On Mon, Feb 10, 2025 at 6:36 PM Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> wrote:
*> The Schrodinger equation is completely insensitive to the amplitudes. > They are just carried along as inert parameters.* > *An equation is a mathematical entity, so as far as physics is concerned ALL the parameters in one are inert until a physicist assigns a physical meaning to one; this is true even for an equation as simple as F=ma. Mathematics in general and equations in particular are useful because they increase our ability to think logically. * *> the Born rule, and probability interpretations per se, are not in the > Schrodinger equation.* > *A mathematical equation by itself cannot confer a physical meaning or interpretation on anything, not even Schrodinger's equation, it's just a bunch of symbols that can be transformed into other symbols by following certain strictly defined rules that can all be derived by a few simple self evident logical axioms. An intelligent being is in the meaning conferring business, not the symbols in an equation. * *> 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.* > *You're fighting a strawman, even back in 1957 Hugh Everett knew that you can't use branch counting to assign probability, I explained why in a post I sent to the list on November 5, I will repeat it now: * *Branch counting won't work: I measure the spin of an electron in the vertical direction and both the electron and I split into two, and there's a 50% chance "I" will see spin up and a 50% chance "I" will see spin down. So far branch counting seems to work. But before I started I made up my mind that if I see spin up I will do nothing, but if I see spin down then I will wait for 10 minutes and then measure the electron spin a second time but this time along the horizontal axis. And so the spin down world splits again into a spin right world and a spin left world. So now there's only one branch in the spin up line BUT three branches in the spin down line. If you use branch counting you'd have to say that in the first measurement the probability was not 50-50 as you originally thought, instead there was a 25% chance I would see spin up in a 75% chance I would see spin down. But something I do now can't affect the probability of an experiment I performed 10 minutes ago!* *That's why when I draw a diagram of the worlds splitting on a piece of paper or a blackboard even though the lines I draw are two dimensional I like to think of those lines is having a little 3D thickness, the total sum of all the thickness of all the branches in the multiverse remains constant but each time a world split the resulting worlds become more numerous but thinner; although it always remains true that if you're betting on which universe you are likely to be in you should always place your money on being in the thicker one. * *I want to emphasize that this thickness business is NOT to be taken literally, it's just something that I happen to like because it's a visual analogy of the fact that the sum total of all probabilities always remains exactly the same, and that is 1. You may not like my analogy and that's OK because there's no disputing matters of taste. But disliking branch counting is not a matter of taste because such a dislike is not subjective, branch counting objectively doesn't work.* *John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* 6sq > -- 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/CAJPayv07-%2BcaENjxd%2Bz8HGeNiKzjf_eFq%2BtvUSpuUcw46vdw-Q%40mail.gmail.com.
