On 2/21/2025 2:10 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
Brent,
I’m not just repeating that the Born rule works—I’m pointing out that
any valid interpretation must explain why it works.
That's nonsense. I don't think you know who science works. What's the
explanation for gravity going as 1/r^2? What's a valid interpretation
of gravity?
You keep arguing as if I’m assuming it, but the argument is that
measure provides a natural way to account for it without assuming it
outright.
Natural or not, we know empirically the Born rule works. You just keep
making up stories that end in "and that's why the Born rule works." And
since the Born rule does work that makes you story true.
The lottery analogy illustrates this: more copies of an observer in a
high-measure branch means an observer is overwhelmingly likely to
experience that outcome. This is not about assuming the Born rule—it’s
about showing how a distribution naturally arises from the structure
of the wavefunction.
How does "naturally arises" work. If you going to have an explanation
that actually explains, it can't depend on vague phrases like "naturally
arises". That's no better than "it works".
You seem to interpret "more observers" as meaning entirely separate
people in the same world. That’s not what’s being said. If the
wavefunction remains a continuous superposition, then what we call "a
branch" isn’t a single, discrete entity—it’s a coarse partition in an
underlying structure. More observers in a branch means more instances
of the same observer, not more independent individuals.
If you think this fails to explain the Born rule, then the burden is
on you to show why. Just stating that the Schrödinger equation doesn’t
explicitly derive it ignores the fact that all interpretations rely on
additional reasoning to connect math to experience. Dismissing this as
"assuming what needs to be proven" without engaging with how measure
distributes observer instances doesn’t resolve anything.
Maybe you should read those papers purporting to derive the Born rule.
And then read the critiques that show how they are circular or slip in
extra assumptions.
Brent
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