What does the world look like according to superdeterminism?

TL;DR

This paper critically examines superdeterminism as an alternative explanation for Bell inequality violations, highlighting its philosophical implications and challenges to scientific reasoning.

Contribution

It clarifies the conceptual issues of superdeterminism and discusses its implications for scientific laws and the assumption of statistical independence.

Findings

Superdeterminism challenges the assumption of statistical independence.

It requires a neo-Humean view of scientific laws.

Creates problems for scientific reasoning and other scientific assumptions.

Abstract

The violation of Bell inequalities seems to establish an important fact about the world: that it is non-local. However, this result relies on the assumption of the statistical independence of the measurement settings with respect to potential past events that might have determined them. Superdeterminism refers to the view that a local, and determinist, account of Bell inequalities violations is possible, by rejecting this assumption of statistical independence. We examine and clarify various problems with superdeterminism, looking in particular at its consequences on the nature of scientific laws and scientific reasoning. We argue that the view requires a neo-Humean account of at least some laws, and creates a significant problem for the use of statistical independence in other parts of physics and science more generally.