On Saturday, September 20, 2025 at 5:31:15 AM UTC-6 John Clark wrote:
On Fri, Sep 19, 2025 at 9:44 AM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote: *>>Many Worlds has only two fundamental axioms, and they are both simple:* *1) The quantum wave function contains all the physical information about a system.* *> As well as heart failure of horses? AG* *Certainly! Microscopic systems have quantum wave functions just like microscopic objects do. A dead horse and a living horse are different physical states and they contain different physical information. And neither physical state is forbidden by Schrodinger's equation. And if Schrodinger's equation is deterministic, which it is, then when it comes to physical information and therefore physical reality, everything that is not forbidden is mandatory. * *Why mandatory? How can you know what's forbidden or not? It's great to know heart research can be done using S's equation. RFK Jr needs to be immediately informed. AG* *John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* *2) The quantum wave function evolves according to the Schrödinger equation.* *In some places and at some times the quantum wave function has a very low amplitude but is nevertheless greater than zero, therefore according to axiom #1 it must be physical, and being physical has consequences. And one of those consequences is that the universe is deterministic (because Schrodinger's equation is deterministic) and local but NOT realistic. The great virtue of Many Worlds is that it takes quantum mechanics at face value, it needs no extra machinery to explain measurement or observation. * *By contrast **In David Bohm's quantum interpretation he keeps Schrödinger's equation but adds another equation for what he calls the "pilot wave" which has some very unusual properties. The pilot wave is extremely non-local, it has to take the state of the entire universe into account in order to know if it should guide an electron through the right slit or the left slit in an experiment, and influences can be instantaneous, and distance does not diminish affects so an electron in the Andromeda galaxy might be just as important in making the decision of which split to go through as an electron that is only 1 foot away.* *Also, the pilot wave can affect an electron but an electron cannot affect the pilot wave, the wave pushes the particle but the particle can NOT push back. This sort of one-way causation has never been observed before. And the asymmetry means that matter is real (it always has one definite position and velocity) but is fundamentally passive, matter is guided by the pilot wave but matter is unable to influence the pilot wave. Human Beings are made of matter so we are just puppets, the pilot wave pulls the strings. Well OK… Technically we're marionettes not puppets. * *Bohm and his supporters argue that all of this additional byzantine complexity is worth it because it maintains realism. I disagree, I think that is far too high a price to pay. At the end of the day all the pilot wave does is provide a little arrow that points at a particle and says "this is the real particle, ignore all others". This is why detractors of pilot wave theory have called it "the disappearing worlds theory" or "Many Worlds theory in denial" . * *> I suppose I'm using the same reasoning you use in denying SUPER DETERMINISM.* *As I've said before I can't prove that super determinism is wrong but I can prove that super determinism is silly. The greater the violation of Occam's razor that your theory needs to be true the sillier it is, and by that metric it would be impossible to be sillier than super determinism. * -- 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/e996f875-49d0-4db5-9bbd-fb6adbfa754dn%40googlegroups.com.
