Science writer: Many Worlds (quantum multiverse) as a fantasy, verging on nihilism

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 18, 2015

Culture, Multiverse, News, Science}

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Many worlds:The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics holds that there are many worlds which exist in parallel at the same space and time as our own. The existence of the other worlds makes it possible to remove randomness and action at a distance from quantum theory and thus from all physics. – Stanford Plato

Philip Ball, a British physicist turned science writer, reflects at Aeon on who loves the Many Worlds notion and why:

In any event, both ideas display a discomfort with arbitrariness in the universe, and both stem from
the same human impulse that invents fictional fantasies about parallel worlds and that enjoys
speculating about counterfactual histories.

Which is why, if I call these ideas fantasies, it is not to deride or dismiss them but to keep in view the fact that, beneath their apparel of scientific equations or symbolic logic, they are acts of imagination, of ‘just supposing’. But when taken to the extreme, they become a kind of nihilism: if you believe everything then you believe nothing. The MWI allows – perhaps insists – not just on our having cosily familial ‘quantum brothers’ but on worlds where gods, magic and miracles exist and where science is inevitably (if rarely) violated by chance breakdowns of the usual statistical regularities of physics.

Certainly, to say that the world(s) surely can’t be that weird is no objection at all; Many Worlders harp on about this complaint precisely because it is so easily dismissed. MWI doesn’t, though, imply that things really are weirder than we thought; it denies us any way of saying anything, because it entails saying (and doing) everything else too, while at the same time removing the ‘you’ who says it. This does not demand broadmindedness, but rather a blind acceptance of ontological incoherence.

That its supporters refuse to engage in any depth with the questions the MWI poses about the ontology and autonomy of self is lamentable. But this is (speaking as an ex-physicist) very much a physicist’s blind spot: a failure to recognise – or perhaps to care – that problems arising at a level beyond that of the fundamental, abstract theory can be anything more than a minor inconvenience. If the MWI were supported by some sound science, we would have to deal with it – and to do so with more seriousness than the merry invention of Doppelgängers to measure both quantum states of a photon. But it is not. It is grounded in a halfbaked philosophical argument about a preference to simplify the axioms. More.

By all means, read the whole thing. One of the best reflective pieces on the subject to come along in years.

Couple thoughts:

Although Philip Ball seems to think Many Worlds got started to solve a problem in quantum mechanics, there is reason to believe that it has an enormous philosophical appeal anyway to post-empirical types in science, who have no use for concepts like falsifiability or Occam’s razor.

Science is actually only an ornament, a trinket, in Many Worlds/multiverse reasoning. Sages sitting on a riverbank 2500 years ago could come up with the same sorts of ideas, and the same amount of evidence.

Today it could hardly matter less that there is no evidence for these Many Worlds. Evidence is just not hot any more.

See also: As if the multiverse wasn’t bizarre enough …meet Many Worlds

But who needs reality-based thinking anyway? Not the new cosmologists

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Comments

Wallstreeter, your straw-man misrepresentations of MWI are funny, though I had to dig through your execrable crap novel to find the comedy. It's hard to see what went wrong in your education but you don't understand the outer product, don't understand entanglement, and possibly don't know the difference between QM and quantum field theory. I suspect second quantization is beyond you. Wallstreeter seems to think that MWI is about a film splitting into two. He doesn't seem to know what a quantum superposition is, or an outer product.
Its [MWI] defenders often say something like the many worlds “interpretation” is just pure mechanics; it is not adding anything to it. Carroll makes this statement about 5 times and it is a complete lie.
O RLY? Lay your wisdom on us, O genius.
...Quantum mechanics predicts the probabilities using the same universal formulae and the time evolution is always given by the same equations, too. What about the many worlds “interpretation”? Just look at the marketing illustration at the top. Aside from Heisenberg’s or Schrödinger’s dynamical equations, there is a new process added on top of it – the splitting of the film, the splitting of the worlds to make them “many”.
Jesus tapdancing Christ. THAT'S your argument? You write a freaking NOVEL and you can't even understand that there is no "splitting of the film"? No, you attack a straw-man: there is no "splitting of the film" and there is no "new process added on". That is a total lie you made up in your imagination. It's not MWI. The math is very simple. The quantum state of a two-body system is ALREADY "SPLIT", but not entangled, before the measurement occurs, because the quantum state of a two-body system is the outer product of the ket of the electron, which is already in a superposition, and the ket of the apparatus, which initially, is not. But the ket of the whole system is split but not entangled: (|+> + |->) x |apparatus> I want to emphasize that X means an OUTER PRODUCT. In that sense, there are already two states-- but they are not entangled. After the observation, the apparatus is in two states and they're mutually exclusive. One observed +, the other observed -. So |+> x |apparatus +> + |-> x | apparatus -> Note that the above is STANDARD QUANTUM MECHANICS. It's what Wallstreeter has falsely called the "Splitting of the Film" but it's just entanglement, basic level stuff. Again, let me return to what Wallstreeter wrote:
there is a new process added on top of it – the splitting of the film, the splitting of the worlds to make them “many”.
Again, NO. No new process. There are initially two states but not entangled, so one is separable. After observation, they're entangled and inseparable. Basic time evolution, NO NEW PROCESS.
When writing this promotion of “many worlds”, Carroll must have forgotten about something, about the “many worlds”, right? Believe me that to produce a film that splits into two in the triangular junction is much harder than to produce an ordinary film with a single story of a cat. It’s also harder to insert such a film with “junctions” into a film projector. The film projector sometimes jams, and so on. It doesn’t work well.
Again, you attack a straw-man of your own imagination. There is no "splitting of the film". The initial state of the system is a superposition of two states.
Yes, Nature can do anything if the laws of physics say that it should happen. The problem is that one can’t even define the rules when the hypothetical splitting should take place and how the two or three or N or ? (also unknown) copies attached to the junction should differ from each other.
No, this is uniquely determined by the initial state and time evolution operator. Nothing is undefined. But by contrast, all other interpretations have a wavefunction collapse that is undefined, happens instantaneously thus violating relativity, and have never been observed and isn't testable-- pure speculation and daydreaming from the the anti-MWI crew.
The really key feature of the quantum evolution is that it always allows parts of the state vector to interfere in the future and affect various other measurements in non-classical ways. We know this even from the double slit experiment which... We can’t assume that the particle goes either through slit A or slit B... if we don’t observe it. The actual initial state implies nonzero probability amplitudes for both intermediate histories and their mutual interference affects the existence and location of the interference minima and maxima on the photographic screen! ...Now, if you think about it for a second, this totally elementary and universal feature of quantum mechanics in general and of the double slit experiment in particular is nothing else than the statement that the worlds just never split in the classical sense!... ...the relative phase will matter for the predictions as much as the ratio of the absolute values! So the “dead cat” and the “alive cat” are two intermediate histories whose mutual interference may in principle affect the probabilities of later measurements just like the mutual interference of “slit A” and “slit B”.
NO THEY WILL NOT. There is no interference pattern post-observation because the interference term vanishes! Try it. Do the math. After the observation, the apparatus is in two states, one that observed "+" and one that observed "-". Again, from above: |+>|apparatus +> + |->| apparatus -> This is just like above, but I ditched the outer product "x." Here "apparatus +" means the machine that observed "+", and ditto for "appartus -". The bra version of the state ket above is <+|<apparatus +| + <-|<apparatus -| Let us suppose we observe the X coordinate of the particle, post-observation. What's the expectation value of X? (<+|<apparatus +| + <-|<apparatus -|) X (|+>|apparatus +> + |->|apparatus ->) = <+|X|+><apparatus +|apparatus +> + <+|X|-><apparatus +|apparatus -> + <-|X|+><apparatus -|apparatus +> + <-|X|-><apparatus -|apparatus -> So sorry! Cross terms (<apparatus +|apparatus -> and <apparatus -|apparatus +>) vanish so there's no interference pattern! Because the observing apparatus, post-observation, is in two states and they're orthogonal! <apparatus +|apparatus -> = <apparatus -|apparatus +> = 0 So, returning to your misunderstanding,
So the “dead cat” and the “alive cat” are two intermediate histories whose mutual interference may in principle affect the probabilities of later measurements just like the mutual interference of “slit A” and “slit B”.
No, you misunderstand. No future time evolution of the system can restore the interference pattern. Suppose that the observing apparatus independently evolved by a time evolution operator U. The above expectation value, after time evolution of the apparatus, would be: = <+|X|+><apparatus +|UtU|apparatus +> + <+|X|-><apparatus +|UtU|apparatus -> + <-|X|+><apparatus -|UtU|apparatus +> + <-|X|-><apparatus -|UtU|apparatus -> Where Ut is complex conjugate of U. Well, the cross terms still vanish because time evolution operators U are unitary and UtU = 1 by definition. = <+|X|+> + <-|X|-> So, their mutual interference vanishes and can never be made to un-vanish... unless you could "erase" the memory of the observing apparatus, but quantum mechanical theorems say that erasure isn't possible, you can only copy or move information (entanglement) somewhere else.
In other words, people who really think that the two worlds separately exist in the classical sense are misunderstanding the lesson 1 of of the undergraduate quantum mechanics lecture that begins with the double slit experiment.
No, clearly the critics of MWI are the ones who don't understand undergrad level physics!
The knowledge of the existence of interference of the state vector in quantum mechanics is the same thing as the knowledge that the world never fundamentally splits to two classical histories.
Oh. But since the interference vanishes, the world does split into two classical histories! <apparatus +|apparatus -> = <apparatus -|apparatus +> = 0 Since the interference of state vector does NOT exist after observation in MWI, that is, "the same thing as the knowledge that the world does fundamentally split to two classical histories," according to your own logic.Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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'Sean Carroll is a textbook example of this sign of the degradation of the contemporary Academia which is why he wrote another text defending the indefensible, “”Why the Many-Worlds Formulation of Quantum Mechanics Is Probably Correct.””” Don't you let Sean's poor, dear, sainted grandmother in County Tyrone hear you talk about her 'Seanie' like that, Wallstreeter! Sure, he's broken her stout Catholic heart with his atheist shenanigans, but they're not a very logical family anyway. But, nevertheless, the heart has its reasons...It's her good, loyal Christian side coming out in her, too, even if her love for the wee spalpeen has become very ambivalent at times.Axel_{February 19, 2015
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Diogenes: When I have contemplated many worlds scenarios, one thing has always jumped up to make me back away, shaking my head. How much energy is required to build a cosmos? Please, ponder then a quasi infinite always forking cosmos every time a macro-level quantum-influenced event is observed. Per, Wiki:
The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction and denies the actuality of wavefunction collapse. Many-worlds implies that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe"). In lay terms, the hypothesis states there is a very large—perhaps infinite[2]—number of universes, and everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other universe or universes . . . . Before many-worlds, reality had always been viewed as a single unfolding history. Many-worlds, however, views reality as a many-branched tree, wherein every possible quantum outcome is realised.[12] Many-worlds reconciles the observation of non-deterministic events, such as the random radioactive decay, with the fully deterministic equations of quantum physics . . . . Although several versions of many-worlds have been proposed since Hugh Everett's original work,[4] they all contain one key idea: the equations of physics that model the time evolution of systems without embedded observers are sufficient for modelling systems which do contain observers; in particular there is no observation-triggered wave function collapse which the Copenhagen interpretation proposes.
SEP:
The fundamental idea of the MWI, going back to Everett 1957, is that there are myriads of worlds in the Universe in addition to the world we are aware of. In particular, every time a quantum experiment with different possible outcomes is performed, all outcomes are obtained, each in a different world, even if we are only aware of the world with the outcome we have seen. In fact, quantum experiments take place everywhere and very often, not just in physics laboratories: even the irregular blinking of an old fluorescent bulb is a quantum experiment . . . . What is “A World”? A world is the totality of macroscopic objects: stars, cities, people, grains of sand, etc. in a definite classically described state. The concept of a “world” in the MWI belongs to part (ii) of the theory, i.e., it is not a rigorously defined mathematical entity, but a term defined by us (sentient beings) in describing our experience. When we refer to the “definite classically described state” of, say, a cat, it means that the position and the state (alive, dead, smiling, etc.) of the cat is maximally specified according to our ability to distinguish between the alternatives, and that this specification corresponds to a classical picture, e.g., no superpositions of dead and alive cats are allowed in a single world. Another concept, which is closer to Everett's original proposal, see Saunders 1995, is that of a relative, or perspectival world defined for every physical system and every one of its states (provided it is a state of non-zero probability): I will call it a centered world. This concept is useful when a world is centered on a perceptual state of a sentient being. In this world, all objects which the sentient being perceives have definite states, but objects that are not under observation might be in a superposition of different (classical) states. The advantage of a centered world is that a quantum phenomenon in a distant galaxy does not split it, while the advantage of the definition presented here is that we can consider a world without specifying a center, and in particular our usual language is just as useful for describing worlds that existed at times when there were no sentient beings. The concept of a world in the MWI is based on the layman's conception of a world; however, several features are different. Obviously, the definition of the world as everything that exists does not hold in the MWI. “Everything that exists” is the Universe, and there is only one Universe. The Universe incorporates many worlds similar to the one the layman is familiar with. A layman believes that our present world has a unique past and future. According to the MWI, a world defined at some moment of time corresponds to a unique world at a time in the past, but to a multitude of worlds at a time in the future.
Sorry, but that pegs my implausibility meter. Think, atom xyz with alpha-instability. At some instant in uni 1 it does not decay but in UNI 2 it does [say putting that poor cat to death . . . ], forking a flood of daughter worlds. Move to next instant in EACH of these, repeat. Even on the view that all this is a simulation or mind-game, this makes very little sense as a serious physically implemented alternative. Think at ultimate level 10^80 atoms, forking a new cosmos or two each every 10^-43 s. With the flood of energy required. Then, repeat for the next 10^-43 s in all 10^80 daughter worlds. Then . . . Where is the energy coming from? Or, let's confine to every GM tube observation, or every flickering fluorescent tube, etc. Still, where does the energy come from if two distinct worlds are BOTH realised. Wiki's summary on this objection brings out the point:
Conservation of energy is grossly violated if at every instant near-infinite amounts of new matter are generated to create the new universes. MWI response: There are two responses to this objection. First, the law of conservation of energy says that energy is conserved within each universe. Hence, even if "new matter" were being generated to create new universes, this would not violate conservation of energy. Second, conservation of energy is not violated since the energy of each branch has to be weighted by its probability, according to the standard formula for the conservation of energy in quantum theory. This results in the total energy of the multiverse being conserved.
That sounds suspiciously like something from nothing to me; compounded by appeal to a quasi-infinite . . . unobserved . . . multiverse. Nope, I will ponder such as a useful mathematical fiction but without a LOT more good reason, I will not take it seriously physically. By contrast, I have a lot less trouble with the idea that to observe one interacts with a system altering circumstances and triggering an outcome. Does someone out there have solid reasons why I should reconsider? KFkairosfocus_{February 19, 2015
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“Stop quoting those mathematicians who say 2+2= 4, they’re militant atheists! Better send a memo to Krauss 2+2=5? (Lawrence Krauss vs William Lane Craig) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ytuj9LOhuM Moreover, the reason for using MWI, given by atheists, i.e. no additional assumptions, fails since it in fact, upon analysis, requires more assumptions rather than less assumptions: A Critique of the Many Worlds Interpretation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_42skzOHjtA&index=5&list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TViAqtowpvZy5PZpn-MoSK_bornagain77_{February 19, 2015
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Look, your ad hominem fallacies and Appeal to Motive are impotent. I don't really care what Sean Carroll thinks, or Hugh Everett. It's what the math says, and I can do the math, and none of you can. None of you know quantum field theory. That means I win and all of you lose. I can show 2+2=4, but you idjits think it's a good counter-argument to say, "Stop quoting those mathematicians who say 2+2= 4, they're militant atheists!" Do you think that will-- what?-- make 2+2 into 5? Or perhaps you think you will save face if you just write something, anything, and throw it at the wall? What's your strategy with that? Do any of you religious fanatics and daydreamers have any NON-RELIGIOUS objections? Anything beyond Ad hominem fallacy? You got nothing, right? Can any of you do any math-- multiplication, maybe? No? No math? Your religions and speculations are not evidence. Where is your "wavefunction collapse"? Is it testable? Did you observe it? Let's see what Wallstreeter has. To start off, ad hominem fallacy from anonymous jackoff, followed by appeal to motive fallacy. Gotcha.
Diogenes Dude stop peddling this pseudo science and quoting Sean carrol as if he is an unbiased knower of all truths. Carrol is a known militant atheist and will believe only that which fits into his atheistic worldview .
But that's only one ad hominem fallacy from an anonymous jackoff. Can you give me some more ad hominmen fallacy?
"When Hugh Everett, a PhD student, wrote some bizarre papers about “alternative foundations” of quantum mechanics in the late 1950s, he was allowed to speak about it in Copenhagen etc. Niels Bohr et al. saw that there was no valid physics in the papers whatsoever. The chap only wanted to be a critic whatever it costs, regardless of the absence of any evidence, and Bohr knew it was too little. He discussed these things with the chap’s adviser, John Wheeler, and everyone agreed that this guy shouldn’t continue as a professional physicist simply because he didn’t have enough talent and understanding for that."
Now that reference I really love, from some a website that says "OUR STRINGY UNIVERSE FROM A CONSERVATIVE VIEWPOINT" from a jackoff who can't write English and doesn't reference the apocryphal stories behind his ad hominem fallacies, and does not address the math. That's funny, because I was there when the guy who wrote the above defended his thesis-- me and Richard Feynman. When he was defending his thesis, Feynman and I both agreed that this author shouldn't continue as a physicist because he was clearly a dumbass.Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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Wallstreeter43 #9
Yes ! Guys I’m gonna get married tomorrow to a super model.
Doesn't this prove that for some people, in this case the super model, hell is real?awstar_{February 19, 2015
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Humbled you basically defined atheist in a nutshell :)wallstreeter43_{February 19, 2015
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Humbled what say you ? Lets go out and make our many worlds counterparts happy. Lets buy a lottery ticket . We will most likely lose but if if we play one of our many worlds counterparts will win and become instantly rich. Oh. It wait a minute by the mere fact that we thought of doing this means that one of our counter parts actually did buy the ticket. All I know is that our counterparts that won the lottery owe us and I think they should split the wealth with us . Oh wait but if they split the wealth does that mean that there is a world in which they didn't split the wealth ? Or is there a possible world in which they evolved to be oranges ! Or better yet is there a world in which evolution is not a delusional fantasy but is actually real. Ok I need a drink :( and I don't even drink :( Oh but wait does that mean one of my many worlds counter part is a alcoholic that lives on Bowery street ? My head is spinning . I need rest arghwallstreeter43_{February 19, 2015
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It does make one wonder why people are so willing to accept such a *gasp (theory) when there exists no evidence for it. It is so blatantly obvious that their position is one of faith and superstition. In fact, in order to believe this nonsense, one needs to distance themselves from logic, reason and reality. Only by ignoring the ability to think critically can a person accept such codswallop.humbled_{February 19, 2015
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Hey guys I'm going out to ask the worlds sexiest supermodel to marry me cause I wanna do my many worlds counterpart a favor. Cause if she says no to me here she will say yes to me there . But what he approaches her first and she says no to him ? That means that she will say yes to me Yes ! Guys I'm gonna get married tomorrow to a super model. I'll invite my friend Scott who is about to become a married bachelor ;)wallstreeter43_{February 19, 2015
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Not just the fine tuning argument humble but also the wave length collapse and the consequences of the universe being mental , because if the universe is mental then consciousness rules and we would be forced to posit an uptime consciousness or uptime observer which is God the G word . Atheists must at all costs try to come up with a myriad of hocus pocus magic to keep God out . I wonder if Diogenes is a magician by trade ;) Cause it sure looks like what he believes in is magic I wonder if on one of these many worlds if I won the mister Olympia competition and married a supermodel who was a 35 year old virgin former prostitute . Or maybe I was a married bachelor ? I like that better be use u can enjoy the married life without actually being married . Wow , on the other hand maybe I'll start pushing the beautiful magic of many worlds theory .wallstreeter43_{February 19, 2015
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"The opponents of MWI can fantasize about mysterious violations of Schrodinger’s Law, never specified, never well-defined, never observed, — dream on, but you can’t call your rich life of the imagination “science.”" The irony, please stop bwahaha. Not one shred of evidence exists to support this ridiculous theory. This entire line of thinking was quickly and desperately thrown together to counter the superior fine tuning arguments put forward by the ID community. It does make for great science fiction though ;)humbled_{February 19, 2015
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Diogenes Dude stop peddling this pseudo science and quoting Sean carrol as if he is an unbiased knower of all truths. Carrol is a known militant atheist and will believe only that which fits into his atheistic worldview . You can see this in Sean carrol when he steps out of his area of expertise and claims life after death must be incorrect . I guess no one told u and him that for the first time ever a veridical nde was times to have happened after even the 30second deep brain surge which gave atheists a brief break from the medical evidences that are starting to point to life after death. But lets get the real scoop here from another atheist that's at least honest enough to see what crap many worlds interpretation is . This is from the former harvard physicist Luboš Motl who is no slouch in physics http://motls.blogspot.com/2014/07/many-worlds-pseudoscience-again.html Many worlds pseudoscience, again When Hugh Everett, a PhD student, wrote some bizarre papers about "alternative foundations" of quantum mechanics in the late 1950s, he was allowed to speak about it in Copenhagen etc. Niels Bohr et al. saw that there was no valid physics in the papers whatsoever. The chap only wanted to be a critic whatever it costs, regardless of the absence of any evidence, and Bohr knew it was too little. He discussed these things with the chap's adviser, John Wheeler, and everyone agreed that this guy shouldn't continue as a professional physicist simply because he didn't have enough talent and understanding for that. And speaking if taking no prisoners Motl completely decimates Sean carrol here . ""When Hugh Everett, a PhD student, wrote some bizarre papers about "alternative foundations" of quantum mechanics in the late 1950s, he was allowed to speak about it in Copenhagen etc. Niels Bohr et al. saw that there was no valid physics in the papers whatsoever. The chap only wanted to be a critic whatever it costs, regardless of the absence of any evidence, and Bohr knew it was too little. He discussed these things with the chap's adviser, John Wheeler, and everyone agreed that this guy shouldn't continue as a professional physicist simply because he didn't have enough talent and understanding for that. In the following 55+ years, there has been no development that would strengthen the case for Mr Everett's musings. On the contrary, the experimental evidence and the modern crystallization of the quantum mechanical insights have made it increasingly clear that these musings were fundamentally wrong and proper quantum mechanics is the only viable theory to describe the relevant phenomena – which are really all processes in Nature. However, what has changed is that the Academia has been literally flooded by mediocre, incompetent pseudo-intellectuals similar to Hugh Everett – usually much worse and more inadequate than Everett himself. Sean Carroll is a textbook example of this sign of the degradation of the contemporary Academia which is why he wrote another text defending the indefensible, ""Why the Many-Worlds Formulation of Quantum Mechanics Is Probably Correct.""" Holy crap. ""The illustration of choice used to summarize and promote this "interpretation" of quantum mechanics is this Wikipedia picture of Schrödinger's cat (a four-legged cat; Schrödinger would simultaneously maintain several two-legged ones, too). What is this picture supposed to convey? It suggests that there are two worlds (or two similar copies of our world), and not just one, after a cat is observed. In one of them, the cat is alive. In the other world, it is dead. This childish picture is supposed to solve some "problems" that the defenders of this picture believe to exist in quantum mechanics. There are no problems in quantum mechanics, of course. At the same time, salesmen like Carroll offer you lots of incredible statements such as the statement that this "many worlds interpretation" directly follows from quantum mechanics, is directly justified by quantum mechanics (more justifiable in quantum mechanics than in classical physics), and unlike proper quantum mechanics, it doesn't introduce any new physical laws. All these statements are untrue. They are really the polar opposite of the truth. First, many worlds surely don't follow from quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is the universal framework of modern physics which is a natural science. As every natural science, physics predicts or explains the observations that are actually being made in one Universe. Deterministic physics (which may only work approximately in Nature) gives unambiguous predictions. Quantum physics (which is valid everywhere in the real world) predicts phenomena by quantifying the probabilities of different outcomes. Outcomes with probabilities close to 100% will probably happen, those close to 0% will probably not. The precise value of the probability may be extracted from the experiment if we repeat it many times (but using the knowledge of probabilities, one can make precise predictions even if we perform many inequivalent experiments!). The calculation of the probabilities is the quantum mechanical output replacing the unambiguous classical predictions. If you can't say anything about the values of probabilities of some phenomena, then you have no scientific theory whatsoever! This is the case of the many worlds "interpretation", too. The many worlds "interpretation" is an artistic picture that simply has nothing to do with science. Note that the picture with the split film of the cat doesn't tell you that the cat will survive with the 73% probability or anything like that. It just tells you that there are two possibilities. It shows you the set of potential histories, not any nontrivial information about the actual history. And even this information-free statement is really wrong or demagogic; and it can't be derived from the many worlds "interpretation", anyway. It is wrong because there aren't just two possible outcomes. There are infinitely many outcomes. The cat also has a nonzero probability to morph into a small version of Elvis Presley and be hit by some air molecules that bring it or him to the Moon. The probability is small but it is nonzero. (I could invent more likely outcomes "in between", too.) So the film should really be split into infinitely many strands at each spacetime point, including strands describing extremely unlikely histories. (In fact, we can't even say that the splitting would occur at each spacetime point because some observations are nonlocal in character. There exist no well-defined rules that would allow us to describe the "cardinality" of the tree at all.) The very fact that only two "reasonably likely" histories were cherry-picked is nothing else than demagogy. Such a qualitatively different treatment of "reasonably likely" and "very unlikely" outcomes is only possible if we first calculate the probabilities and then use different treatments according to their value (and this decision is always about being useful, not being true; fundamentally, Nature doesn't treat high and low probabilities qualitatively differently). The many worlds "interpretation" doesn't allow us to calculate – or imprint – the generally different probabilities of different outcomes into the "strands" of the film. Even the fans of this religion admit it's the case but some of them say that they are "working on a fix" which is supposed to be enough. (A similarly "modest" fix makes Genesis compatible with all the detailed data about the cosmic microwave background, the DNA, and genetics.) What they don't realize is that the inability of this theory or "interpretation" to calculate any probabilities isn't just a moderate vice or disadvantage. It is a complete, rigorous proof that this philosophy has nothing to do with the empirical data or science whatever and people who are defending it don't have the slightest clue what they are talking about. Everything that modern science predicts are probabilities or their functions. If your ideas don't predict any probabilities, they don't predict anything at all. They have nothing to do with science. Moreover, there can't be any fix. There can't even exist a candidate theory that would "extract" the probabilities from something else. In proper quantum mechanics, probabilities are fundamental which means that they are pretty much directly predicted from the mathematical formalism. There is no useless "intermediate agent" that would extract probabilities from something else. There can't really be any. A theory is either exactly deterministic (plus admitting complete knowledge in principle) or it is not. If it is exactly deterministic, it is possible to produce unequivocal predictions out of the information about the initial state, at least in principle. That's the case of classical physics. In this setup, all predicted probabilities are either 0% or 100%. That's no good for the experiments backing quantum mechanics where almost all the probabilities are strictly between 0% and 100%. Or the theory may fail to be strictly deterministic, or prohibit the observers from knowing the exact required information, even in principle. In that case, the probabilities may be in between 0% and 100%. But such continuous, a priori arbitrary probabilities may only be calculated from other probability-like continuous quantities that are present in the fundamental formalism of the theory such as the classical probability distributions on the phase space or the density matrix (which may be obtained from a state vector if the state is pure). The very illustration with the split film of the cat as well as many explicit statements by the many worlds apologists make it absolutely clear that one of the key assumptions of the whole many worlds movement is that probabilities are not fundamental. But it's just mathematically impossible to derive a priori continuous numbers interpretable as probabilities from a formalism that rejects any fundamental quantities with a directly probability-like interpretation! Probabilities may only be calculated from other continuous numbers of a similar kind and all such continuous numbers are probability-like because probabilities are their functions! If there aren't any, your formalism just can't be capable of predicting probabilities. Note that this simple argument – pure maths – really eliminates all attempts to replace quantum mechanics with some ideas where probabilities are not fundamental. This includes the Bohmian and other hidden-variable theories. The pilot wave theory needs to assume that the classical particle it envisions has a position in the initial state that is statistically distributed according to the wave function (renamed as guiding wave). Only the correct time evolution of the probabilistic distribution is guaranteed by the mechanical equation of motion including the effect of the guiding wave. They don't have any mechanism explaining the right probabilistic distribution of their classical particle in the initial state. Of course, there can't be any. They prefer not to talk about this point at all even though this point really means that their claim that they have derived the "random generator" of quantum mechanics from something else is completely fraudulent. The same "random generator" must still exist somewhere to produce the classical particle in a position that is correctly distributed. It must be distributed according to the wave function which proves that if this condition is guaranteed, the wave function has a fundamentally probabilistic interpretation, anyway! But let me return to the many worlds. Its defenders often say something like the many worlds "interpretation" is just pure mechanics; it is not adding anything to it. Carroll makes this statement about 5 times and it is a complete lie. It is really the opposite of the truth. Proper quantum mechanics dictates the evolution of operators in the Heisenberg picture (or, equivalently, the direct Feynman path integral formula to calculate the probability amplitudes; or the evolution of the state vector in Schrödinger's picture – the latter picture is the most popular approach among the superficial and confused people). The complex probability amplitudes may be directly squared (in absolute values, using the right Born's rule etc.) to calculate the probabilities of various observations or outcomes or perceptions etc. Quantum mechanics works totally universally. It doesn't matter what object we want to observe and which aspect of it we measure. Quantum mechanics predicts the probabilities using the same universal formulae and the time evolution is always given by the same equations, too. What about the many worlds "interpretation"? Just look at the marketing illustration at the top. Aside from Heisenberg's or Schrödinger's dynamical equations, there is a new process added on top of it – the splitting of the film, the splitting of the worlds to make them "many". When writing this promotion of "many worlds", Carroll must have forgotten about something, about the "many worlds", right? Believe me that to produce a film that splits into two in the triangular junction is much harder than to produce an ordinary film with a single story of a cat. It's also harder to insert such a film with "junctions" into a film projector. The film projector sometimes jams, and so on. It doesn't work well. Try it if you don't believe me. Now, to produce another copy of the Universe is even harder than to produce a plastic foil with junctions. It's even a bit harder to produce many copies or exp(10120) copies you might need to describe the multiplicity of outcomes of every arrangement of processes that may occur within the patch of the visible Universe. But OK, you might rightfully say that it's not your job to produce copies of the Universe. Nature can do it easily. Yes, Nature can do anything if the laws of physics say that it should happen. The problem is that one can't even define the rules when the hypothetical splitting should take place and how the two or three or N or ? (also unknown) copies attached to the junction should differ from each other. And the problem isn't just that we don't know how often and finely the film should be "split" etc. We may easily see that whatever the rules are, they contradict some known facts about Nature. Why? The really key feature of the quantum evolution is that it always allows parts of the state vector to interfere in the future and affect various other measurements in non-classical ways. We know this even from the double slit experiment which, as Feynman observed, contains all the qualitative wisdom about quantum mechanics if you think about the experiment carefully enough. We can't assume that the particle goes either through slit A or slit B (with the strict, classical assumptions about the alternatives) if we don't observe it. The actual initial state implies nonzero probability amplitudes for both intermediate histories and their mutual interference affects the existence and location of the interference minima and maxima on the photographic screen! We can never strictly say that some observable (like the "which slit" information about position) took a completely specific value in the classical sense. The eigenvector may always interfere with another one. Now, if you think about it for a second, this totally elementary and universal feature of quantum mechanics in general and of the double slit experiment in particular is nothing else than the statement that the worlds just never split in the classical sense! The cat may be in the state |??=0.6|alive?+0.8i|dead?. I chose the probabilities non-uniform (36% and 64%, thanks to Pythagoras for these nice numbers) and I chose the amplitudes to be complex (with different phases) because I want to emphasize that the phases matter as much as the ratios of the absolute values! If you perform another measurement of an operator that doesn't commute with the binary operator having eigenvalues zero (dead) and one (alive), the relative phase will matter for the predictions as much as the ratio of the absolute values! So the "dead cat" and the "alive cat" are two intermediate histories whose mutual interference may in principle affect the probabilities of later measurements just like the mutual interference of "slit A" and "slit B". Just like we can't assume that the particle in the double slit experiment picked one of the possible slits (and intermediate histories), we can't assume it about the cat. The knowledge of the existence of interference of the state vector in quantum mechanics is the same thing as the knowledge that the world never fundamentally splits to two classical histories. In other words, people who really think that the two worlds separately exist in the classical sense are misunderstanding the lesson 1 of of the undergraduate quantum mechanics lecture that begins with the double slit experiment. They're still not getting the point that the histories (basis vectors of the intermediate-time Hilbert space) can't be assumed to be "mutually exclusive" in the classical sense (what I mean is that you can't really assume that only one of the intermediate histories took place, and to calculate the weighted average of the probabilities from the two histories to get the probabilities of the final outcomes). Now, classical physics and classical interpretations do follow from quantum mechanics as a good approximation for large objects including cats. The interference patterns you could create by reinterfering the "dead" and "alive" cat are so fine, chaotic, and unpredictable (especially because the microstate of the environment that the cat has interacted with can't be exactly followed and measured and one would need to know it very precisely) that in practice, one may use the classical interpretation for observables for which the classical interpretation is approximately OK and that tend to "classically xerox" the information about themselves by interacting with and by entangling many degrees of freedom of the environment. The interference patterns are too fine or average out in the real measurements. Equivalently, the aforementioned operators "not commuting" with the operator of the "livelihood of the cat" are extremely unnatural and hard to operationally measure. The classical reasoning is therefore OK. But all these classical interpretations are just approximate. And clearly, if we are using them, we are not "interpreting" anything about quantum mechanics. We are only "interpreting" classical physics and all of our comments only become (approximately) valid if all the special features of quantum mechanics (re-interference...) become unmeasurable! This conclusion is also equivalent to the reasons why another statement by Carroll, the statement that (using my words) "quantum mechanics directly opens the door for multiple universes while classical physics doesn't". Again, this claim is untrue. Again, it's the polar opposite of the truth. The truth is exactly the other way around. Multiple universes that co-exist in the classical sense may be chosen as a way to visualize the classical probabilistic distribution but this way to visualize what's going on breaks down exactly when the quantum mechanical effects are still important. (I didn't say "become important" because these words would indicate that classical physics is the normal and one needs to go very far, in an unnatural domain, for the quantum weirdness to emerge. The truth is exactly the opposite. Quantum laws are valid everywhere and they're completely normal and you have to go to special limits or corners if you want classical physics to become at least approximately usable!) If you throw a classical die, you may imagine that there are six mutually different universes that were split off their parent universe, just like on the picture of the "film juncture". In one of them, you got "1", and so on. The subsequent evolution in each of these 6 universes is independent of the others. The "tree of films" is the tree of potential histories and the set of potential histories may be imagined to "really exist" somewhere in classical physics (at least discrete classical physics, to avoid subtleties with continuous trees and probability densities). However, that's exactly what quantum mechanics doesn't allow because the right predictions of (probabilities of) future outcomes in a specific Universe – the only Universe or every Universe – are only obtained if you take the complex amplitudes in front of all the alternatives ("all the different universes") and their interference into account, according to the right formulae. Again, the truth is the opposite than what these many worlds kibitzers are saying. In classical statistical physics, the probability distributions wouldn't be normally visualized as "really existing" in different copies of the world because the 19th century physicists knew that such an expansion of the idea about the "size of the world" would bring them nothing whatever scientifically. It wouldn't have increased their ability to explain or predict observations. But it was possible to imagine the branching tree of the classical histories and transitions between them. Quantum mechanics made it impossible to visualize the alternatives in this way because the alternatives [possible intermediate-time features of the history of any experiment] are no longer mutually exclusive in the classical sense. So even the "potential" for many worlds in the classical sense is deleted by the basic features of quantum mechanics. Sometimes, people or companies choose to cherry-pick some advantages of the products or ideas they are promoting. But what I find remarkable about the defense by individuals such as Sean Carroll is that their claims are downright lies from the beginning to the end. The truth isn't just "independent" from what they're saying. The truth about pretty much every isolated claim is demonstrably the opposite of what they say. They constantly say that the gold is šit and šit is gold. They constantly say that their philosophy isn't adding anything to QM even though it's the whole point of this philosophy that it is trying to add some extra process – an undefined, undefinable, awkward, unphysical, and ultimately inevitably inconsistent process of splitting the "film". They constantly say that the proper quantum mechanics needs some extra laws to make the predictions even though it's demonstrably the case, according to the basic rules of quantum mechanics, that quantum mechanics extracts the predictions directly from the objects that depend on time through the known universal equations. They repeatedly claim that their philosophy isn't introducing or depending on any qualitative boundary between the "microscopic quantum phenomena" and "macroscopic classical phenomena" while proper quantum mechanics is postulating such a boundary. The truth is exactly the opposite. Their splitting of the film is only viable if it is only applied to processes that are compatible with the classical interpretation, while the splitting is prohibited for intrinsically quantum observables (like the "which slit" information in the double slit experiment) which means that they need to introduce a qualitatively different treatment for the "two domains", otherwise they instantly get a wrong prediction for the double slit experiment and every other intrinsically quantum experiment. Proper quantum mechanics doesn't introduce any qualitative difference between the "domains". All phenomena are described by the same theory developed in Copenhagen etc. It's only classical physics that is "only valid" (approximately) in a realm behind the boundary. It is valid along with quantum mechanics over there (QM holds everywhere, classical physics only holds approximately in the limit) and the validity of classical physics is also needed for observers to make classical-like statements about their observations but it's just a limitation of classical-like statements about observations, not a limitation of the laws of quantum mechanics which always hold. An observer large enough to take decoherence in his brain for granted may choose the "Heisenberg cut" (the boundary, if interpreted using the words of the founders of quantum mechanics) anywhere in between his brain and the small objects whose interference may be measured, so the location of any would-be boundary is physically inconsequential. The theory really doesn't depend on any features like that and the only "invariant enough" refinement of this boundary, the place where decoherence starts to legitimize the classical interpretation of the probabilities (by erasing the potential for re-interference), is again fully derivable from the same universal laws of quantum mechanics. ("The Heisenberg cut" and the basic foundations of quantum mechanics also clearly, crisply, and cleverly answer the question "how many junctions in the MWI film there should be?" or "how finely the histories should be divided?". The answer is that it is only justified – but still not necessary – to imagine that the history of the world splits into several alternatives if you can and do actually measure a quantity. No measurement means no splitting. Whether one made a measurement or perceived an outcome is really a subjective question – think about Wigner's friend – which is why all questions about "how fine the MWI tree objectively is" are no good because they are based on the fundamentally wrong assumption that such questions may have objective answers. Observation is a subjective experience or act by an observer.) They constantly say that their philosophy is a "friend" of the fundamental equations of quantum mechanics even though they have demonstrably no positive relation at all. All the equations of quantum mechanics are constraining the values of intrinsically probability-like basic entities (the state vector etc.) while the MWI advocates deny the existence of any concepts that must have a fundamentally probabilistic interpretation. So the claim that the philosophy is a "friend" with the equations of quantum mechanics is a much greater lie than the claim by a creationist who bought a T-shirt with the Standard Model Lagrangian and who says that "particle physics is on their side". In the creationist's case, the two "friends" are at least independent of each other. In Carroll's case, the "friends" are two directly contradicting ideas. They constantly say that quantum mechanics made it more natural than classical physics to interpret probabilities through many worlds. The truth is that quantum mechanics eliminated the freedom to interpret probabilities in this way that existed in classical physics (classical physics allowed us to imagine that the "set of potential histories" is the set of "real histories" in an appropriately extended world). And so on, and so on. This whole MWI movement is completely irrational, dishonest, and just plain idiotic, and it has contaminated the Academia so thoroughly that there exists no Niels Bohr in 2014 who could just eliminate all these hacks. I am disgusted by this šit. If you combine it with other equally misguided stuff, it is probably fair to say that this trash has taken over the majority of most of the official institutions that should study conceptual issues in physics or science. The situation outside the Academia is no better. Just look at the dozens of imbeciles at Carroll's blog – only a tiny fraction manages to mention that Carroll's writing is just wrong."" So Diogenes , please stop peddling this crap as if it's anything buts who'd science . Motl maybe an atheist but I respect him for speaking the truth no matter whose worldview it favors . Now maybe u can address Sean Carroll idiotic move out if his field of expertise and into an area he knows squat about and that's Nde's. Diogenes it sounds to me like u have a lot if hidden insecurities about your atheistic world. Fees up my friend . Your not trying to convince us . The oerson your really trying to convince is yourself. Yes many worlds is scientfic fact, and I have some prime beachfront property in Alabama right next to the beach I'm looking to sell you. Interested ?wallstreeter43_{February 19, 2015
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And here, buried in Phillip Ball's moronic article, is his key blunder-- and when I say "blunder" I'm being kind.
Phillip Ball wrote: Compared with these problems, the difficulty of testing the MWI experimentally (which would seem necessary if it is to be considered truly scientific) is a small matter. ‘It’s trivial to falsify [MWI],' boasts the Caltech cosmologist Sean Carroll, another supporter: ‘just do an experiment that violates the Schrödinger equation or the principle of superposition, which are the only things the theory assumes.’ But most other interpretations of quantum theory assume them (at least) too – so such an experiment would rule them all out
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. The entire point of MWI is that all other interpretations (like Copenhagen et al.) hypothesize UNTESTED, UNOBSERVED VIOLATIONS OF THE SCHRODINGER'S LAW. If you want to daydream about "conscious beings" violating Schrodinger's law in an unspecified, undefined way, that's your untested, unwarranted speculation. Dream on, but don't call your speculations "scientific." This was Sean Carroll's point, which Ball completely misrepresents. Or lies about. Take your pick. But let me return to Ball's first sentence:
Compared with these problems, the difficulty of testing the MWI experimentally (which would seem necessary if it is to be considered truly scientific)
Stop right there. Deductions from already established laws don't need to be tested; if they follow as logical deductions. If the conclusion is wrong, then then premises would have to be wrong, and thus the premises could be tested. When the coment Shoemaker-Levy crashed into Jupiter, all telescopes in the world were pointed at Jupiter, but none of them saw the collision. The comet went behind Jupiter and hit the far side. Every physicist in the world assumed the comet obeyed Newton's laws when we couldn't observe it. But I didn't see Phillip Ball or the other idjits screaming, "It's unscientific to assume the comet was obeying Newton's laws when we couldn't see it? That's not testable!" No, because if you don't like the deduction, then the premises must be wrong-- you're hypothesizing that there's a "mysterious force" that violates Newton's Laws when we're not looking, and that's untested, unwarranted speculation on your part. Where did you put your car keys? In the drawer? Do you think the car keys still exist when you're not observing them? Is it unscientific to claim, "My car keys continue to exist when I am not observing them?" No, it follows as a deduction from already established principles. If you don't like the premises, then you're hypothesizing that matter pops into and out of existence when we're not looking, and that's untested, unwarranted speculation on your part. The opponents of MWI can fantasize about mysterious violations of Schrodinger's Law, never specified, never well-defined, never observed, --- dream on, but you can't call your rich life of the imagination "science."Diogenes_{February 19, 2015
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Here is Sean Carroll on MWI. Kicking ass and taking names as usual.
Sean Carroll: Not only did we not need to add anything to make it [MWI] possible, we had no choice in the matter. The potential for multiple worlds is always there in the quantum state, whether you like it or not. The next question would be, do multiple-world superpositions of the form written in (2) ever actually come into being? And the answer again is: yes, automatically, without any additional assumptions. It’s just the ordinary evolution of a quantum system according to Schrödinger’s equation. Indeed, the fact that a state that looks like (1) evolves into a state that looks like (2) under Schrödinger’s equation is what we mean when we say “this apparatus measures whether the spin is up or down.” The conclusion, therefore, is that multiple worlds automatically occur in quantum mechanics. They are an inevitable part of the formalism. The only remaining question is: what are you going to do about it? There are three popular strategies on the market: anger, denial, and acceptance. ... There are other silly objections to EQM [Everettian Quantum Mechanics/MWI], of course. The most popular is probably the complaint that it’s not falsifiable. That truly makes no sense. It’s trivial to falsify EQM — just do an experiment that violates the Schrödinger equation or the principle of superposition, which are the only things the theory assumes. Witness a dynamical collapse, or find a hidden variable. Of course we don’t see the other worlds directly, but — in case we haven’t yet driven home the point loudly enough — those other worlds are not added on to the theory. They come out automatically if you believe in quantum mechanics. If you have a physically distinguishable alternative, by all means suggest it — the experimenters would love to hear about it. (And true alternatives, like GRW and Bohmian mechanics, are indeed experimentally distinguishable.) Sadly, most people who object to EQM do so for the silly reasons, not for the serious ones. [Sean Carroll on MWI]
Diogenes_{February 18, 2015
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THAT'S your money quote? So Ball has no argument against MWI then. MWI follows inevitable as a deduction from the principles of quantum mechanics. Let's look again at BA77's "money quote":
Too many worlds – Philip Ball – Feb. 17, 2015 Excerpt:,,, You measure the path of an electron, and in this world it seems to go this way, but in another world it went that way.
This is immediately false. QM does not say "in another world it went that way." Rather, QM shows that particles exist in superpositions of eigenstates. One eigenstate is "this way", one eigenstate is "that way", and the electron is in a superposition. This is an observed fact, because in the double slit experiment you can make two parts of the wavefunction interfere with each other. They can't interfere with each other unless they both exist.
That requires a parallel, identical apparatus for the electron to traverse.
No. Again false. Rather, only after the other apparatus measures the eigenvalue of the superposed particle, does the measuring apparatus itself exist in a superposition, with one machine recording "electron went this way" and the other machine recording "that way." It's not in a superposition until it makes the measurement.
More – it requires a parallel you to measure it.
Again, not true until you observe the readout from the machine. Until then, you're not in a superposition. After you observe the readout, you're in a superposition and your state is correlated with the state of the electron.
Once begun, this process of fabrication has no end: you have to build an entire parallel universe around that one electron, identical in all respects except where the electron went.
No, not an entire parallel universe-- that's ridiculous, because correlations and observations are limited by the speed of light. So what you're doing here will not affect the Andromeda galaxy for millions of years.
You avoid the complication of wavefunction collapse, but at the expense of making another universe.,,,
But there is no "expense" and it isn't another universe. It's a macroscopic superposition of eigenstates. And to emphasize, there is no "expense" in the sense of, say, Occam's razor because there are no concepts nor hypothesized entities not already in QM and not supported by direct observation. The idea of you being in a superposition is an unavoidable deduction from already established principles, but deductions are not unparsimonious in terms of Occam's razor. Rather, going against deductions from valid premises is unparsimonious, and that's the problem with anything but MWI. Again, all these entities are observed in QM: 1. Quantum superpostion of simultaneous eigenstates of particles? Observed: see two slit experiment. 2. Humans and machines are macroscopic aggregates of particles? Observed. 3. Macroscopic aggregates of particles can be in quantum superpositions of macroscopic states? Observed: see superfluids. 4. YOU are one eigenstate of a quantum superposition: inevitable deduction from 1..3. So you're stuck with MWI, philosophy or no. Rather, it is everything else besides MWI which invokes some kind of mysterious "dark force" which has no description or definition, mathematical or otherwise, which violates known laws of physics, which somehow treats "observers" differently than other macroscopic systems-- and says they violate knows laws of physics-- but never defines what an observer is! And you can't even go full ooga booga and say "an observer is a conscious being", obviously, because the interference pattern of the micro-state disappears when a machine interacts with it. And the machine need not be a person, and you don't have a definition of "conscious being" anyway. What if the scientist were brain-damaged? A baby? In a coma? Suppose we repeat the two-slit experiment with scientist observers and systematically damage their brains more and more until the alleged "wavefunction collapse" (which has never been defined or described or observed) stops happening. At what point does the brain damage become so severe that it stops the alleged "wavefunction collapse"? Never, because there was no "wavefunction collapse." No matter how damaged or undamaged the scientist's brain is, the scientist and the machine doing the observing obey already-established laws: when they interact with a quantum superposition of eigenstates in a fashion dependent on the eigenvalue, they themselves become a quantum superposition. That follows from the known, observed laws of physics as surely as the night follows day. No new entities need to be hypothesized. The opponents of MWI must hypothesize all kinds of crazy $%^& and new entities that we've never observed, like that the laws of physics are different for "conscious beings" than they are for other macroscopic systems, but they can't say what a "conscious being" is, and they can't say how the laws are different, or what a wavefunction collapse is-- and they can't explain why a "wavefunction collapse" must happen when the observer is a dumb machine! If all scientists everywhere died tomorrow, but the machines went on clicking, your "wavefunction collapse" would go on happening, in a universe without conscious beings! The opponents of MWI must hypothesize bizarre, hypothetical, counterfactual mysterious forces or principles that not only have never been observed, but that they can't even define! The war against empiricism, indeed.Diogenes_{February 18, 2015
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Money quote: Too many worlds - Philip Ball - Feb. 17, 2015 Excerpt:,,, You measure the path of an electron, and in this world it seems to go this way, but in another world it went that way. That requires a parallel, identical apparatus for the electron to traverse. More – it requires a parallel you to measure it. Once begun, this process of fabrication has no end: you have to build an entire parallel universe around that one electron, identical in all respects except where the electron went. You avoid the complication of wavefunction collapse, but at the expense of making another universe.,,, http://aeon.co/magazine/science/is-the-many-worlds-hypothesis-just-a-fantasy/bornagain77_{February 18, 2015
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Here is a video that exposes the weaknesses in the Many Worlds Interpretation. Weaknesses that in fact falsify it as to being a correct view of reality: A Critique of the Many Worlds Interpretation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_42skzOHjtA&index=5&list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TViAqtowpvZy5PZpn-MoSK_bornagain77_{February 18, 2015
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