The Scope and Generality of Bell's Theorem

TL;DR

This paper examines a local deterministic model inspired by Joy Christian's work that challenges Bell's theorem, clarifying the theorem's scope by analyzing why the model ultimately fails to reproduce quantum correlations.

Contribution

It presents a detailed analysis of a proposed model that appears to challenge Bell's theorem, clarifying the theorem's applicability and limitations.

Findings

The model does not reproduce quantum correlations.

Bell-type theorems rule out models of this kind.

The analysis clarifies the scope of Bell's theorem.

Abstract

I present what might seem to be a local, deterministic model of the EPR-Bohm experiment, inspired by recent work by Joy Christian, that appears at first blush to be in tension with Bell-type theorems. I argue that the model ultimately fails to do what a hidden variable theory needs to do, but that it is interesting nonetheless because the way it fails helps clarify the scope and generality of Bell-type theorems. I formulate and prove a minor proposition that makes explicit how Bell-type theorems rule out models of the sort I describe here.