On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 12:00 PM Quentin Anciaux <[email protected]> wrote:
> Bruce, > > Consider the following thought experiment, which directly parallels MWI > and illustrates why your argument assumes what it tries to prove. > > Imagine we have a machine that can perfectly duplicate an observer, just > as MWI implies happens during quantum measurements. The experiment works as > follows: > > 1. The observer enters a sealed box. > > 2. Inside the box, they are duplicated into 10 copies. > > 3. Each duplicate is placed in an identical room with only one visible > difference: > > One of them sees a 0 written on the wall. > > Nine of them see a 1 written on the wall. > > 4. The observer, upon exiting the box, can only report what they > personally experienced. > It has occurred to me what is wrong with this example. Instead of considering a two-outcome experiment, where we get either a zero or a one, you have considered a ten-outcome experiment, with one zero and nine ones. This is not equivalent to the binary case under consideration. In the binary case, we get 2^N possible sequences after N trials, (not the 10^N sequences as in your example). Because there are only two possible outcomes in my example, the majority of sequences will have approximately a 50/50 split of zeros and ones. The majority of observers are then going to use their data to estimate a probability of 0.5 for getting a zero. Now this bears absolutely no relation to the actual Born probability, which is a^2.The majority of observers estimate p = 0.5, whatever the value of a. This is because there are only 2^N possible binary sequences of length N, and we get the same 2^N sequences whatever the values of a and b. That is why I say the amplitudes have no effect. 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLSWH%3DL%3De34CjZVFo8YxGNCdwr1ryUfSFLdQ49_hruBr8w%40mail.gmail.com.
