Is 't Hooft's cellular automaton interpretation of quantum mechanics correct?
I think you are making a mistake here if you ask whether it is 'correct' in the sense of being proven. It is a deterministic model that reproduces quantum mechanics at large scales, but it is not yet a complete theory. The cellular automaton interpretation posits that the universe evolves according to a deterministic, discrete rule at the Planck scale, and that quantum probabilities emerge from our ignorance of the underlying state. I have shown that such models can violate Bell's inequalities without requiring nonlocality, because the hidden variables are not independent. However, one must be careful not to confuse this with a simple hidden-variable theory—it is a specific mathematical framework based on automata. The mathematics is very clear on this point: the model is consistent, but it remains a proposal. I am not convinced by arguments that dismiss it as impossible, because they often rely on untestable assumptions about the nature of time and information.
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