On Tue, Feb 11, 2025 at 9:32 AM Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Your argument is based on treating the measurement process as merely > counting sequences of zeros and ones, while dismissing the amplitudes as > “just numbers.” But this ignores that the wavefunction governs the > evolution of the system, and the amplitudes are not arbitrary labels—they > encode the structure of reality. The Schrodinger equation evolves the > system deterministically, and when measurement occurs, the measure of each > branch determines how many observer instances find themselves in it. > The Schrodinger equation is completely insensitive to the amplitudes. They are just carried along as inert parameters. It is the interpretation according to the Born rule that makes sense of this structure. But the Born rule, and probability interpretations per se, are not in the Schrodinger equation. You claim that the amplitude of a sequence does not affect what is > measured, yet this is exactly what determines how many observers experience > a given sequence. > Where on earth did you get that incredible idea -- that the number of observers depends on the amplitudes? According to MWI there is a branch for every possible value, and the observer splits along with the branching, so there is an observer on every branch. After N trials of the binary case, there are 2^N branches, with an observer (copy of the original experimenter) on every branch. These all exist equally, so your idea of weighting the branches according to the amplitudes makes no sense: there can be no "degrees of existence". All the observers exist equally, so all are equally entitled to count zeros to get an estimate of the underlying probability. The claim that “you do not ever see the amplitude” misses the point: you do > not directly observe measure, but you observe its consequences. The reason > we see Born-rule statistics is that the measure dictates the relative > number of observers experiencing different sequences. > That is assuming that there can be "degrees of existence" such that observers on Born-anomalous branches do not exist as strongly as those who see the correct statistics. This is not an idea that is in the Schrodinger equation, it is not in the mathematics, it is just plain silly. The amplitudes do not give 'degrees of existence" nor do they give different relative numbers of observers for each sequence. The mathematics of the Schrodinger equation are clear, and they do not support any such ideas. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLSnE0YvUR3SqKZZwPsGyzxOvaXRk3CHoSk52M3qSMq_GQ%40mail.gmail.com.
