Gerard ’t Hooft on the future of quantum mechanics https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20170711a/full/
T HOOFT: I do not believe that we have to live with the many-worlds interpretation. Indeed, it would be a stupendous number of parallel worlds, which are only there because physicists couldn’t decide which of them is real. In practice, quantum mechanics merely gives predictions with probabilities attached. This should be considered as a normal and quite acceptable feature of predictions made by science: different possible outcomes with different probabilities. In the world that is familiar to us, we always have such a situation when we make predictions. Thus the question remains: What is the reality described by quantum theories? I claim that we can attribute the fact that our predictions come with probability distributions to the fact that not all relevant data for the predictions are known to us, in particular important features of the initial state. @philipthrift On Friday, September 13, 2019 at 11:19:43 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: > > That's the plot of one of the stories in Colin Bruce's book > "Schroedinger's Rabbits". > > One of the problems is that the way the Poweball numbers come up is not > directly quantum randomness. It may be determined by the amplification of > some random quantum events in the past. But how far in the past. You > don't want it to be so far in the past that it can be causally correlated > with your decision to set up the suicide machine. Of course t'Hooft claims > they are all causally determined. > > Brent > > On 9/13/2019 2:27 PM, John Clark wrote: > > I have a modest proposal, it's a low tech way to find out once and for all > if the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct, and as > a side effect make you rich. First you buy one Powerball lottery ticket, > the next drawing of the winning number is at 11pm tonight. Then make a > simple machine that will monitor the internet and pull the trigger on a 44 > magnum aimed at your head at exactly 11.01pm UNLESS yours is the winning > ticket. If Many Worlds is correct your subjective experience can only be > that at 11.01pm, despite 80 million to one odds stacked against you, a > miracle occurs and the gun does not go off and you're rich beyond the > dreams of avarice. After that as you fly on your private jet to your > private island you can contemplate the fact that you are the only person in > the world who knows the true nature of reality and knows it with absolute > certainty. And it only cost you a few hundred dollars to make the machine, > the most expensive part being the gun itself. > > Of course for every universe you're rich in there are 80 million in which > your friends watch your head explode, but that's a minor point, your > consciousness no longer exists in any of those worlds so you never have to > see the mess; somebody else will have to clean up the thousands of itty > bitty bits of brain splattered all over the room, it's their problem not > yours. > > John K Clark > > > -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2de7a418-fd46-4b68-aa6a-2718a34261a3%40googlegroups.com.
