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Volume 16: Pages 43-62, 2003

How do Hidden Variables Fit in Natural Law?

C. W. Rietdijk

Pinellaan 7, 2061 LH Bloemendaal, Netherlands

We summarize some earlier results, inter alia, about the realistically four‐dimensional nature of the universe, realistic action quanta, retroaction, and the action metric. Subsequently, we research the origin, operation, and some effects of retroactive noise. It appears that, without our needing any hypotheses, we are in a position to explain nonlocal hidden variables. After this, we consider three alternative explanations that correspond, respectively, to three hypotheses about how orderly or coherent the universe is. Successively, they suppose the noise to be ever more integrated in coherent natural laws. The first assumes retroactive influences emanating from an existing future to be less orderly than causal ones (that ultimately start from the big bang). The second hypothesizes an extended least action principle to define hidden‐variable choices. Our third model starts from the idea that, in the four‐dimensional universe, natural law is embodied by micro‐ and macrocoherent patterns and symmetries ordering the events. Retroaction allows feedback channels to implement such a — possibly even “organic” — order, of which, then, hidden‐variable choices are part and parcel, codefining the macrosymmetries.

Keywords: hidden variables, determinism, retroaction, action quanta, action metric, Noether's theorem

Received: May 17, 2002; Published online: December 15, 2008