Superdeterminism
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Superdeterminism is a concept of physics, put forward by physicist John S. Bell, that everything which happens is like puppets on strings; everything is controlled. Every thought, every action, every feeling is ordered up by some entity, and fated to happen. In a world of superdeterminism there is no free will. There is a distinction between determinism and superdeterminism. Determinism is given initial states one can predict the end state. Superdeterminism is beyond determinism in that everything is fated to happen by some controlling entity. For example, determinism is often analogized by a pool or billards table where given the initial position of a ball and then struck by the pool-stick we can determine the future position, but the analogy of superdeterminism with these pool and billards balls is that the owner is going to take the balls and do with them as he pleases, whenever he pleases.
John Bell discussed superdeterminism in a BBC interview:
There is a way to escape the inference of superluminal speeds and spooky action at a distance. But it (Superdeterminism) involves absolute determinism in the universe, the complete absence of free will. Suppose the world is super-deterministic, with not just inanimate nature running on behind-the-scenes clockwork, but with our behavior, including our belief that we are free to choose to do one experiment rather than another, absolutely predetermined, including the "decision" by the experimenter to carry out one set of measurements rather than another, the difficulty disappears. There is no need for a faster than light signal to tell particle A what measurement has been carried out on particle B, because the universe, including particle A, already "knows" what that measurement, and its outcome, will be.
The only alternative to quantum probabilities, superpositions of states, collapse of the wave function, and spooky action at a distance, is that everything is superdetermined. For me it is a dilemma. I think it is a deep dilemma, and the resolution of it will not be trivial; it will require a substantial change in the way we look at things.
The concept has not received widespread attention among physicists.
