Afterlives of a Misunderstanding: Dialogue III — On Hidden Variables

Characters:

Professor Quillibrace
Mr Blottisham
Miss Elowen Stray

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Blottisham:
Hidden variables! Finally, the universe admits to having secrets. At last, some order, some determinacy!

Quillibrace:
It admits nothing. Not even to you.

Elowen Stray:
But the idea is tempting. A cosmic instruction manual behind the randomness…

Blottisham:
Exactly! Somewhere, all outcomes are pre-written. We just need the key.

Quillibrace:
You’ve just described superstition with a better font.

Blottisham:
I do not care about fonts! This is physics!

Quillibrace:
Physics is not impressed by desire.

Elowen Stray:
So hidden variables don’t exist?

Quillibrace:
Not as a necessity. They are a human attempt to restore comfort.

Blottisham:
Comfort? This is revolution! A deterministic universe waiting to be decoded!

Quillibrace:
Or a narrative dressing for the inadequacy of the question.

Blottisham:
Then you’re saying randomness is fundamental?

Quillibrace:
Fundamental to our description prior to a cut, yes. Not to caprice.

Elowen Stray:
So we imagine variables because we can’t stand openness?

Quillibrace:
Precisely. It is a psychological fix masquerading as theory.

Blottisham:
But Bell proved hidden variables could be constrained!

Quillibrace:
Yes. Constrained by correlations already predicted. That tells us nothing about a secret instruction manual—it only reinforces the relational structure of the system.

Blottisham:
Then I see. The universe refuses to hand me a cheat sheet.

Quillibrace:
Exactly. And yet the theory is entirely sufficient to predict outcomes.

Elowen Stray:
So the trouble with hidden variables…

Quillibrace:
…is not that they don’t exist. It’s that we invented them to satisfy a longing.

Blottisham:
A longing for a past that never existed.

Quillibrace:
Quite so. And physics remains untroubled by our nostalgia.

Blottisham:
I suppose I must now grumble about human impatience.

Quillibrace:
A complaint I find perfectly reasonable.

(Blottisham shakes his head, muttering about secret manuals he will never receive.)