First, the logical flow: Bell’s theorem proves that no local, realistic theory can reproduce the predictions of quantum mechanics. It does so by considering a very specific situation of entangled particles being measured by spin detectors set at different angles. Critically, the angles of these spin detectors are assumed to be set independently from one another. ...
Experimenters have tried to ensure independence for all practical purposes with elaborate techniques: independent quasi-random number generators running with different algorithms on different computers are one very basic example. On more advanced experiments, they use quantum sources of randomness, and try to make sure that the choice is only made once the particles are in flight.
The trouble is that in principle, there will always be a point in the past at which mechanism used for the angle choice, and the mechanism used to produce the entangled particles were in causal contact with one another. (If all else fails, then the early universe will provide such a point.) The super-determination thesis says that any past causal contact can in principle provide correlation between the settings of the two detectors (or the detectors and the properties of the particles), and is the source of the violation of Bell’s inequality.
Here’s a deliberately ridiculous example. Once the particles are in flight, I throw in the air a box of Newton’s notes on alchemy. I select the one that falls closest to my feet. I roll two dice, and use them to select a random word from that page. I match the word with its closest equivalent in Caesar’s commentary on the Gallic wars, or the Iliad, or the complete works of Dickens, my choice of work depending on the orientation of the Crab pulsar at the moment of measurement. I use the word position in these works to select a number in this book A Million Random Digits (take the time to read the customer reviews). And I use this number to set my detectors. I repeat this for my other measurement runs, but I substitute in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code for Dickens every third go.
Superdetermination advocates would tell me that there is in principle a causal connection between my throwing the papers in the air, Newton, Caesar, Dickens as they sat down to write 300, 2000, and 150 years ago, the Crab pulsar and the RAND corporation’s random digit selection. And that it’s possible that these things have conspired (unknowingly) to make sure that my detector settings and a particle’s spin measurement is correlated in a particular way in my lab in a law-like way.
I can only reply that yes, it’s possible. I cannot prove it wrong. But I can find it unreasonable. And I would be tempted to call these people philosophically desperate.
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-crackpot-scientists-go-aft...