On 12/16/2013 12:40 PM, LizR wrote:
On 17 December 2013 08:06, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
JKC makes a big point of the complete separation of quantum worlds,
although Everett
didn't write about multiple worlds. Everett only considered one world and
wrote
about the "relative state" of the observer and the observed system. In
some ways
this is more fundamental because in principle the "different worlds" of MWI
can
interfere with one another. That they usually don't is a statistical
result.
("Many worlds" is just a nice (and roughly accurate) description, like Big Bang (better
than Small Hiss) or Black Hole (better than Very Faintly Glowing Region of Infinite
Gravity :)
I think that's an unfair criticism of Copenhagen. Deterministic theories
just push
the problem back in time. Ultimately there is either an uncaused event or
an
infinite past. So there is not great intellectual virtue in rejecting
uncaused
events. Quantum mechanics is an interesting intermediate case. It has
randomness,
but randomness that is strictly limited and limited in such a way that it
produces
the classical world at a statistical level.
The problem is pushed back onto whatever is considered fundamental. If there is an
original event, it is only uncaused if it doesn't emerge naturally from (for example)
the equations that are believed to describe the universe. One can say the same about an
infinite past.
Your own theory also introduces uncaused events, namely the computations of
a
universal dovetailer. The whole idea of "everythingism" was inspired by
QM, but QM
itself doesn't entail that everything happens. If you measure a variable
you only
get eigenvalues of that variable - not every possible value. If you
measure it
again you get the same eigenvalue again - not any value.
I was given to believe that the computations of the UD aren't events, and that they
simply exist within arithmetic as a logically necessary consequence of its existence.
Did I get that wrong?
I wouldn't say "wrong". It depends on whether you think "There exists a successor of 2."
implies that 3 exists. Personally I think it is a confusion to say that a logical formula
is satisfied by X is the same as saying X exists in the ontological sense.
On the contrary, self-duplication explains the appearance of such
indeterminacy,
without adding any further assumptions.
Well, the existence of self-duplication, even via Everett, is a further
assumption.
Surely the existence of duplication (rather than self-duplication) arises from the
equations? So one has self-duplication as a consequence, to the same extent that one has
it within ones own personal past? Or have I misunderstood that too?
(Or are you just talking about the sort of assumptions we have to make all the
time anyway?)
Occam favors it. Your belief in "3)" substitutes a very simple explanation
by a
call to a form of built-in-non-explainable magic.
No more magic than a UD.
Why is the UD magic? (Is arithmetic magic?)
It's hypothetically generating all possible worlds, but where is it? It's in Platonia.
It's "the word made flesh." Sounds a lot more magical than "that atom decayed by
potential tunneling just like the equations say."
Brent
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