On 11/29/2023 4:00 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Nov 28, 2023 at 7:30 PM Brent Meeker <meekerbr...@gmail.com>
wrote:
/> MWI fans assert that it is superior because it doesn't assume
the Born rule, only the Schroedinger equation. I wouldn't claim
that the (modern) version of Copenhagen is superior to MWI, I'm
just unconvinced of the converse./
A pretty convincing argument can be made that if the Many Worlds idea
is true then the Born Rule must have the ability to predict the most
probable outcome of any quantum experiment and as an added bonus,
unlike its competitors, it can do so without adding any random
elements. However I admit nobody has ever been able to prove that Many
Worlds is the only possible explanation of why the Born Rule works,
and we already know from experiments that it does. Put it this way, if
Many Worlds is true then the Born Rule works, and if the Born Rule
works (and we know that it does) then Many Worlds MIGHT be true. But
that's still a hell of a lot better than any other quantum
interpretation anybody has managed to come up with, at least so far.
I'm not certain Many Worlds is correct, but I am certain its
competitors are wrong, or so bad they're not even wrong.
And as far as assumptions are concerned,every scientist, not just
physicists, has no choice but to assume that probability must be a
real number between zero and one, and all the probabilities mustadd up
to exactly one for any given situation, because otherwise the very
concept of probability would make no sense. And we know that taking
the square root of the absolute value is the only way to get a number
like that out of a complex function like Schrodinger's wave equation.
If Many Worlds is true, and If each version of Brent Meeker makes bets
In accordance with the laws of probability so derived, then more Brent
Meekers will make money by following the advice given by the Born Rule
than if they followed any other betting strategy. Yes some Brent
Meekers will still go broke even if they follow the Born Rule, but
most will not.
Yes, I knew all that. But does it follow from the Schroedinger equation
alone. Reading the Carroll/Sebens paper is suggestive, but it depends
on transforming to a basis that makes the number of components match the
Born rule. But it seems to me that one could transform to basis where
the number of components did not match the Born rule. Their example is
chosen so that in the transformed basis each component has amplitude 1
, but that's just scaling. They even start with eqn (33) which is not
normalized. So it shows how to convert a weighted superposition into a
branch count. But it appears to me that it could produce any number of
branches. The example is chosen to neatly produce all branches of
amplitude 1, but that cannot be significant since eqn(35) is not
normalized. So the number of branches is not actually determined and
could be anything.
Brent
John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>
7ff
--
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/CAJPayv00iaJKxfguE7bjmyViNO3nYnCtEaNf9o9fs81yOtAYBg%40mail.gmail.com
<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv00iaJKxfguE7bjmyViNO3nYnCtEaNf9o9fs81yOtAYBg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
--
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/91ab1848-2b75-456d-b87f-2f2691a2066c%40gmail.com.
