Quantum mechanics has irked physicists ever since its conception, more than 100 years ago. But attempts to make sense of quantum mechanics stalled early in the field’s history. The major roadblock has been – and still is – the assumption that a sensible theory of nature must fulfil statistical independence. Theories which violate statistical independence are commonly referred to as “superdeterministic” or “retrocausal” and swiftly discarded as supposedly unscientific. This workshop will collect the world’s experts on superdeterminism and retrocausality to discuss the pros and cons of such approaches. Most importantly, we want to bring theoreticians together with experimentalists to explore how to experimentally test these ideas.
The meeting will focus on the following points:
- Just exactly what do we mean by “superdeterministic,” “retrocausal,” “teleological,” and “future input dependent”? Can we reach a common ground on the terminology?
- What are the commonly made objections to these approaches and how can we best address them?
- What models have been proposed so far? What are the differences and what do they have in common?
- What model-independent and what model-dependent experimental tests can we think of?