Re: A modest proposal

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 17 Sep 2019, at 20:08, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 9/17/2019 6:32 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 14 Sep 2019, at 05:32, Philip Thrift >> > wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 6:25:43 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>> as far as I can see [MWI is] just an auxiliary set of physical axioms one 
>>> can work with in various ways. I have no idea whether there really are 
>>> 10^{200} versions of me splashed across the type III multiverse.
>>> 
>>> LC
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>> Are there any programs using "MWI axioms" in any computational QM 
>>> programming* to do materials science, chemistry, cosmology, etc. that give 
>>> them an edge over other methods in terms of making better predictions?
>>> 
>>> If not, MMI is a waste of time, and pseudoscience.
>> 
>> There is no MWI axioms. MWI is just usual quantum mechanics where the 
>> collapse postulate has been thrown out. (And no need to take the word 
>> “worlds” too much seriously: it is more relative states or histories. With 
>> mechanism, they are all already emulated just in virtue of 2+2=4 & Co.
> 
> When MWI throws out the collapse postulate it loses the connection with 
> results and records. 

That would be like saying that Mechanism has to be false, because it cannot 
answer where I will feel to be after a duplication. That is not valid.



> It struggles to recover that and resorts to equally questionable methods, 
> such as averaging over the environment, to connect with experiment.

I disagree with this. Gleason theorem justify the unicity of the measure, and 
Everett reduces “correctly” the quantum indeterminacy as a mechanist 
self-localisation of some sort. Then the decoherence theory gives a prominent 
role to the environment, like mechanism gives a prominent role to the structure 
of observable consistent continuations.

Difficulties remain, sure, both in QM and M, but it seems to me that the 
non-collapse poison is less fatal than assuming a collapse in QM, especially 
that it confirms Mechanism.

Bruno



> 
> Brent
> 
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Re: A modest proposal

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 8:32:48 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 14 Sep 2019, at 05:32, Philip Thrift > 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 6:25:43 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>> as far as I can see [MWI is] just an auxiliary set of physical axioms one 
>> can work with in various ways. I have no idea whether there really are 
>> 10^{200} versions of me splashed across the type III multiverse.
>>
>> LC
>>
>
>  
>
> Are there any programs using "MWI axioms" in any computational QM 
> programming* to do materials science, chemistry, cosmology, etc. that give 
> them an edge over other methods in terms of making better predictions?
>
> If not, MMI is a waste of time, and *pseudoscience*.
>
>
> There is no MWI axioms. MWI is just usual quantum mechanics where the 
> collapse postulate has been thrown out. (And no need to take the word 
> “worlds” too much seriously: it is more relative states or histories. With 
> mechanism, they are all already emulated just in virtue of 2+2=4 & Co.
>
> So, yes, the MWI is used all the time. The collapse is used for personal 
> consumption only, and is, in Everett-QM or in Mechanist philosophy of mind, 
> a first person experience.
>
> Bruno
>

MWI says a decoherent event or measurement induces an observer to be "frame 
dragged" along various eigen-branches, where only one is experienced at 
each case. This is not QM per se, but rather an auxiliary physical axiom.

LC 

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Re: A modest proposal

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 9/17/2019 6:32 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 14 Sep 2019, at 05:32, Philip Thrift > wrote:




On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 6:25:43 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell 
wrote:


as far as I can see [MWI is] just an auxiliary set of physical
axioms one can work with in various ways. I have no idea whether
there really are 10^{200} versions of me splashed across the type
III multiverse.

LC



Are there any programs using "MWI axioms" in any computational QM 
programming* to do materials science, chemistry, cosmology, etc. that 
give them an edge over other methods in terms of making better 
predictions?


If not, MMI is a waste of time, and *pseudoscience*.


There is no MWI axioms. MWI is just usual quantum mechanics where the 
collapse postulate has been thrown out. (And no need to take the word 
“worlds” too much seriously: it is more relative states or histories. 
With mechanism, they are all already emulated just in virtue of 2+2=4 
& Co.


When MWI throws out the collapse postulate it loses the connection with 
results and records.  It struggles to recover that and resorts to 
equally questionable methods, such as averaging over the environment, to 
connect with experiment.


Brent

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Re: A modest proposal

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 14 Sep 2019, at 20:53, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 11:08:31 AM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
> 
> 
> On 9/13/2019 11:53 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Gerard ’t Hooft on the future of quantum mechanics
>> https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20170711a/full/ 
>> 
>> 
>> T HOOFT: I do not believe that we have to live with the many-worlds 
>> interpretation. Indeed, it would be a stupendous number of parallel worlds, 
>> which are only there because physicists couldn’t decide which of them is 
>> real.
>> 
>> In practice, quantum mechanics merely gives predictions with probabilities 
>> attached. This should be considered as a normal and quite acceptable feature 
>> of predictions made by science: different possible outcomes with different 
>> probabilities. In the world that is familiar to us, we always have such a 
>> situation when we make predictions.
> 
> That's the position of Roland Omnes'.   He says QM is a probabilistic theory, 
> so it predicts probabilities. What did we expect?

Some realm on which those probabilities can make sense.



> 
> 
>> Thus the question remains: What is the reality described by quantum 
>> theories? I claim that we can attribute the fact that our predictions come 
>> with probability distributions to the fact that not all relevant data for 
>> the predictions are known to us, in particular important features of the 
>> initial state.
> 
> The trouble with that is it's a hidden variable theory, so it has to be 
> non-local.  That leads to t'Hooft's super-determinism.

Indeed.



> 
> Brent
>  
> 
> 
> There is a "stochastic processes / probability theory" for QM experimental 
> observations, but it is of an "extended" kind, e.g.
> 
> Quantum Mechanical versus Stochastic Processes in Path Integration
> https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00510 
> 
> By using path integrals, the stochastic process associated to the time 
> evolution of the quantum probability density is formally rewritten in terms 
> of a stochastic differential equation, given by Newton's equation of motion 
> with an additional multiplicative stochastic force. However, the term playing 
> the role of the stochastic force is defined by a non-positive-definite 
> probability functional, providing a clear example of the negative* (or 
> "extended") probabilities characteristic of quantum mechanics.
> 
> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_probability
>https://arxiv.org/abs/0912.4767
> 
> 
> cf. Quantum Dynamics without the Wave Function - 
> https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0610204 
> 
> 
> @philipthrift
> Sean Carroll and Gerard ’t Hooft are probability (extended or not) 
> eliminativists.
> 
> MWI is really a superdeterministic theory. Every branch in the MW branching - 
> if followed - is deterministic.

I don’t think so. QM, like Mechanism is deterministic, and in the case of QM, 
the many-world is all you need to avoid super-determinism (which is close to 
non sense to me).

Bruno





> 
> @philipthrift
> 
>  
> 
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Re: A modest proposal

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 15 Sep 2019, at 16:49, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:18 PM Lawrence Crowell 
> mailto:goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com>> 
> wrote:
> 
> >>The Schrodinger wave equation says the ticket is printed in every possible 
> >>way and the winning number is picked in every possible way, but that's not 
> >>all you yourself are also a quantum object so you interact with the ticket 
> >>in every possible way. Some interactions result in great wealth, some 
> >>result in no profit, and some result in oblivion as in the suicide 
> >>scenario.
> 
> > The Schödinger equation says nothing of the sort.
> 
> It says when an electron moves from point A to point B it can do so by any 
> path, although some paths are more likely than others.
>  
> > It is not a Charlie Parker "anything goes" system. It just tells how 
> > probability amplitudes that define a state or wave in a Fourier sum evolves 
> > with time. [...] It would be argued there are some MWI splittings that may 
> > play a role in determining the lottery number on the winning ticket, but 
> > there is no way this can at all be localized or identified.
> 
> 
> The Schödinger Equation says the wave function is a direct representation of 
> reality, and the Many World's people say that too, they say that's all that 
> is needed. I admit it doesn't seem that way because when we observe an 
> electron hitting a photographic plate we don't see a wave function and we 
> don't see a large blob we see a small localized spot at a definite place. So 
> some people concluded that Schödinger's Equation wasn't enough and they 
> tacked on a lot of extra stuff about it collapsing when a observation is 
> made, something the equation itself doesn't even hint at. Many Worlds says 
> the extra stuff is unnecessary and Schödinger's Equation is all that is 
> needed.
> 
> When you observe a electron, in other words when you become entangled with 
> the electron, in still other words when both you and the electron have the 
> same quantum wave function, there is a connection between the "you "system 
> and the "electron" system. That combined you-electron system obeys 
> Schödinger's Equation and the system smoothly evolves into a entangled state, 
> a superposition of every place the electron could have been and you observing 
> the electron at that location.
> 
> But rather than say the combined you-electron system having evolved into a 
> superposition of all possible states Many World's says it evolves into every 
> possible observer. We don't end up with one observer who has many ideas where 
> the electron was seen, instead we end up with many worlds each with an 
> observer in it with a single definite idea of where the electron was seen.  
>  
> > As for below the Wheeler Delayed Choice experiment in the MWI setting a 
> > measurement of whether the electron went through a slit is performed after 
> > it has passed.
> 
> Many Worlds can explain delayed choice without invoking backward causality.


Oh! Nice! But that contradicts your idea that the MWI remains a non local 
theory. Because the argument to show that delayed choice can be done without 
backward causality will show that Many Worlds explains the violation of Bell’s 
inequality without FTL action at a distance.

Bruno



> The photon hits a half silvered mirror so 50% of the time the photon takes 
> path A and 50% of the time it takes path B. At the end of each path is a 
> detector which destroys the photon and sends the information on which path 
> the photon took to a physical memory system of some sort that, just like 
> everything else, must obey Schödinger's Equation. 
> 
> Many Worlds says if there is a change the universe splits and in this case 
> the only difference is a change in the physical memory,  in one universe the 
> memory is it going through path A and the other it remembers it going 
> throughpath B. But if you then use quantum erasure then the physical state of 
> the memory is no longer different, they are in the exact same state, so there 
> is no longer any difference between the 2 universes, so they merge back 
> together. But now the single universe seems to have indications the photon 
> followed path A only and indications it followed path B only and this can 
> cause interference bands. 
> 
> John K Clark 
> 
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Re: A modest proposal

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 14 Sep 2019, at 08:53, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Gerard ’t Hooft on the future of quantum mechanics
> https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20170711a/full/ 
> 
> 
> T HOOFT: I do not believe that we have to live with the many-worlds 
> interpretation. Indeed, it would be a stupendous number of parallel worlds, 
> which are only there because physicists couldn’t decide which of them is real.
> 
> In practice, quantum mechanics merely gives predictions with probabilities 
> attached. This should be considered as a normal and quite acceptable feature 
> of predictions made by science: different possible outcomes with different 
> probabilities. In the world that is familiar to us, we always have such a 
> situation when we make predictions. Thus the question remains: What is the 
> reality described by quantum theories? I claim that we can attribute the fact 
> that our predictions come with probability distributions to the fact that not 
> all relevant data for the predictions are known to us, in particular 
> important features of the initial state.

Up to now, the simplest assumption, is that it is “just” elementary arithmetic 
seen from inside, or the universal dovetailer seen by a self-aware person run 
by its infinitely many programs in arithmetic. This predicted qualitatively the 
MW, and the math shows that it predicts also the quantum logical formalism.

T Hooft’s problem is that he seems to believe that a physical world is a “real” 
things, made of atoms, etc.

Bruno




> 
> @philipthrift
> 
> 
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 11:19:43 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
> That's the plot of one of the stories in Colin Bruce's book "Schroedinger's 
> Rabbits".  
> 
> One of the problems is that the way the Poweball numbers come up is not 
> directly quantum randomness.  It may be determined by the amplification of 
> some random quantum events in the past.  But how far in the past.  You don't 
> want it to be so far in the past that it can be causally correlated with your 
> decision to set up the suicide machine. Of course t'Hooft claims they are all 
> causally determined.
> 
> Brent
> 
> On 9/13/2019 2:27 PM, John Clark wrote:
>> I have a modest proposal, it's a low tech way to find out once and for all 
>> if the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct, and as a 
>> side effect make you rich. First you buy one Powerball lottery ticket, the 
>> next drawing of the winning number is at 11pm tonight. Then make a simple 
>> machine that will monitor the internet and pull the trigger on a 44 magnum 
>> aimed at your head at exactly 11.01pm UNLESS yours is the winning ticket. If 
>> Many Worlds is correct your subjective experience can only be that at 
>> 11.01pm, despite 80 million to one odds stacked against you, a miracle 
>> occurs and the gun does not go off and you're rich beyond the dreams of 
>> avarice. After that as you fly on your private jet to your private island 
>> you can contemplate the fact that you are the only person in the world who 
>> knows the true nature of reality and knows it with absolute certainty. And 
>> it only cost you a few hundred dollars to make the machine, the most 
>> expensive part being the gun itself.
>> 
>> Of course for every universe you're rich in there are 80 million in which 
>> your friends watch your head explode, but that's a minor point,  your 
>> consciousness no longer exists in any of those worlds so you never have to 
>> see the mess; somebody else will have to clean up the thousands of itty 
>> bitty bits of brain splattered all over the room, it's their problem not 
>> yours.
>> 
>> John K Clark
> 
> 
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Re: A modest proposal

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 14 Sep 2019, at 05:32, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 6:25:43 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
> as far as I can see [MWI is] just an auxiliary set of physical axioms one can 
> work with in various ways. I have no idea whether there really are 10^{200} 
> versions of me splashed across the type III multiverse.
> 
> LC
> 
>  
> 
> Are there any programs using "MWI axioms" in any computational QM 
> programming* to do materials science, chemistry, cosmology, etc. that give 
> them an edge over other methods in terms of making better predictions?
> 
> If not, MMI is a waste of time, and pseudoscience.

There is no MWI axioms. MWI is just usual quantum mechanics where the collapse 
postulate has been thrown out. (And no need to take the word “worlds” too much 
seriously: it is more relative states or histories. With mechanism, they are 
all already emulated just in virtue of 2+2=4 & Co.

So, yes, the MWI is used all the time. The collapse is used for personal 
consumption only, and is, in Everett-QM or in Mechanist philosophy of mind, a 
first person experience.

Bruno




> 
> * Computational Quantum Mechanics
>   http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~mijp1/teaching/3rd_year_CQM/index.shtml 
> 
> 
> @philipthrift 
> 
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Re: A modest proposal

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 14 Sep 2019, at 01:08, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 8:13 AM Jason Resch  > wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 4:28 PM John Clark  > wrote:
> I have a modest proposal, it's a low tech way to find out once and for all if 
> the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct, and as a side 
> effect make you rich. First you buy one Powerball lottery ticket, the next 
> drawing of the winning number is at 11pm tonight. Then make a simple machine 
> that will monitor the internet and pull the trigger on a 44 magnum aimed at 
> your head at exactly 11.01pm UNLESS yours is the winning ticket. If Many 
> Worlds is correct your subjective experience can only be that at 11.01pm, 
> despite 80 million to one odds stacked against you, a miracle occurs and the 
> gun does not go off and you're rich beyond the dreams of avarice. After that 
> as you fly on your private jet to your private island you can contemplate the 
> fact that you are the only person in the world who knows the true nature of 
> reality and knows it with absolute certainty. And it only cost you a few 
> hundred dollars to make the machine, the most expensive part being the gun 
> itself.
> 
> Of course for every universe you're rich in there are 80 million in which 
> your friends watch your head explode, but that's a minor point,  your 
> consciousness no longer exists in any of those worlds so you never have to 
> see the mess; somebody else will have to clean up the thousands of itty bitty 
> bits of brain splattered all over the room, it's their problem not yours.
> 
> 
> It's been tried:
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/90QNXd9Q9bk/vbvGBDB_EssJ 
> 
> 
> Jason
> 
> Jason, thanks for posting this discussion from times before I joined the 
> 'everything' list. So rolling down the other comments in the discussion, I 
> see that Jacques Mallah actually made a good point, even if in a rather 
> aggressive way. His final comment was:
>  There is only one reason to commit suicide and it is the same as
> without QM: if your life is so bad that you would rather not exist, commit
> suicide; otherwise don't.  For indeed, in those branches you would cease
> to exist, while the branches with the lottery winner would gain nothing.
> 
> 
> The sensible thing in this comment is the observation that with faith in MWI, 
> you are already all of your copies, so you already have won the lottery on 
> that branch. Killing yourself on this branch is not actually going to have 
> any effect (except the non-monetary effect of relieving your current 
> depressive state).

Yes, mechanism (and Everett QM) leads to what is called “open individualism”, 
the idea or understanding that there is only one person, and we are all that 
person, but in different context/situation.

Bruno




> 
> Bruce
> 
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Re: A modest proposal

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 9:50:18 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:18 PM Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> >>The Schrodinger wave equation says the ticket is printed in every 
>>> possible way and the winning number is picked in every possible way, but 
>>> that's not all you yourself are also a quantum object so you interact with 
>>> the ticket in every possible way. Some interactions result in great wealth, 
>>> some result in no profit, and some result in oblivion as in the suicide 
>>> scenario.
>>>
>>
>> > The Schödinger equation says nothing of the sort.
>>
>
> It says when an electron moves from point A to point B it can do so by any 
> path, although some paths are more likely than others.
>

Technically there is no electron on a path. These paths are calculation 
devices and their ontological status is uncertain.
 

>  
>
>> > It is not a Charlie Parker "anything goes" system. It just tells how 
>> probability amplitudes that define a state or wave in a Fourier sum evolves 
>> with time. [...] It would be argued there are some MWI splittings that 
>> may play a role in determining the lottery number on the winning ticket, 
>> but there is no way this can at all be localized or identified.
>>
>
>
> The Schödinger Equation says the wave function is a direct 
> representation of reality, and the Many World's people say that too, they 
> say that's all that is needed. I admit it doesn't seem that way because 
> when we observe an electron hitting a photographic plate we don't see a 
> wave function and we don't see a large blob we see a small localized spot 
> at a definite place. So some people concluded that Schödinger's Equation 
> wasn't enough and they tacked on a lot of extra stuff about it collapsing 
> when a observation is made, something the equation itself doesn't even hint 
> at. Many Worlds says the extra stuff is unnecessary and Schödinger's 
> Equation is all that is needed.
>
> When you observe a electron, in other words when you become entangled with 
> the electron, in still other words when both you and the electron have the 
> same quantum wave function, there is a connection between the "you "system 
> and the "electron" system. That combined you-electron system obeys 
> Schödinger's Equation and the system smoothly evolves into a entangled 
> state, a superposition of every place the electron could have been and you 
> observing the electron at that location.
>
> But rather than say the combined you-electron system having evolved into a 
> superposition of all possible states Many World's says it evolves into 
> every possible observer. We don't end up with one observer who has many 
> ideas where the electron was seen, instead we end up with many worlds each 
> with an observer in it with a single definite idea of where the electron 
> was seen.  
>  
>
>> > As for below the Wheeler Delayed Choice experiment in the MWI setting 
>> a measurement of whether the electron went through a slit is performed 
>> after it has passed.
>>
>
> Many Worlds can explain delayed choice without invoking backward 
> causality. 
>

My point is not to argue for some retrocausality, for that is ruled out by 
the non-signalling theorem. My point is with the ambiguity with where 
states are localized.

The measurement is some entanglement of a system with a large number of 
quantum modes with a system that has few modes or degrees of freedom. The 
elementary approach is to assign some measurement state or needle state. 
But really the entanglement is far more complex and it is a partial 
entanglement that spreads through many other states that compose the 
measurement system or reservoir. 

LC
 

> The photon hits a half silvered mirror so 50% of the time the photon 
> takes path A and 50% of the time it takes path B. At the end of each path 
> is a detector which destroys the photon and sends the information on which 
> path the photon took to a physical memory system of some sort that, just 
> like everything else, must obey Schödinger's Equation. 
>
> Many Worlds says if there is a change the universe splits and in this case 
> the only difference is a change in the physical memory,  in one universe 
> the memory is it going through path A and the other it remembers it going 
> throughpath B. But if you then use quantum erasure then the physical state 
> of the memory is no longer different, they are in the exact same state, 
> so there is no longer any difference between the 2 universes, so they 
> merge back together. But now the single universe seems to have indications 
> the photon followed path A only and indications it followed path B only and 
> this can cause interference bands. 
>
> John K Clark 
>

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Re: A modest proposal

[spudboy100 via Everything List]

If we've got a hard to limit, Set, then more or less, is 'good enough for 
government work!' Also, shall I invoke the old notion of an infinite universe, 
or even (by our standards) near, infinite? It does the same thing that MWI 
does, and doesn't require quantum mechanics. 


-Original Message-
From: Philip Thrift 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Sat, Sep 14, 2019 7:20 am
Subject: Re: A modest proposal



On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 5:36:45 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
 

As for me... I think Many Worlds is probably more or less correct, 
 John K Clark


More (or less) correct than correct that what?
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Re: A modest proposal

[John Clark]

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:18 PM Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>The Schrodinger wave equation says the ticket is printed in every
>> possible way and the winning number is picked in every possible way, but
>> that's not all you yourself are also a quantum object so you interact with
>> the ticket in every possible way. Some interactions result in great wealth,
>> some result in no profit, and some result in oblivion as in the suicide
>> scenario.
>>
>
> > The Schödinger equation says nothing of the sort.
>

It says when an electron moves from point A to point B it can do so by any
path, although some paths are more likely than others.


> > It is not a Charlie Parker "anything goes" system. It just tells how
> probability amplitudes that define a state or wave in a Fourier sum evolves
> with time. [...] It would be argued there are some MWI splittings that
> may play a role in determining the lottery number on the winning ticket,
> but there is no way this can at all be localized or identified.
>


The Schödinger Equation says the wave function is a direct
representation of reality, and the Many World's people say that too, they
say that's all that is needed. I admit it doesn't seem that way because
when we observe an electron hitting a photographic plate we don't see a
wave function and we don't see a large blob we see a small localized spot
at a definite place. So some people concluded that Schödinger's Equation
wasn't enough and they tacked on a lot of extra stuff about it collapsing
when a observation is made, something the equation itself doesn't even hint
at. Many Worlds says the extra stuff is unnecessary and Schödinger's
Equation is all that is needed.

When you observe a electron, in other words when you become entangled with
the electron, in still other words when both you and the electron have the
same quantum wave function, there is a connection between the "you "system
and the "electron" system. That combined you-electron system obeys
Schödinger's Equation and the system smoothly evolves into a entangled
state, a superposition of every place the electron could have been and you
observing the electron at that location.

But rather than say the combined you-electron system having evolved into a
superposition of all possible states Many World's says it evolves into
every possible observer. We don't end up with one observer who has many
ideas where the electron was seen, instead we end up with many worlds each
with an observer in it with a single definite idea of where the electron
was seen.


> > As for below the Wheeler Delayed Choice experiment in the MWI setting a
> measurement of whether the electron went through a slit is performed after
> it has passed.
>

Many Worlds can explain delayed choice without invoking backward causality.
The photon hits a half silvered mirror so 50% of the time the photon takes
path A and 50% of the time it takes path B. At the end of each path is a
detector which destroys the photon and sends the information on which path
the photon took to a physical memory system of some sort that, just like
everything else, must obey Schödinger's Equation.

Many Worlds says if there is a change the universe splits and in this case
the only difference is a change in the physical memory,  in one universe
the memory is it going through path A and the other it remembers it going
throughpath B. But if you then use quantum erasure then the physical state
of the memory is no longer different, they are in the exact same state, so
there is no longer any difference between the 2 universes, so they merge
back together. But now the single universe seems to have indications the
photon followed path A only and indications it followed path B only and
this can cause interference bands.

John K Clark

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Re: A modest proposal

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 7:13:02 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 9/14/2019 1:27 PM, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:28 AM Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> > t*hat classical probability for a winning ticket is determined by some 
>> quantum superposition of states that give a probability for a ticket to be 
>> printed with some set of numbers, or for some probability of tickets being 
>> distributed in some way.*
>>
>
> The Schrodinger wave equation says the ticket is printed in every possible 
> way and the winning number is picked in every possible way, 
>
>
> It predicts that at some point well before the number is picked, at time 
> at which quantum level effects can be amplified to different ball 
> selections.  That would not be the case nano-seconds before the pick, or 
> milliseconds before, and maybe not hours before.
>
>
That is the point, and quantum interpretations have these dubious issues. 
Copenhagen has problems with defining what is meant by the partition of 
quantum and classical domains. Maybe this is a manifestation of the 
subjectivity inherent in entropy, where classicality is a change in 
information available to a local observer. With MWI there is the more 
complete nonlocality, which means there is an uncertainty in the meaning of 
a locality to a splitting of worlds. QuBism simply says a decoherent event 
or measurement is a Bayesian update, where this is a change in local 
information content, but it forces this as a determinant by a local 
processor or mind. That leads to a sort of solipsism; quantum outcomes have 
no objective basis.  

It may well be that these problems in total are telling us something. I am 
not at all concerned with whether any quantum interpretation is "true" and 
others "false," so much as I find it curious we have an apparent need for 
these and whether these are connected to the Born rule, or the decidability 
of the Born rule. Quantum interpretations also seems to play with some sort 
of dualism between locality and quantum nonlocality.

LC
 

> but that's not all you yourself are also a quantum object so you interact 
> with the ticket in every possible way. 
>
>
> Only if you and the powerball are not influenced by that the same random 
> quantum events that got amplified to determine the ball AND to determine 
> your choice of number.
>
> Some interactions result in great wealth, some result in no profit, and 
> some result in oblivion as in the suicide scenario.
>  
>
>> * > In performing this quantum suicide experiment one is forcing the 
>> situation in something similar to a Wheeler delayed choice experiment.*
>>
>
> I don't see the analogy at all. Regardless of if you perform the quantum 
> suicide experiment or not every possible lottery ticket was printed, and 
> you bought every possible lottery ticket, and every possible number was 
> picked as the winning number. The past is not changed but the future is 
> changed depending on if you performed the experiment, if you do then in the 
> future there is no universe in the multiverse where you're looking at a 
> losing ticket, if you don't do the experiment then there is; but the past 
> is the same in both cases. 
>
> So the multiverse contains 2 very general types of "you", universes where 
> you decide to do the experiment and always end up looking at a winning 
> ticket (a universe for every possible winning number), and universes where 
> you decide not to do the experiment and always end up looking at numbers 
> most of which are losing numbers. But in either case I don't see why backward 
> causality is needed.
>
> > *with this suicide experiment there is a quantum outcome prior to the 
>> final experimental end that demolishes the appearance of superposition. How 
>> is that localized?  *
>>
>
> By just looking at the lottery ticket. Normally there would be far more 
> versions of you looking at a losing ticket than a winning one, but in the 
> suicide experiment there are not as many versions of you but all of them 
> are looking at a winning ticket. 
>
>
> I can think of an interesting variation on the suicide experiment. I 
> decide to do it but I offer you a side bet and give you a thousand to one 
> odds that I have the winning ticket; if my ticket loses I will give you a 
> thousand dollars if I win you only have to give me one dollar. The logical 
> thing for both of us is to make the bet (if we make the big assumption that 
> Many Worlds is true), you calculate that there is only one chance in 80 
> million of me winning so you know you are almost certain to win a thousand 
> dollars, and I calculate I will win an additional dollar with 
> absolute certainty to go with my vast lottery winnings. Yes in most 
> universes my estate will owe you a thousand dollars but I no longer exist 
> in them so I have no use for that money. It's a win win bet.
>
>
> But as Mallah points out, all you are doing is pruning those of your 
> future lives in which you 

Re: A modest proposal

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 9/14/2019 1:27 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:28 AM Lawrence Crowell 
> wrote:


> t/hat classical probability for a winning ticket is determined by
some quantum superposition of states that give a probability for a
ticket to be printed with some set of numbers, or for some
probability of tickets being distributed in some way./


The Schrodinger wave equation says the ticket is printed in every 
possible way and the winning number is picked in every possible way,


It predicts that at some point well before the number is picked, at time 
at which quantum level effects can be amplified to different ball 
selections.  That would not be the case nano-seconds before the pick, or 
milliseconds before, and maybe not hours before.


but that's not all you yourself are also a quantum object so you 
interact with the ticket in every possible way.


Only if you and the powerball are not influenced by that the same random 
quantum events that got amplified to determine the ball AND to determine 
your choice of number.


Some interactions result in great wealth, some result in no profit, 
and some result in oblivion as in the suicide scenario.


/> In performing this quantum suicide experiment one is forcing
the situation in something similar to a Wheeler delayed choice
experiment./


I don't see the analogy at all. Regardless of if you perform the 
quantum suicide experiment or not every possible lottery ticket was 
printed, and you bought every possible lottery ticket, and 
every possible number was picked as the winning number. The past is 
not changed but the future is changed depending on if you performed 
the experiment, if you do then in the future there is no universe in 
the multiverse where you're looking at a losing ticket, if you don't 
do the experiment then there is; but the past is the same in both cases.


So the multiverse contains 2 very general types of "you", universes 
where you decide to do the experiment and always end up looking at a 
winning ticket (a universe for every possible winning number), 
and universes where you decide not to do the experiment and always end 
up looking at numbers most of which are losing numbers. But in either 
case I don't see why backward causality is needed.


> /with this suicide experiment there is a quantum outcome prior to
the final experimental end that demolishes the appearance of
superposition. How is that localized? /


By just looking at the lottery ticket. Normally there would be far 
more versions of you looking at a losing ticket than a winning one, 
but in the suicide experiment there are not as many versions of you 
but all of them are looking at a winning ticket.


I can think of an interesting variation on the suicide experiment. I 
decide to do it but I offer you a side bet and give you a thousand to 
one odds that I have the winning ticket; if my ticket loses I will 
give you a thousand dollars if I win you only have to give me one 
dollar. The logical thing for both of us is to make the bet (if we 
make the big assumption that Many Worlds is true), you calculate that 
there is only one chance in 80 million of me winning so you know you 
are almost certain to win a thousand dollars, and I calculate I will 
win an additional dollar with absolute certainty to go with my vast 
lottery winnings. Yes in most universes my estate will owe you a 
thousand dollars but I no longer exist in them so I have no use for 
that money. It's a win win bet.


But as Mallah points out, all you are doing is pruning those of your 
future lives in which you don't win the lottery.  That's rational if 
your life has negative net value in those branches, but it's not 
increasing the value of the branches in which you do win the lottery.


Brent

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Re: A modest proposal

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 3:27:41 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:28 AM Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> > t*hat classical probability for a winning ticket is determined by some 
>> quantum superposition of states that give a probability for a ticket to be 
>> printed with some set of numbers, or for some probability of tickets being 
>> distributed in some way.*
>>
>
> The Schrodinger wave equation says the ticket is printed in every possible 
> way and the winning number is picked in every possible way, but that's not 
> all you yourself are also a quantum object so you interact with the ticket 
> in every possible way. Some interactions result in great wealth, some 
> result in no profit, and some result in oblivion as in the suicide scenario
> .
>

The Schödinger equation says nothing of the sort. It is not a Charlie 
Parker "anything goes" system. It just tells how probability amplitudes 
that define a state or wave in a Fourier sum evolves with time. With large 
scale systems there are massive levels of decoherence and ensuing 
entanglement shifts. It would be argued there are some MWI splittings that 
may play a role in determining the lottery number on the winning ticket, 
but there is no way this can at all be localized or identified.

As for below the Wheeler Delayed Choice experiment in the MWI setting a 
measurement of whether the electron went through a slit is performed after 
it has passed. This would mean that a measurement at time T sets whether 
the electron was in a slit at time t < T. We can say the measurement is 
localized at time T, but in MWI we have to say the splitting of the world 
wave function began at t. 

This quantum suicide experiment might be argued to do something similar. If 
I choose to go through with it I then select a world path I observe at a 
time after the actual splitting happens. This leads to an ambiguity over 
where one defines the localization of states in a measurement. The 
advantage of MWI is that it is not local and this nonlocality may work well 
in quantum gravity.

LC
 

>
>  
>
>> * > In performing this quantum suicide experiment one is forcing the 
>> situation in something similar to a Wheeler delayed choice experiment.*
>>
>
> I don't see the analogy at all. Regardless of if you perform the quantum 
> suicide experiment or not every possible lottery ticket was printed, and 
> you bought every possible lottery ticket, and every possible number was 
> picked as the winning number. The past is not changed but the future is 
> changed depending on if you performed the experiment, if you do then in the 
> future there is no universe in the multiverse where you're looking at a 
> losing ticket, if you don't do the experiment then there is; but the past 
> is the same in both cases. 
>
> So the multiverse contains 2 very general types of "you", universes where 
> you decide to do the experiment and always end up looking at a winning 
> ticket (a universe for every possible winning number), and universes where 
> you decide not to do the experiment and always end up looking at numbers 
> most of which are losing numbers. But in either case I don't see why backward 
> causality is needed.
>
> > *with this suicide experiment there is a quantum outcome prior to the 
>> final experimental end that demolishes the appearance of superposition. How 
>> is that localized?  *
>>
>
> By just looking at the lottery ticket. Normally there would be far more 
> versions of you looking at a losing ticket than a winning one, but in the 
> suicide experiment there are not as many versions of you but all of them 
> are looking at a winning ticket. 
>
> I can think of an interesting variation on the suicide experiment. I 
> decide to do it but I offer you a side bet and give you a thousand to one 
> odds that I have the winning ticket; if my ticket loses I will give you a 
> thousand dollars if I win you only have to give me one dollar. The logical 
> thing for both of us is to make the bet (if we make the big assumption that 
> Many Worlds is true), you calculate that there is only one chance in 80 
> million of me winning so you know you are almost certain to win a thousand 
> dollars, and I calculate I will win an additional dollar with 
> absolute certainty to go with my vast lottery winnings. Yes in most 
> universes my estate will owe you a thousand dollars but I no longer exist 
> in them so I have no use for that money. It's a win win bet.
>
>  John K Clark
>
>

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Re: A modest proposal

[John Clark]

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 7:28 AM Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

> t*hat classical probability for a winning ticket is determined by some
> quantum superposition of states that give a probability for a ticket to be
> printed with some set of numbers, or for some probability of tickets being
> distributed in some way.*
>

The Schrodinger wave equation says the ticket is printed in every possible
way and the winning number is picked in every possible way, but that's not
all you yourself are also a quantum object so you interact with the ticket
in every possible way. Some interactions result in great wealth, some
result in no profit, and some result in oblivion as in the suicide scenario.



> * > In performing this quantum suicide experiment one is forcing the
> situation in something similar to a Wheeler delayed choice experiment.*
>

I don't see the analogy at all. Regardless of if you perform the quantum
suicide experiment or not every possible lottery ticket was printed, and
you bought every possible lottery ticket, and every possible number was
picked as the winning number. The past is not changed but the future is
changed depending on if you performed the experiment, if you do then in the
future there is no universe in the multiverse where you're looking at a
losing ticket, if you don't do the experiment then there is; but the past
is the same in both cases.

So the multiverse contains 2 very general types of "you", universes where
you decide to do the experiment and always end up looking at a winning
ticket (a universe for every possible winning number), and universes where
you decide not to do the experiment and always end up looking at numbers
most of which are losing numbers. But in either case I don't see why backward
causality is needed.

> *with this suicide experiment there is a quantum outcome prior to the
> final experimental end that demolishes the appearance of superposition. How
> is that localized?  *
>

By just looking at the lottery ticket. Normally there would be far more
versions of you looking at a losing ticket than a winning one, but in the
suicide experiment there are not as many versions of you but all of them
are looking at a winning ticket.

I can think of an interesting variation on the suicide experiment. I decide
to do it but I offer you a side bet and give you a thousand to one odds
that I have the winning ticket; if my ticket loses I will give you a
thousand dollars if I win you only have to give me one dollar. The logical
thing for both of us is to make the bet (if we make the big assumption that
Many Worlds is true), you calculate that there is only one chance in 80
million of me winning so you know you are almost certain to win a thousand
dollars, and I calculate I will win an additional dollar with
absolute certainty to go with my vast lottery winnings. Yes in most
universes my estate will owe you a thousand dollars but I no longer exist
in them so I have no use for that money. It's a win win bet.

 John K Clark

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Re: A modest proposal

[Philip Thrift]

On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 11:08:31 AM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 9/13/2019 11:53 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> Gerard ’t Hooft on the future of quantum mechanics
> https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20170711a/full/
>
> T HOOFT: I do not believe that we have to live with the many-worlds 
> interpretation. Indeed, it would be a stupendous number of parallel worlds, 
> which are only there because physicists couldn’t decide which of them is 
> real.
>
> In practice, quantum mechanics merely gives predictions with probabilities 
> attached. This should be considered as a normal and quite acceptable 
> feature of predictions made by science: different possible outcomes with 
> different probabilities. In the world that is familiar to us, we always 
> have such a situation when we make predictions. 
>
>
> That's the position of Roland Omnes'.   He says QM is a probabilistic 
> theory, so it predicts probabilities. What did we expect?
>
>
> Thus the question remains: What is the reality described by quantum 
> theories? I claim that we can attribute the fact that our predictions come 
> with probability distributions to the fact that not all relevant data for 
> the predictions are known to us, in particular important features of the 
> initial state.
>
>
> The trouble with that is it's a hidden variable theory, so it has to be 
> non-local.  That leads to t'Hooft's super-determinism.
>
> Brent
>
 


There is a "stochastic processes / probability theory" for QM experimental 
observations, but it is of an "extended" kind, e.g.

*Quantum Mechanical versus Stochastic Processes in Path Integration*
https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00510

*By using path integrals, the stochastic process associated to the time 
evolution of the quantum probability density is formally rewritten in terms 
of a stochastic differential equation, given by Newton's equation of motion 
with an additional multiplicative stochastic force. However, the term 
playing the role of the stochastic force is defined by a 
non-positive-definite probability functional, providing a clear example of 
the negative* (or "extended") probabilities characteristic of quantum 
mechanics.*

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_probability
   https://arxiv.org/abs/0912.4767


cf. *Quantum Dynamics without the Wave Function* - 
https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0610204

@philipthrift
Sean Carroll and Gerard ’t Hooft are probability (extended or not) 
eliminativists.

MWI is really a superdeterministic theory. Every branch in the MW branching 
- if followed - is deterministic.

@philipthrift

 

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Re: A modest proposal

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 9/13/2019 11:53 PM, Philip Thrift wrote:



Gerard ’t Hooft on the future of quantum mechanics
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20170711a/full/

T HOOFT: I do not believe that we have to live with the many-worlds 
interpretation. Indeed, it would be a stupendous number of parallel 
worlds, which are only there because physicists couldn’t decide which 
of them is real.


In practice, quantum mechanics merely gives predictions with 
probabilities attached. This should be considered as a normal and 
quite acceptable feature of predictions made by science: different 
possible outcomes with different probabilities. In the world that is 
familiar to us, we always have such a situation when we make predictions.


That's the position of Roland Omnes'.   He says QM is a probabilistic 
theory, so it predicts probabilities. What did we expect?



Thus the question remains: What is the reality described by quantum 
theories? I claim that we can attribute the fact that our predictions 
come with probability distributions to the fact that not all relevant 
data for the predictions are known to us, in particular important 
features of the initial state.


The trouble with that is it's a hidden variable theory, so it has to be 
non-local.  That leads to t'Hooft's super-determinism.


Brent

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Re: A modest proposal

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 5:36:45 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 5:51 AM Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> > This points to an objection to MWI. Quantum superpositions splitting in 
>> MWI, or somewhat equivalently the fluctuation/localization of a decoherent 
>> event, can be amplified. In the case of this quantum suicide argument the 
>> lottery ticket numbers assigned may have a quantum basis going back in 
>> time. Within MWI this means the world split long before the winning ticket 
>> was announced. 
>
>
> I don't see how that follows. All observers in the multiverse will say the 
> odds you will win the lottery tomorrow are one in 80 million, but if you 
> won today all observers in the multiverse will say that the odds you will 
> win the lottery were one in 80 million but somebody had to win and it 
> happened to be you. Most observers in the multiverse are looking at a 
> losing ticket today but you are not because you arranged things so that a 
> losing ticket causes you to stop existing, so you only exist in universes 
> where you're filthy rich. The universes where you didn't win still exist 
> but you are no longer in them. No backward causality is needed.  
>
> As for me... I think Many Worlds is probably more or less correct, but I 
> wouldn't stake my life on it.  
>
>  John K Clark
>

Yet, that classical probability for a winning ticket is determined by some 
quantum superposition of states that give a probability for a ticket to be 
printed with some set of numbers, or for some probability of tickets being 
distributed in some way. So this rather strict classical probability is due 
to some single or maybe multiple quantum probabilities for various 
outcomes. In performing this quantum suicide experiment one is forcing the 
situation in something similar to a Wheeler delayed choice experiment. The 
question is then how is this classical probability for a winning lottery 
ticket tied to an outcome of a quantum decoherence, or maybe a multiple set 
of them? Also as with the Wheeler delayed choice experiment, there is a 
reduction of states prior to the occurrence of the particle on a screen, 
and with this suicide experiment there is a quantum outcome prior to the 
final experimental end that demolishes the appearance of superposition. How 
is that localized?  Or is it localized in some way? 

LC

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Re: A modest proposal

[Philip Thrift]

On Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 5:36:45 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
>  
>
> As for me... I think Many Worlds is probably more or less correct, 
>
>  John K Clark
>


More (or less) correct than correct that what?

@philipthrift 

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Re: A modest proposal

[John Clark]

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 5:51 AM Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This points to an objection to MWI. Quantum superpositions splitting in
> MWI, or somewhat equivalently the fluctuation/localization of a decoherent
> event, can be amplified. In the case of this quantum suicide argument the
> lottery ticket numbers assigned may have a quantum basis going back in
> time. Within MWI this means the world split long before the winning ticket
> was announced.


I don't see how that follows. All observers in the multiverse will say the
odds you will win the lottery tomorrow are one in 80 million, but if you
won today all observers in the multiverse will say that the odds you will
win the lottery were one in 80 million but somebody had to win and it
happened to be you. Most observers in the multiverse are looking at a
losing ticket today but you are not because you arranged things so that a
losing ticket causes you to stop existing, so you only exist in universes
where you're filthy rich. The universes where you didn't win still exist
but you are no longer in them. No backward causality is needed.

As for me... I think Many Worlds is probably more or less correct, but I
wouldn't stake my life on it.

 John K Clark

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Re: A modest proposal

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 11:19:43 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
> That's the plot of one of the stories in Colin Bruce's book 
> "Schroedinger's Rabbits".  
>
> One of the problems is that the way the Poweball numbers come up is not 
> directly quantum randomness.  It may be determined by the amplification of 
> some random quantum events in the past.  But how far in the past.  You 
> don't want it to be so far in the past that it can be causally correlated 
> with your decision to set up the suicide machine. Of course t'Hooft claims 
> they are all causally determined.
>
> Brent
>
>
This points to an objection to MWI. Quantum superpositions splitting in 
MWI, or somewhat equivalently the fluctuation/localization of a decoherent 
event, can be amplified. In the case of this quantum suicide argument the 
lottery ticket numbers assigned may have a quantum basis going back in 
time. Within MWI this means the world split long before the winning ticket 
was announced. This has some similarity to Wheeler's delayed choice 
experiment. This means the splitting of the world is not a local process 
and we then have a question as to what are the prior probabilities for this 
splitting if we can't localize this event? 

There is some sort of duality I think between local quantum fields and 
causal physics vs the nonlocality of quantum states. The only causal 
quantum field that may be intrinsically nonlocal is gravitation. 
Gravitation as emergent from quantum entanglements is likely a nonlocal 
quantum field. This duality then maybe be expressed as

UV quantum gravity states = IR quantum field states

which is a way of stating the Einstein field equation. UV means high energy 
near the Planck scale and IR means much lower energy say a billion times 
LHC energy and lower. The UV quantum gravity states are nonlocal while the 
IR quantum field states are local, or should it be said localizable. 

LC
 

> On 9/13/2019 2:27 PM, John Clark wrote:
>
> I have a modest proposal, it's a low tech way to find out once and for all 
> if the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct, and as 
> a side effect make you rich. First you buy one Powerball lottery ticket, 
> the next drawing of the winning number is at 11pm tonight. Then make a 
> simple machine that will monitor the internet and pull the trigger on a 44 
> magnum aimed at your head at exactly 11.01pm UNLESS yours is the winning 
> ticket. If Many Worlds is correct your subjective experience can only be 
> that at 11.01pm, despite 80 million to one odds stacked against you, a 
> miracle occurs and the gun does not go off and you're rich beyond the 
> dreams of avarice. After that as you fly on your private jet to your 
> private island you can contemplate the fact that you are the only person in 
> the world who knows the true nature of reality and knows it with absolute 
> certainty. And it only cost you a few hundred dollars to make the machine, 
> the most expensive part being the gun itself. 
>
> Of course for every universe you're rich in there are 80 million in which 
> your friends watch your head explode, but that's a minor point,  your 
> consciousness no longer exists in any of those worlds so you never have to 
> see the mess; somebody else will have to clean up the thousands of itty 
> bitty bits of brain splattered all over the room, it's their problem not 
> yours. 
>
> John K Clark
> -- 
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>  
> 
> .
>
>
>

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Re: A modest proposal

[Philip Thrift]

Gerard ’t Hooft on the future of quantum mechanics
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20170711a/full/

T HOOFT: I do not believe that we have to live with the many-worlds 
interpretation. Indeed, it would be a stupendous number of parallel worlds, 
which are only there because physicists couldn’t decide which of them is 
real.

In practice, quantum mechanics merely gives predictions with probabilities 
attached. This should be considered as a normal and quite acceptable 
feature of predictions made by science: different possible outcomes with 
different probabilities. In the world that is familiar to us, we always 
have such a situation when we make predictions. Thus the question remains: 
What is the reality described by quantum theories? I claim that we can 
attribute the fact that our predictions come with probability distributions 
to the fact that not all relevant data for the predictions are known to us, 
in particular important features of the initial state.

@philipthrift


On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 11:19:43 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
> That's the plot of one of the stories in Colin Bruce's book 
> "Schroedinger's Rabbits".  
>
> One of the problems is that the way the Poweball numbers come up is not 
> directly quantum randomness.  It may be determined by the amplification of 
> some random quantum events in the past.  But how far in the past.  You 
> don't want it to be so far in the past that it can be causally correlated 
> with your decision to set up the suicide machine. Of course t'Hooft claims 
> they are all causally determined.
>
> Brent
>
> On 9/13/2019 2:27 PM, John Clark wrote:
>
> I have a modest proposal, it's a low tech way to find out once and for all 
> if the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct, and as 
> a side effect make you rich. First you buy one Powerball lottery ticket, 
> the next drawing of the winning number is at 11pm tonight. Then make a 
> simple machine that will monitor the internet and pull the trigger on a 44 
> magnum aimed at your head at exactly 11.01pm UNLESS yours is the winning 
> ticket. If Many Worlds is correct your subjective experience can only be 
> that at 11.01pm, despite 80 million to one odds stacked against you, a 
> miracle occurs and the gun does not go off and you're rich beyond the 
> dreams of avarice. After that as you fly on your private jet to your 
> private island you can contemplate the fact that you are the only person in 
> the world who knows the true nature of reality and knows it with absolute 
> certainty. And it only cost you a few hundred dollars to make the machine, 
> the most expensive part being the gun itself. 
>
> Of course for every universe you're rich in there are 80 million in which 
> your friends watch your head explode, but that's a minor point,  your 
> consciousness no longer exists in any of those worlds so you never have to 
> see the mess; somebody else will have to clean up the thousands of itty 
> bitty bits of brain splattered all over the room, it's their problem not 
> yours. 
>
> John K Clark
>
>
>

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Re: A modest proposal

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

That's the plot of one of the stories in Colin Bruce's book 
"Schroedinger's Rabbits".


One of the problems is that the way the Poweball numbers come up is not 
directly quantum randomness.  It may be determined by the amplification 
of some random quantum events in the past.  But how far in the past.  
You don't want it to be so far in the past that it can be causally 
correlated with your decision to set up the suicide machine. Of course 
t'Hooft claims they are all causally determined.


Brent

On 9/13/2019 2:27 PM, John Clark wrote:
I have a modest proposal, it's a low tech way to find out once and for 
all if the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct, 
and as a side effect make you rich. First you buy one Powerball 
lottery ticket, the next drawing of the winning number is at 11pm 
tonight. Then make a simple machine that will monitor the internet and 
pull the trigger on a 44 magnum aimed at your head at exactly 11.01pm 
UNLESS yours is the winning ticket. If Many Worlds is correct your 
subjective experience can only be that at 11.01pm, despite 80 million 
to one odds stacked against you, a miracle occurs and the gun does not 
go off and you're rich beyond the dreams of avarice. After that as you 
fly on your private jet to your private island you can contemplate the 
fact that you are the only person in the world who knows the true 
nature of reality and knows it with absolute certainty. And it only 
cost you a few hundred dollars to make the machine, the most expensive 
part being the gun itself.


Of course for every universe you're rich in there are 80 million in 
which your friends watch your head explode, but that's a minor point, 
 your consciousness no longer exists in any of those worlds so you 
never have to see the mess; somebody else will have to clean up the 
thousands of itty bitty bits of brain splattered all over the room, 
it's their problem not yours.


John K Clark
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Re: A modest proposal

[Philip Thrift]

On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 10:32:42 PM UTC-5, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 6:25:43 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>> as far as I can see [MWI is] just an auxiliary set of physical axioms one 
>> can work with in various ways. I have no idea whether there really are 
>> 10^{200} versions of me splashed across the type III multiverse.
>>
>> LC
>>
>
>  
>
> Are there any programs using "MWI axioms" in any computational QM 
> programming* to do materials science, chemistry, cosmology, etc. that give 
> them an edge over other methods in terms of making better predictions?
>
> If not, MMI is a waste of time, and *pseudoscience*.
>

MMI is the same as MWI:  Worlds/Mundos. :)


> * Computational Quantum Mechanics
>   http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~mijp1/teaching/3rd_year_CQM/index.shtml
>
> @philipthrift 
>

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Re: A modest proposal

[Philip Thrift]

On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 6:25:43 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> as far as I can see [MWI is] just an auxiliary set of physical axioms one 
> can work with in various ways. I have no idea whether there really are 
> 10^{200} versions of me splashed across the type III multiverse.
>
> LC
>

 

Are there any programs using "MWI axioms" in any computational QM 
programming* to do materials science, chemistry, cosmology, etc. that give 
them an edge over other methods in terms of making better predictions?

If not, MMI is a waste of time, and *pseudoscience*.

* Computational Quantum Mechanics
  http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~mijp1/teaching/3rd_year_CQM/index.shtml

@philipthrift 

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Re: A modest proposal

[Lawrence Crowell]

This is essentially a form of the quantum suicide argument. I would not try 
this myself, for MWI is as far as I can see just an auxiliary set of 
physical axioms one can work with in various ways. I have no idea whether 
there really are 10^{200} versions of me splashed across the type III 
multiverse.

LC

On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 4:28:14 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> I have a modest proposal, it's a low tech way to find out once and for all 
> if the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct, and as 
> a side effect make you rich. First you buy one Powerball lottery ticket, 
> the next drawing of the winning number is at 11pm tonight. Then make a 
> simple machine that will monitor the internet and pull the trigger on a 44 
> magnum aimed at your head at exactly 11.01pm UNLESS yours is the winning 
> ticket. If Many Worlds is correct your subjective experience can only be 
> that at 11.01pm, despite 80 million to one odds stacked against you, a 
> miracle occurs and the gun does not go off and you're rich beyond the 
> dreams of avarice. After that as you fly on your private jet to your 
> private island you can contemplate the fact that you are the only person in 
> the world who knows the true nature of reality and knows it with absolute 
> certainty. And it only cost you a few hundred dollars to make the machine, 
> the most expensive part being the gun itself. 
>
> Of course for every universe you're rich in there are 80 million in which 
> your friends watch your head explode, but that's a minor point,  your 
> consciousness no longer exists in any of those worlds so you never have to 
> see the mess; somebody else will have to clean up the thousands of itty 
> bitty bits of brain splattered all over the room, it's their problem not 
> yours.
>
> John K Clark
>

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Re: A modest proposal

[Bruce Kellett]

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 8:13 AM Jason Resch  wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 4:28 PM John Clark  wrote:
>
>> I have a modest proposal, it's a low tech way to find out once and for
>> all if the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct,
>> and as a side effect make you rich. First you buy one Powerball lottery
>> ticket, the next drawing of the winning number is at 11pm tonight. Then
>> make a simple machine that will monitor the internet and pull the trigger
>> on a 44 magnum aimed at your head at exactly 11.01pm UNLESS yours is the
>> winning ticket. If Many Worlds is correct your subjective experience can
>> only be that at 11.01pm, despite 80 million to one odds stacked against
>> you, a miracle occurs and the gun does not go off and you're rich beyond
>> the dreams of avarice. After that as you fly on your private jet to your
>> private island you can contemplate the fact that you are the only person in
>> the world who knows the true nature of reality and knows it with absolute
>> certainty. And it only cost you a few hundred dollars to make the machine,
>> the most expensive part being the gun itself.
>>
>> Of course for every universe you're rich in there are 80 million in which
>> your friends watch your head explode, but that's a minor point,  your
>> consciousness no longer exists in any of those worlds so you never have to
>> see the mess; somebody else will have to clean up the thousands of itty
>> bitty bits of brain splattered all over the room, it's their problem not
>> yours.
>>
>>
> It's been tried:
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/90QNXd9Q9bk/vbvGBDB_EssJ
>
> Jason
>

Jason, thanks for posting this discussion from times before I joined the
'everything' list. So rolling down the other comments in the discussion, I
see that Jacques Mallah actually made a good point, even if in a rather
aggressive way. His final comment was:

 There is only one reason to commit suicide and it is the same as
without QM: if your life is so bad that you would rather not exist, commit
suicide; otherwise don't.  For indeed, in those branches you would cease
to exist, while the branches with the lottery winner would gain nothing.

The sensible thing in this comment is the observation that with faith in
MWI, you are already all of your copies, so you already have won the
lottery on that branch. Killing yourself on this branch is not actually
going to have any effect (except the non-monetary effect of relieving your
current depressive state).

Bruce

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Re: A modest proposal

[Jason Resch]

On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 4:28 PM John Clark  wrote:

> I have a modest proposal, it's a low tech way to find out once and for all
> if the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct, and as
> a side effect make you rich. First you buy one Powerball lottery ticket,
> the next drawing of the winning number is at 11pm tonight. Then make a
> simple machine that will monitor the internet and pull the trigger on a 44
> magnum aimed at your head at exactly 11.01pm UNLESS yours is the winning
> ticket. If Many Worlds is correct your subjective experience can only be
> that at 11.01pm, despite 80 million to one odds stacked against you, a
> miracle occurs and the gun does not go off and you're rich beyond the
> dreams of avarice. After that as you fly on your private jet to your
> private island you can contemplate the fact that you are the only person in
> the world who knows the true nature of reality and knows it with absolute
> certainty. And it only cost you a few hundred dollars to make the machine,
> the most expensive part being the gun itself.
>
> Of course for every universe you're rich in there are 80 million in which
> your friends watch your head explode, but that's a minor point,  your
> consciousness no longer exists in any of those worlds so you never have to
> see the mess; somebody else will have to clean up the thousands of itty
> bitty bits of brain splattered all over the room, it's their problem not
> yours.
>
>
It's been tried:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/90QNXd9Q9bk/vbvGBDB_EssJ

Jason

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