On 15/12/2017 6:25 am, John Clark wrote:
On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 10:38 PM, <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>wrote:
>
I notice you don't gave a damn about having a non falsifiable theory.
David Deutsch proposed a test of Many Worlds about 30 years ago in his
book "The Ghost In The Atom", but
it
would be very difficult to perform. The reason it's so difficult to
test is not
the M
any
World's
theory fault, the reason is that the conventional view says that
conscious
observers obey different laws of physics, many worlds says they do
not, so
to test who's right we need a mind that uses quantum properties.
Quantum Computers have advanced enormously over the last 30 years
so
I wouldn't be surprised if it or something very much like it
is
actually performed in the decade or two.
An intelligent quantum computer shoots
photons at a metal plate
one at a time
that has 2 small slits in
it,
and then the photons hit a photographic plate.
Nobody looks at the photographic plate till the very end of the
experiment.
The quantum mind has detectors near each slit so it knows which slit
the various electrons went through.
After each photon passes the slits but before they hit the
photographic plate the quantum mind signs a document
saying that it has observed each and every
photon
and knows
which
slit each
photon
went through. It is very important that the document does not say
which slit
any
photon
went through, it only says that they went through
one slit
and one slit only and the mind has knowledge of which one.
There is a signed document to this effect for every photon it shot.
Now the mind uses
quantum erasure to completely destroy
its
memory of
which slit any of the photons went through; t
he only
part remaining is the document
which states that each photon went through one and only one slit and
the mind (at the time) knew which one.
Now develop the photographic plate and look at it.
I
f you see interference bands then the many world interpretation is
correct. If you do not see interference bands then there are no worlds
but
this one and the conventional
quantum
interpretation is correct.
This works because in the Copenhagen interpretation when the results
of a measurement enters the consciousness of an observer the wave
function collapses, in effect all the universes except one disappear
without a trace so you get no interference. In the many worlds model
all the other worlds will converge back into one universe because
information on which slit the various photons went through was the
only thing that made one universe different from another, so when that
was erased they became identical again and merged, but their influence
will still be felt, you'll see indications that the photon went
through slot A only and indications it went through slot B only, and
that's what causes interference.
I think this argument pre-dates the work by Zeh and Zurek developing the
idea of decoherence. Decoherence remove the oddities of Copenhagen as
presented above in that it is not consciousness that does the work, but
decoherence. Bohr was saying essentially the same thing (though he
didn't know the words) when he talked about the importance of the whole
experimental set up.
That aside, Deutsch's idea fails because he has not fully implemented
quantum erasure. If a record exists of the fact that a 'welcher weg'
measurement was made, entanglement of the rest of the world with the
result of that measurement is not erased by merely resetting the memory
of the mind or computer. So in the proposed experiment, the interference
pattern is absent, and it is not a proper 'delayed choice' situation.
Bruce
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