On Monday, March 2, 2015, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 3/2/2015 5:36 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 11:33 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: >> >> On 2/28/2015 11:25 AM, Jason Resch wrote: >> >> >>>> >>>> >>>> The best text on non-relativistic QM is by Asher Peres and it's available *free* online. >>>> >>>> http://www.fisica.net/quantica/Peres%20-%20Quantum%20Theory%20Concepts%20and%20Methods.pdf >>> >> >> This is his treatment of MW: >> >> Everett’s interpretation and other bizarre theories >> Another attempt4 to salvage quantum ontology, without invoking a collapse of the wave function, is to assume that an entangled expression like (12.1) does represent the actual situation. More precisely, the right hand side of (12.1) is a part of the “wave function of the Universe,” in which the cat may be considered as the observer of the atom. However, the two branches of (12.1) correspond to different worlds, between which there can be no communication, once an irreversible process has occurred. This approach has several variations5 which are called the “relative state interpretation” and the “many worlds interpretation.” None is satisfactory because they merely replace the arbitrariness of the collapse postulate by that of the no-communication hypothesis. In particular, there are no objective criteria for the occurrence of the irreversibility which is needed to prevent communication between the various worlds (and there cannot be any such criteria, as we have seen in Chapter 11). >> There have also been innumerable attempts to modify quantum theory (not only to reinterpret it) so as to avoid the dual nature of the measuring instrument. There is no experimental evidence to support any one of these mutations of quantum theory—there is much evidence against them. I shall not further discuss these groundless speculations. >> >> He seems to be unaware of decoherence in his critique of Everett. >> >> The term was not popular when he wrote the book, but he considers the process and the influence of the environment in latter part of chapter 11. >> >> (1) The interference terms are not driven to zero, only to small values and small values in cross terms cannot just be neglected since they are not necessarily small in other bases. >> > > What are the other bases where interference is not driven to zero, and do they really have significance to observers? > > Probably not, because we can't construct instruments whose interaction Hamiltonian would measure in those bases. But that points to a deficiency in our understanding of the world. In the simple "The SWE is all we need." theory of MWI there is no way to pick out the "good basis" from any other. > > (is your contention that if MW were true, it would lead to different observations than what we apparently currently get)? > > I don't think it's definite enough to say. It doesn't say exactly how communication between worlds is avoided; that's where we need to develop Zeh's theory of einselection. > > >> >> (2) They don't have a probability interpretation (without further assumptions) which would support an stat mech interpretation of no-communication. >> >> > > What is your opinion of Russell's derivation of the Born rule and the Schrodinger equation? > > Dunno, I need to read it first.
It's available for free on Russell's website. That part is only a few pages long, I am still trying to understand it myself, but I think it could be one of the most significant breakthroughs in science if it's sound. Jason > > Brent > > -- > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
