Constraints on determinism: Bell versus Conway-Kochen

DOI10.1007/S10701-014-9815-ZzbMATH Open1304.81007OpenAlexW2091760192WikidataQ56093298 ScholiaQ56093298MaRDI QIDQ474875FDOQ474875

Authors Eric A. Cator, Klaas Landsman 

Publication date 25 November 2014

Published in Foundations of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.1972

zbMATH Keywords

Bell's theoremdeterminismhidden variable theoriesfree will theorem

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Physics (00A79) General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) Quantum coherence, entanglement, quantum correlations (81P40) Stochastic mechanics (including stochastic electrodynamics) (81P20)

Abstract: Bell's Theorem from 1964 and the (Strong) Free Will Theorem of Conway and Kochen from 2009 both exclude deterministic hidden variable theories (or, in modern parlance, `ontological models') that are compatible with some small fragment of quantum mechanics, admit `free' settings of the archetypal Alice & Bob experiment, and satisfy a locality condition called Parameter Independence. We clarify the relationship between these theorems by giving reformulations of both that exactly pinpoint their resemblance and their differences. Our reformulation imposes determinism in what we see as the only consistent way, in which the `ontological state' initially determines both the settings and the outcome of the experiment. The usual status of the settings as `free' parameters is subsequently recovered from independence assumptions on the pertinent (random) variables. Our reformulation also clarifies the role of the settings in Bell's later generalization of his theorem to stochastic hidden variable theories.

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Cited In (6)

• An operationalist perspective on setting dependence
• Bell's theorem and the issue of determinism and indeterminism
• Conway-Kochen and the finite precision loophole
• Randomness? What randomness?
• What does the free will theorem actually prove?
• On the notion of free will in the Free Will Theorem

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