On 23 Jan 2017, at 20:45, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 1/23/2017 3:23 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 21 Jan 2017, at 21:39, Brent Meeker wrote:
Phillip Ball's critique of MWI.
It can make sense in a non mechanist theory of mind, but ... where
is that theory? Where is the "Heisenberg cut". (I have not yet
complete the reading of that note, though).
The MWI is not born with Everett, but with the Einstein/Bohr
debate, and eventually with von Neuman collapse of the wave theory.
The collapse of the wave is just a very mysterious happening,
contradicting the SWE,
Born postulated the probability interpretation of the wave-function
in order to give it empirical content. It doesn't "contradict"
anything - it adds a way to get observables from the SWE.
No problem with this. I am OK with interpreting Bohr that way, but in
his correspondence with Einstein, it is not clear if he still not
believe in the collapse of the wave, which is essentially what
Einstein dislikes, as it the collapse, and the collapse only, when
considered as a physical happening, which introduces a physical
indeterminacy and non-locality, which made no sense in Einstein's mind.
and invented to suppress the many-worlds which are implied by the
SWE.
It's questionable whether they are implied. To be "a world" means
to be a classical world.
You take the word "world" too much seriously. I am not sure there is
any "classical world", except for the ultimate reality (like a
standard model of PA, or SK, ...). Classicality is still only a local
view developed by a local observer. There is no world at all, if we
assume mechanism. A "world" is a subjective construct by a universal
number embedded in infinitely many computations, and the logic
pertaining of what the machine can predict *cannot* be classical
logic, below the substitution level, and can be classical locally
above the substitution level, assuming the brain works classically.
As Bohr realized having a classical world in which records were
permanent and sharable was essential.
Essential for its dualistic view where the observers are no more
described by quantum mechanics. When Everett try to explain his
monistic universal wave theory to Bohr, Bohr told him that the
conversation was terminated.
Although there are suggestive arguments no one has yet shown how
classical worlds are implied by QM.
I don't think there are classical physical worlds. Only a classical
immaterial mind, which is the mind of the universal machine looking at
its own functionning just above its substitution level. The laws of
thought are classical (Boole), but with mechanism this implies that
the laws of physics cannot be classical, except for high level
description, and that is only a useful practical simplification.
I think you said it yourself once. It seems you have explained
sometimes ago that we have only "quasi classical" worlds. I prefer to
use "consistent histories" à-la Omnes and Griffith, which are closer
to the machine's computation notion.
Bruno
Brent
The non-many-world theory is just the theory saying that quantum
mechanics is false, that it does not apply to "me". It is the
coquetry of the one who want to be one and only one. But it is
consistent (which is cheap) and possible in case the brain does not
act like a machine, but that is, in this context, a highly
speculative assumption making everything more complicated. It is
never a good idea to make a theory more complex to favor one's
religious belief, like the belief is a unique physical universe.
Bruno
Brent
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Use this MWI to access the Aeon article. Sorry
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