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

[Adrian Tymes]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 2:12 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> Note: nowhere in my explanation did I make any reference to consciousness, maliciousness, nor an entity.

You use the term "fool us", which pretty much explicitly calls for
such an entity.  Fooling is a thing done by one entity to another.

> 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.

I understand that it is not the most appropriate verb, unless you are
referring entirely to what you do to yourself while trying to
understand the universe - which is not how you've been using the verb.

See below for another example of this sort of thing.

>> 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.

Under strict (non-MWI) superdeterminism, if there are mirror photons,
they are there in the real world.  It's kind of like how if you have
two sound waves that perfectly cancel each other out, so they can't be
measured, they still exist.  (Or at least, one existed prior to the
cancellation - the act of producing the second "wave" consisted of
exactly opposing the first wave, resulting in no wave - even if only
the post-cancellation result was observed.)

> 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

...

> to know to disagree

That is something that a conscious entity does.  That is not something
that a non-conscious thing like a photon does.

You keep using phrasing that ascribes conscious motivation to photons
et al.  I don't think you realize how much you have done so in this
conversation.  Whatever is keeping you from realizing that, may be
keeping you from fully understanding my position.

>> 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.

You missed the entire point I was trying to make there.  Try rereading
that, and leave aside - for the moment - the actual quantum mechanics.
It's about how you've been ascribing intent where there is none.

>> > 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.

If it is not a complete theory, then it is not.

It is possible to know part of the truth, to identify problematic
inconsistencies with all the popular theories, and to conclude that
none of them are a true complete theory.

It's kind of like how dark matter is a fudge for something we don't
have a complete explanation of yet: things act as if there was this
matter there, but we don't yet know how that matter is arranged or
even if it truly exists.  Would you say that dark matter itself was
ever a complete theory, if no version of it fully explained everything
we had observed?

That said, my theory at least aligns with superdeterminism - so far as
the evidence goes.  It admits to the possibility that things go all
the way back, but acknowledges that that has not yet been proven, and
does not need to be to explain what we have seen.  Thus why I simply
call it that, though it might be more accurate to call it a subset of
superdeterminism.

> 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.

But you don't necessarily know the cause.  What, for instance, caused
the Big Bang?  And is there any effect subsequent to that, in our
universe, that does not ultimately trace its cause to or through the
Big Bang?

That depends.  What causes the exact timing of atomic decay?  Where
does the chain of causality for that begin?  Or, in MWI, does it
literally just take the energy of one atom fissioning to also fission
off another complete universe?