On Sun, Sep 14, 2025 at 6:51 PM Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
*>>> This is to assume that in Everett's picture, each trial is effectively >>> a Bernoulli trial, with a probability of success p. This is not the case. >>> Since every outcome occurs on every Evettian trial, the process cannot be >>> seen as a Bernoulli trial.* >> >> *>> You're making an implicit assumption that is usually harmless but not >> when you're talking about the nature of quantum reality. You are forgetting >> that a Bernoulli trial is not a Bernoulli trial unless the Bernoulli trial >> has been OBSERVED. And every observer observes that only two outcomes are >> possible, the coin lands heads or the coin lands tails. And after many >> trials all the observers in the Multiverse deduce that the outcome of one >> trial does not influence the outcome of another trial. And all the >> observers in the Multiverse also deduce that the probability of heads and >> the probability of tails remains the same for every trial. And that is >> exactly what is required for something to be a Bernoulli trial.* > > *> A Bernoulli trial does not require that the probability of heads and > tails be equal. * > *The probability of heads or tails does not have to be equal, it might be a weighted coin where the probability of heads on each coin flip is 75% and tails only 25%, but the probability of each throw of the coin must be constant for all coin flips. * *> But Everett entails that on every trial there will be an equal number of > heads and tails across all worlds.* > *Well that is certainly wrong, and it's wrong on several levels. First of all, contrary to what you seem to be implying, Everett never claimed that probability can be determined by counting branches (a.k.a. worlds) nor has anybody in his school of thought claimed that. I've pointed out on this list before exactly why counting branches can't produce a probability. * *And on every trial there will be an equal probability BUT that doesn't mean each trial will produce an equal number of heads. If I was blindfolded and flipped a fair coin 100 times and just let the coins fall to the ground, and then before the blindfold was removed, had to make a bet on what sort of world I was in I would bet** I was in the sort of world where there were 50 heads and 50 tails on the ground, but I would prefer not to bet on it at all because the probability of getting EXACTLY 50 heads is only about 8%. So if I'm not in a 50 heads world I'm probably in a world where the number of heads is close to 50, but there's a finite chance I'm in a 100 heads world, although the probability of that is very low, and so is its quantum wave amplitude. * *Until I take the blindfold off and look at the hundred coins on the ground I will always have some uncertainty about what sort of world I'm in. And even in the worlds where they are exactly 50 heads there would be slight differences on exactly where the coins landed. * *John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* 300 > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv0Ndn1OibuGzskKROKQARtP-y2zjTn-QYmbR%2BQm77z%3D-Q%40mail.gmail.com.
