On Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 5:26 PM Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, 8 Feb 2020 at 15:19, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 3:15 PM Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> On Sat, 8 Feb 2020 at 11:16, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 4:33 AM Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On Fri, 7 Feb 2020 at 15:59, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> This argument from Kent completely destroys Everett's attempt to >>>>>> derive the Born rule from his many-worlds approach to quantum mechanics. >>>>>> In >>>>>> fact, it totally undermines most attempts to derive the Born rule from >>>>>> any >>>>>> branching theory, and undermines attempts to justify ignoring branches on >>>>>> which the Born rule weights are disconfirmed. In the many-worlds case, >>>>>> recall, all observers are aware that other observers with other data must >>>>>> exist, but each is led to construct a spurious measure of importance that >>>>>> favours their own observations against the others', and this leads to an >>>>>> obvious absurdity. In the one-world case, observers treat what actually >>>>>> happened as important, and ignore what didn't happen: this doesn't lead >>>>>> to >>>>>> the same difficulty. >>>>>> >>>>> Nevertheless Many Worlds is at least logically possible. What would >>>>> the inhabitants expect to see, if not the world we currently see? >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Many-worlds might be logically possible, but it is also completely >>>> useless. If every possible outcome from any experiment/interaction actually >>>> occurs, then the total data that results is independent of any probability >>>> measure. Consequently, one cannot use data from experiments to infer >>>> anything about any underlying probabilities, even if such exist at all. In >>>> particular, Many-worlds is incompatible with the Born rule, and with the >>>> overwhelming amount of evidence confirming the Born rule in quantum >>>> mechanics. So Many-worlds (and Everett) is a failed theory, disconfirmed by >>>> every experiment ever performed. If Many-worlds is correct, then the >>>> inhabitants have no basis on which to have any expectations about what they >>>> might see. >>>> >>> >>> So are you suggesting that the inhabitants would just see chaos? >>> >> >> >> No, I am suggesting that Many-worlds is a failed theory, unable to >> account for everyday experience. A stochastic single-world theory is >> perfectly able to account for what we see. >> > > But is Many Worlds consistent with what we observe or not, > No. Many-worlds is not confirmed by what we observe. Many worlds is consistent with any values whatsoever for the probabilities, whereas we observe only consistency with the Born rule and calculable probabilities. and if not, what would we observe if it were true? > I have no idea. A theory without consistent probabilities is not what we observe. For example, that the world was created six thousand years ago is > inconsistent with observation, because there are fossils that are millions > of years old, we can see light that left stars billions of years ago, and > so on. But if God created the world six thousand years ago complete with > false evidence that it was much older, that would be consistent with > observation, but a bad theory nonetheless. Which is it with Many Worlds? > A bad theory that is not consistent with observation. It is on a par with "God did it", because the probability that we would observe what we do if Many-worlds is correct is vanishingly small. Bruce -- 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/CAFxXSLT_OXYTYZmeLu-OQnU7mbYjUQ5fVCdpwERgq1yWqm_s3g%40mail.gmail.com.
