We review the idea, put forward in 1982, by Parisi and Sourlas, that the bath of fluctuations, with which a physical system is in equilibrium, can be resolved by the superpartners
of the degrees of freedom, defined by the classical action. This implies, in particular, that fermions can be described in terms of their superpartners, using the Nicolai map.
We focus on the question, whether the fluctuations of scalar fields can, in fact, produce the absolute value of the stochastic determinant itself, whose contribution to the action can be identified with the fermionic degrees of freedom and present evidence supporting this idea in two spacetime dimensions. The same idea leads to a new formulation of supersymmetric QED.
We also review the obstacles for extending this approach to Yang-Mills theories and report on progress for evading the obstructions for obtaining interacting theories in three and four spacetime dimensions.
This implies, in particular, that it is possible to describe the effects of fermions in numerical simulations, through their superpartners.