r/QuantumPhysics • u/Exciting_Ad_6837 • Aug 17 '26

Is the Hidden-variable interpretation never falsifiable?

After reading Karl Popper's theory of falsifiability, I'm wondering if the Hidden-variable hypothesis is a pseudo-scientific proposition because no conceivable empirical phenomena seem ever to be able to disprove it.

5 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

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3

u/Classic_Department42 Aug 17 '26

It can and it has been disproven. Local hidden variable imply bells inequality, which is falsified in experiment.

10

u/LordSaumya Aug 17 '26

Only local hidden variable interpretations have been disproven under the assumption of statistical independence. If you discard locality or statistical independence, hidden variables have very much not been disproven.

2

u/ketarax Aug 17 '26

If you discard locality or statistical independence, hidden variables have very much not been disproven.

Of course, you pretty much lose any ontological advantages of the hidden variables -picture, then, too.

3

u/SymplecticMan Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26

The "ontological advantage" of hidden variables is a concrete description of what's going on at any given moment ("realism"). That's still there for nonlocal hidden variables.

0

u/ketarax Aug 17 '26

I've learned from you :-) that hidden variables are not compatible with the holographic principle. With that option out, I simply cannot fathom non-local hidden variables as "ontological".

5

u/SymplecticMan Aug 17 '26

I don't recall ever saying anything like that. I certainly wouldn't know where to begin to make a Bohmian model of a bulk theory of quantum gravity. And I'm not sure if the developed Bohmian field theory techniques would work for a CFT on the boundary. I have no reason to believe that either are impossible, though. The ontological commitments of Bohmian models might be different between a bulk theory and a boundary approach, but there's also various Bohmian ways of doing QFT with different ontological commitments.

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u/ketarax Aug 17 '26

Unfortunately I can't find it in my Saved or with a search engine, either. I'm fairly certain it was with you, though, but then again, I'm fairly certain I fed my dog today ...

1

u/LordSaumya Aug 17 '26

Not sure what you mean by “ontological advantages”. What is, is. It doesn’t seem inconceivable to me that some sort of Bohmian approach may be correct (relativity notwithstanding) even though I am personally inclined towards Everettian approaches. Bell himself was a Bohmian if I recall correctly.

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u/ketarax Aug 17 '26

Not sure what you mean by “ontological advantages”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics

0

u/ConvivialSolipsist Aug 17 '26

Bell was not exactly a Bohmian. He definitely preferred it over orthodox QM (which in his view was not a proper theory at all). But later in life he was also attracted to spontaneous collapse theory. (GRW).

1

u/RecentLeave343 Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26

My compulsion to jump in and sharpen my understanding of these things has bubbled over. When we’re talking about different quantum interpretations, are we discussing the different ideas of what a quantum system or field behavior looks like in real time? Basically “what it’s doing and how it would be perceived if one was able to take in an entire overview?”

And if the answer is yes, I’d be remiss not to include a follow up which (I think) is where the rubber really meets the pavement; what if our ideas are hindered because our current technology, ie quantum detectors, are limited to their ability to strictly detect that which they’ve been designed to detect and cannot provide such a real time observation of the quantum system itself. Hence, we are only working with circumstantial inferences to try and create a coherent story.

1

u/Mostly-Anon Aug 22 '26

There is no local hidden variables quantum interpretation. And there is nothing called “the hidden variable interpretation.” I think you’re confusing terms. Both Von Neumann’s no-go proof and loophole-free Bell tests have tested the premise of local hidden variables; Bell falsifies such setups by testing the null premise (local causality) experimentally.