditions can be set up so that if a
> human brain (or the alternatives) does its thing later, the results
> will be in a certain way, but that does not require anticipation of
> any specific actor doing that exact thing.
>

If you still insist on this, I have to conclude that you do not understand
the consequences of Bell's Theorem (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem ) as they relate to the
experiment.

There is simply no way that an entangled photon (in a single state (not a
superposition of multiple simultaneous states)) can carry enough
information with it (from the time it is first created) to know to disagree
with its partner photon 75% of the time, when the polarizing filters are
offset by 120 degrees, and to agree with its partner photon 100% of the
time when the polarizing filters are aligned.

This is what is meant when all physicists agree that single, local, hidden
variables have been disproven. It is why a Nobel prize was given for the
experimental work confirming Bell's predicted statistics.

To clarify your position: are you claiming that Bell and the work of these
physicists is wrong about ruling out "single, local, hidden variables"? I
do not dispute that physicists can be wrong, but I want to know if this is
what you are claiming here.

Also: do you understand why the 75% anti-correlation is surprising? If not,
I would suggest the exercise of taking a pen and paper, and trying to work
out what the hidden variables would have to include to produce this
anti-correlation using information locally present (about the setting of
the polarizing filter) and the fixed information the photon carried with it
when it was created --- *but importantly* without the photon (or its
partner) already knowing the position the polarizing filter would be in, at
the time the photon pair was created.

It is only in attempting this, that I think you will appreciate the
significance of Bell's result. It is very subtle, I admit, but when you
understand it, I think you understand just how remarkable it is and the
implications it carries for the reality we are in.


>
> It's like if I produce weighted dice, that will almost always come out
> with a 1 and a 6.  If a later observer comes along, sees the dice,
> declares that they must be fair and independent, and keeps rolling
> 7...I did not specifically anticipate that, or any, observer.  Nor did
> I arrange to make a fool out of that particular observer.  That
> observer may have been born after I made those dice - indeed, possibly
> after I forgot all about them, migrated off of Earth (supposing the
> observer is born on Earth), et cetera.  I have no animus toward nor
> knowledge of that observer.  So, to say that I specifically made those
> dice to make a fool of that observer is demonstrably incorrect.  Nor
> did I produce any sign saying that these dice are fair; the only one
> assuming they ever were fair is that observer.
>

Bell's inequality violation is stranger than weighted dice. Weighted dice
can be easily explained mechanistically. The violation of Bell inequalities
cannot be explained mechanistically by any classical machine behavior.
Again, to appreciate this point, try to work out some table of
information/behavioral results that can result in 75% anti-correlation.

Think of it like this: Jack and Jill, Bob and Barbara, and Alex and Alice
are three pairs of brother-sister siblings. Jack, Bob, and Alex stay on
earth, while Jill, Barbara, and Alice go to Proxima Centauri. Somewhere in
between special coins are created and sent to Earth and Porxima Centauri at
the speed of light (so there is no time for causal interactions to have any
effect. The special coins have this mysterious effect:

- When any sibling pair flips the special coin, they always give the same
result.
- When any pair of non-siblings flip the special coin, they get different
results 75% of the time.

Explain how such a coin could be built that would have these properties,
without the manufacturer of the coin knowing (at the time of manufacturer)
who eventually flip the coin (and without relying on quantum mechanically
entangled particles which show these statistics).



>
> > If you mean something in between these two things, you will need to
> specify what exactly that is, and how hidden variables are selected to
> provide for the 75% anti-correlation rates we observe.
>
> Some things just are, with no "how" or "why" - at least, none that we
> can currently explain.  Just because we can't explain it right now,
> doesn't mean that it isn't.
>

If this is beyond the explanatory limit of your theory, then I would say
you don't yet have a theory ready for us to discuss. Copenhagen,
Many-Worlds, and Superdeterminism all have answers to this question. If
yours does not, then it is still only proto-theory. It is okay to say: "I
don't know how it works, but I dislike the answers existing theories
provide," but that itself is not a position we can really debate the merits
or advantages of, nor discuss how one would go about testing the idea.


>
> How did the speed of light in our universe come to be what it is?  And
> yet we can measure it, and confirm that it is that value.
>
> Why does the gravitational constant have the value that it does?  And
> yet we can measure it, and confirm that it is that value.
>

This gets back to the point I made to John earlier, regarding
distinguishing brute facts without causes, and effects without causes.
There are plenty of brute facts without causes, but if we are in a lawful,
deterministic universe, then every event is an effect that has some
preceding cause.

When it comes to the Mermin device flashing red or green lights, those are
causes within our universe. And if our universe is causal/deterministic,
there should be an identifiable reason/cause/explanation for how those
lights end up flashing as they do.

Unless: you say, that effect was baked into the initial conditions of the
universe, it just is that way, we can't explain it. But this is the same
form of escapism that creationists play with dinosaur bones:

"God (or the devil) just put them there. We can't explain how they got to
be there. The universe was created just as it is now, a few thousand years
ago, but it was created in a state that gives us the false impression that
it is much older. Yes, I admit we can neither prove nor disprove this."

Notice the parallel:

"Superdeterminism just put the correlations there. We can't explain how the
photons got the information they needed to produce the Bell inequality
violations, the universe just is that way. It gives us the false impression
that the QM does not have hidden variables, even though it does. Yes, I
admit we can neither prove nor disprove this."


>
> How is it that radioactive decay follows a logarithmic spread rather
> than linear?  Why is it that, if half the particles in a sample decay
> in time X, only half of the rest will decay in a further interval of
> time X?  If the particles are independent of one another, how do the
> undecayed particles know that half of their kin have decayed so they
> should have a lower chance of decaying?  (The answer may have
> something to do with survivor's bias, but that doesn't explain how
> they got on a logarithmic spread in the first place.)
>

You can explain logarithmic decay without reference to other radioactive
particles.

Model any single nucleus as having some fixed "D%" probability of decaying
over some length of time L, for any D, and any L.

Now model some population of these particles. You will find they reproduce
all the same statistics with half lives, exponential decay, etc. with an
identifiable half life. All you need for this is a fixed, non-zero decay
probability per unit of time.

Jason
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