On Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 2:58 PM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:
*> It's easy to show that a Superposition does NOT imply that a system
> represented by a linear sum of a pure set of basis vectors, is in all of
> those states simultaneusly.This follows from the fact that the WF is an
> element of a vector space, a Hilbert space, and in vector spaces there is
> no unique set of basis vectors.*
*I would argue that the preferred basis issue crops up in ALL quantum
interpretations, not just Many Worlds, because they all involve a quantum
wave function that is evolving unitarily. To be useful a basis state must
have a consistent history and it must have "you" in it. Many Worlds defines
basis states as those states that are stable under environmental
decoherence. So the wave function consists of [{ (a live cat) + ("you"
observing a live cat) + ( the environment) } ] + [ { (a dead cat) +
("you" observing a dead cat) + ( the environment) } ]. I don't claim that
is unique, you could define a basis state in many other ways but that is
the only way that enables you to get a useful result that can be checked by
experimentation. As a practical matter we don't care about submicroscopic
changes to the environment, but we do care about whether we see a dead cat
or a live cat. *
*John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>*
lcd
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