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by fwdpropaganda 3231 days ago
Physicist here.

Off-topic

> And it is not even entirely clear what “really random” would mean. It is not clear that we live in a randomized universe…

At the quantum level it really is clear that we live in a really random universe. What's the meaning of really random? The outcome of a quantum process.

On-topic. Yeah, you have to know your audience. As OP mentions, just because the paper wasn't published doesn't prevent anyone from thinking about it and even building on it. On the other hand these scientific publications have styles and target audiences, and maybe she got rejected not due to lack of relevance or rigor, but because the paper didn't match the publication's non-scientific criteria for publication.
2 comments
eridius 3231 days ago
A quantum process is a random process, but isn't it still an open philosophical question as to whether the "random process" we observe is truly random, or is instead governed by deterministic hidden state?
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fwdpropaganda 3231 days ago
No, all theories of (local) hidden variables have been experimentally ruled out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem

> Bell's theorem states that any physical theory that incorporates local realism cannot reproduce all the predictions of quantum mechanical theory. Because numerous experiments agree with the predictions of quantum mechanical theory, and show differences between correlations that could not be explained by local hidden variables, the experimental results have been taken by many as refuting the concept of local realism as an explanation of the physical phenomena under test. For a hidden variable theory, if Bell's conditions are correct, the results that agree with quantum mechanical theory appear to indicate superluminal effects, in contradiction to the principle of locality.

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eridius 3231 days ago
Interesting. But it sounds like non-local hidden variables are still possible. My assumption is that non-local hidden variables is non-falsifiable, which is why I said this was a philosophical question.
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cgmg 3231 days ago
Non-local hidden variables have not been ruled out, as evinced by the de Broglie–Bohm theory.
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Tloewald 3231 days ago
Have quantum outcomes been tested for the kinds of statistical not-quite-randomness that PRNGs have? Aren't the measurements far too imprecise?
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