On Fri, Sep 13, 2024 at 1:08 AM Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:
>> *>> I thought you could get the appearance of randomness from a >> first-person perspective in MW? Has that been shown to not work?* >> > > *> I don't think that works. The idea often put forward is something along > the lines of self-locating uncertainty -- out of all the branches, which > one am I on? But that is only apparent randomness,* > *True. Schrodinger's wave function is completely deterministic so if you knew the wave function for the entire universe then nothing would be random, but of course we don't know the universal wave function and never will. * > *> and to get such an idea to work, you need to be able to make a random > choice between branches.* > *Choice has nothing to do with it. The one and only assumption Many Worlds makes is that everything always follows Schrodinger's equation. And that means that everything consistent with that equation will happen. And you turning right is consistent with Schrodinger so that will happen, and you turning left is consistent with Schrodinger so that will happen, but an electron turning into a proton is not consistent with Schrodinger so that will never happen. If Many Worlds is correct then randomness is just apparent, not objectively intrinsic. * > *> GRW collapse theory: it is perhaps the only theory around at the moment > that has an explanation of intrinsic randomness,* > *I think Many Worlds is probably correct but of course I can't be certain, and I have to give credit to GRW and other intrinsic collapse theories because they make experimentaly testable predictions. I doubt it will happen but if their predictions turn out to be true then there is no wiggle room, they will have proved that Many Worlds is dead wrong. However they do not give an explanation for randomness, GRW and related theories just stick in additional stuff, including two new constants of nature, into Schrödinger's Wave Equation that generates randomness. And the constants were not picked for any theoretical reason, instead it was completely ad hoc; if those two constants were any larger we would have already detected them, and if they were any smaller they would be too small to get the job done. * *Getting back to "choice", there are only two possibilities, you did what you did for a reason or you did what you did for no reason. If Many Worlds is correct then there is always a reason why you did what you did, although you may not know what it is. If GRW is correct then some effects have no cause. Time will tell which is right. * John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> twt -- 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/CAJPayv246_skDLhPgttd1J2wcae1ebokmKw_iPsUFgu1dRMbKw%40mail.gmail.com.
