On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 6:08:27 AM UTC-5, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 6:02:15 AM UTC-5, Philip Thrift wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 5:48:58 AM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 2:24:10 AM UTC-5, Philip Thrift wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 6:52:24 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 4:44:42 PM UTC-5, Bruce wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 5:38 AM Philip Thrift <[email protected]> 
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 1:20:39 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Part of the dislike of the MWI is that its proponents assume a 
>>>>>>>> purity that is not an evident virtue of the intepretation.  For 
>>>>>>>> example, 
>>>>>>>> interpreting the squared amplitudes as probabilities seems to be 
>>>>>>>> assumed, 
>>>>>>>> along with the existence of the preferred basis in which the 
>>>>>>>> amplitudes are 
>>>>>>>> defined.  Together these are almost the same as CI.  If you ask 
>>>>>>>> "probabilities of what?" in MWI the answer can't be probability of 
>>>>>>>> existing 
>>>>>>>> because MWI has committed to all solutions, however improbable, 
>>>>>>>> existing.  
>>>>>>>> So it becomes probability of finding yourself in a particular 
>>>>>>>> world...which 
>>>>>>>> depends on a theory of consciousness and seems to regress to von 
>>>>>>>> Neumann 
>>>>>>>> and Wigner.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Zurek's envariance attempts to answer these questions and provide a 
>>>>>>>> justification for preferred bases and what probability refers to.  But 
>>>>>>>> notice that to the extent he succeeds he is justifying taking a simple 
>>>>>>>> probabilistic view and saying one of those preferred states happens 
>>>>>>>> and the 
>>>>>>>> others don't.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Brent
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In the single-particle double-slit experiment*, an observer could 
>>>>>>> see a dot appear anywhere on a screen where path interference does not 
>>>>>>> reduce the probability to zero. So with the literal 
>>>>>>> many-world-branching 
>>>>>>> theory, how many different worlds are produced, each on with its own 
>>>>>>> observer seeing a dot on the screen?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> According to MWI, an infinite number. Each world will have the dot at 
>>>>>> a different place on the screen.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bruce
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What you say may open up a bit of a hole or snag in MWI. This is 
>>>>> something I have been pondering some since Carroll's popularization. If 
>>>>> MWI 
>>>>> fundamentally preserves unitarity by splitting off worlds then 
>>>>> localization 
>>>>> of a measurement is an illusion.Consider a particle measured somewhere on 
>>>>> a 
>>>>> path from x and x'.  The path integral and the nonlocality of paths is a 
>>>>> sum over all possible measurements in all space containing x and x', then 
>>>>> there must be a continuum of possible worlds splitting off. If the 
>>>>> operator 
>>>>> has a continuum of eigenvalues *x*|x> = x|x> there must then be a 
>>>>> continuum of possible worlds if there is indeed no fundamental 
>>>>> localization 
>>>>> with a measurement. This is not just infinite, but uncountably infinite.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is different from how decoherence maintains unitarity and 
>>>>> conserves qubits. There a local interaction occurs that induces quantum 
>>>>> phase to enter into a set of ancillary states or reservoir of states. 
>>>>> Then 
>>>>> we can consider quantum states as finite, but unbounded from above, so 
>>>>> that 
>>>>> local observations and measurements are possible. 
>>>>>
>>>>> This does seem to run into some oddities that either need to be worked 
>>>>> out or that might indicate some gap in MWI. The persistence of 
>>>>> nonlocality 
>>>>> in MWI is interesting for possible quantum gravitation work. In that case 
>>>>> I 
>>>>> can think of maybe a way around this, where this uncountably infinite set 
>>>>> of g_{ij} configurations, or Ψ[g_{ij}], can be identified with "exotic" 
>>>>> manifolds that are removed. It is less clear how this can happen with 
>>>>> ordinary quantum fields that have local realizations.
>>>>>
>>>>> LC
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> To mix an analysis (or a theory) of the path integral with an analysis 
>>>> (or a theory) of MWI is mixing two fundamentally contradictory frameworks 
>>>> that only leads to confusion.
>>>>
>>>> @philipthrift 
>>>>
>>>
>>> I am thinking of a path integral as most physicists do, which is an 
>>> action principle that is a sum over amplitudes or histories. You are 
>>> thinking according to the quantum interpretation of Dowker and others, 
>>> which has auxiliary postulates or assumptions.
>>>
>>> LC 
>>>
>>
>> Path integrals or histories are  not eve brought up in Sean Carroll's 
>> book (a search of the text shows).
>>
>> So they not present in any way in MWI.
>>
>> MWI (in Sean's mathematical formulation) is contrary to the path 
>> integral, because histories (as you mention above) are simply not worlds 
>> (in Sean's formulation).
>>
>> @philipthrift 
>>
>
>
> Also see Feynman's Meaning of Probabilities in QM paper.
>
> But there are no probabilities in MWI.
>
> You can't take a probabilistic theory and gloss it onto MWI.
>
> (like putting lipstick on a pig)
>
> @philipthrift 
>

Carroll and Sebens who a consistency with Born rule and MWI. Born rule is 
about a spectrum of observable according to probability amplitudes. MWI 
just does not assign a local probability of a measurement in quite the way 
a collapse type interpretation does.

LC 

-- 
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/ec05e91e-0aeb-40c6-9695-2ee9f4225854%40googlegroups.com.

Reply via email to