Free Choice in Quantum Theory: A p-adic View

Abstract

In this paper, it is rigorously proven that since observational data (i.e., numerical values of physical quantities) are rational numbers only due to inevitably nonzero measurements errors, the conclusion about whether Nature at the smallest scales is discrete or continuous, random and chaotic, or strictly deterministic, solely depends on experimentalist’s free choice of the metrics (real or p-adic) he chooses to process the observational data. The main mathematical tools are p-adic 1-Lipschitz maps (which therefore are continuous with respect to the p-adic metric). The maps are exactly the ones defined by sequential Mealy machines (rather than by cellular automata) and therefore are causal functions over discrete time. A wide class of the maps can naturally be expanded to continuous real functions, so the maps may serve as mathematical models of open physical systems both over discrete and over continuous time. For these models, wave functions are constructed, entropic uncertainty relation is proven, and no hidden parameters are assumed. The paper is motivated by the ideas of I. Volovich on p-adic mathematical physics, by G. `t Hooft’s cellular automaton interpretation of quantum mechanics, and to some extent, by recent papers on superdeterminism by J. Hance, S. Hossenfelder, and T. Palmer.