On 10 March 2014 14:54, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > So exactly how has MWI dealt with this? Everett just sort of said it has > to be that way, i.e. humans are like measuring instruments and so they make > measurements which diagonalize their reduced density matrix (but not the > whole density matrix). But there's not really a theory of consciousness > that tells us how it's like a measuring instrument AND, even if there were, > there's not a theory that tells us why it's OK to diagonalize a part of the > density matrix, but not all of it, in some basis we choose. Note that > this is a purely mathematical operation we choose to do - not some physical > process. Omnes looks at the same mathematical process and says, once we've > diagonalized the reduced density matrix we've predicted probabilities, and > so we should be satisfied that one of them is realized and with the > predicted frequency. >
I was thinking of decoherence, which I seem to recall iirc was worked out maybe 15 years after Everett produced his thesis? If so, this isn't anything specifically to do with consciousness as far as I know; I assume we should observe whichever part of the multiverse we're entangled, and that we're entangled with it due to the various quantum interactions that got that version of us there. -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
