On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 2:09 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List < everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>> Probability must be about something and that something had to either >> have happened or have not happened; so it should produce a smear if and >> only if the probability is greater than 0% but less than 100%. > > > *>What does the probability have to do with the size of the detection > spot? The probability refers to how likely it is for a spot to appear at a > location in many repetitions. * > What if there are not many repetitions and it only happens once? After the event is over you can say that the electron either hit that particular spot or it did not hit that particular spot. After you perform the experiment you can say the electron could end up anywhere but afterwards you know it didn't go everywhere, and it didn't make a smudge, it made a particular spot. *> It says nothing about the size of the spot, which is determined by the > detector.* > And what the detector does is determined by quantum mechanics, not classical mechanics. > >> Bohr was a great scientist but a lousy philosopher. If Bohr's >> philosophy requires classical physics then obviously Bohr's philosophy is >> wrong because classical physics is a theory known to be incorrect. As >> Richard Feynman said "*Nature is quantum dammit!*" > > *> But all observations are classical,* > That is incorrect. No observation is classical because all observations require instruments and all instruments work on quantum principles, even the human eye. >> There is nothing in Schrodinger's equation that says anything about the wave >> collapsing, so Everett simply says it doesn't collapse and that means >> you've got many worlds; it's bare-bones quantum mechanics that contains >> everything that is required and not one more thing > > *> Yes and it says nothing about probability or even measurement. So it's > just a free-floating equation with no intepretation?* All equations require interpretations, but the simpler and more straightforward the interpretation the better. The simplest explanation for why something stopped is that it didn't stop. And that is one of Many Worlds two great virtues, the other one is that it doesn't have to explain what an observation or an observer is so it doesn't have to wade into the endless consciousness quagmire. > There is absolutely nothing more certain than the existence of the self, >> but there is nothing mystical about that; it's just that it's not a noun. >> The self is what the brain does, not what the brain is, so "self" must >> be an adjective. I would define the particular self called John K Clark >> recursively, he is whoever remembers being John K Clark yesterday. If >> Everett is right and every change no matter how small causes the >> universe to split, > > > > *But Everett didn't say that. He only said that an observation (which he > left ill defined) split the world.* > Not so. It's true Everett didn't explain what an observation is but one reason I'm a fan of Many Worlds is that Everett doesn't need to explain what an "observation" is because it has nothing to do with the theory. John Wheeler, Everett's thesis advisor, made him cut out about half the stuff in his original 137 page thesis and tone down the language so it didn't sound like he thought all those other universes were equally real when in fact he did. For example, Wheeler didn't like the word "split" and was especially uncomfortable with talk of conscious observers splitting in a way that was no different from the way non-conscious things split. Even more seriously he made him remove the entire chapter on information and probability which today many consider the best part of the work. Everett also said that when an observer splits it is meaningless to ask "*which of the final observers corresponds to the initial one since each possesses the total memory of the first*", he says it is as foolish as asking which amoeba is the original after it splits into two. Wheeler also made him remove all such talk of amebas from his published short thesis. His long thesis was not published until 1973, if that version had been published in 1957 instead of the truncated Bowdlerized version things would have been different; plenty of people would still have disagreed but he would not have been ignored for as long as he was. >> there must be some changes to my brain that are so small (one neutron in >> one neuron moving one Planck length to the left) that they cause no >> change in conscious experience and do not degrade the memory of being John >> K Clark yesterday. Therefore there must be an astronomical number to an >> astronomical power of John K Clarks all living in different, very very >> slightly different, worlds. The number would be HUGE but it would still >> be finite, so the number of John K Clarks that see you flip a fair coin and >> come up heads 5 times in a row must be twice as large as the number of >> times he sees you do it 6 times, but there would still be a few that see >> him do it 100 times, maybe 1000 or even more. > > *> That's a possible interpretation. But it's not a mechanism for > realizing the squared amplitude of the wave as relative frequency of > worlds, which decoherence proposed to do.* > I believe you mentioned Gleason's Theorem, it says that if the quantum wave function is related to probability then the square of the absolute value is the only one that doesn't produce mathematical contradictions. John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> 8gvo -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv2fDbDA6ieDrzrRH%3D%3DE8FwVUd75_Ncj3vS5Ypmisb7b0Q%40mail.gmail.com.
