On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 8:33 AM Lawrence Crowell < [email protected]> wrote:
> You are holding onto a standard idea of realism. The problem is this > means we have no way of putting our finger on what is meant by realism. Everett says everything allowed by Schrodinger's wave equation is physically real, and equally so, and things forbidden by Schrodinger are not.The great advantage of Everett's Quantum interpretation is the simplicity of its assumptions, it says everything, including conscious observers, obey the exact same laws of physics and evolve according to purely deterministic laws, all other quantum interpretations stick in a whole bunch of additional ifs, buts and howevers at that point. Somebody said Everett is cheap with assumptions but expensive in universes, maybe so but I think an idea that starts with simplicity but produces great complexity is a sign of a good theory, Darwin's theory would be an example. You should always get more out of a theory than you put in or it has no point. > > Taking it further, realism only holds when we make observations that > abandon locality. Everett doesn't demand that you abandon locality, if you observe a change in an electron and it moves left rather than right the entire universe splits, if you ask how fast that split propagates through the universe the answer is it doesn't matter; you can assume it happens instantaneously or you can assume it only moves at the speed of light, Everett will make the same prediction about the outcome of an experiment either way. > > Our standard concepts of realism is simply a pure idealism, almost a > fantasy. For me the idea that when I turn my head to look at the moon the universe splits into one where I'm looking at the moon and into another where I'm not is crazy, but the idea that the moon isn't real when I'm not looking at it is even crazier. Whatever the true nature of reality turns out to be of one thing we could be certain, it will be absolutely nuts. 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/CAJPayv36iw7dkXW%2B1cdKvzD4619UEFJj9ZUki%3DLYb9S9d9oaDw%40mail.gmail.com.
