On Sun, Feb 23, 2025 at 11:44 AM Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Bruce, > > You argue that assuming the Born rule can emerge from unitary evolution is > unjustified. But rejecting the possibility outright without proof is > equally an assumption—one that dismisses ongoing efforts to derive it. > It is an assumption equivalent to your assumption that it is possible. Given that many attempts to derive the Born rule from unitary evolution have failed, then the evidence points to its general impossibility. It is a major assumption to claim that, despite the evidence, this must be possible. You claim that branch counting does not factor into your argument, yet your > critique hinges on the idea that every binary sequence should appear with > equal frequency. > That is a simple consequence of the construction. In each trial, the observer splits into a copy that sees zero and a copy that sees one. These two copies are equivalent. After N such splits, we have 2^N binary sequences, all of which are constructed from such 2-way splittings. So all are equivalent. Probability does not come into it, because that concept has not been introduced at this stage. That assumption implicitly treats all branches as equiprobable, which is > precisely what is in question. > The construction resolves this issue. If measure determines observer distribution, then not all sequences > contribute equally—just as in classical probability, where frequency > matters more than raw enumeration. > Dismissing self-locating uncertainty as requiring a specific number of > branches to match Born probabilities misrepresents the argument. The core > idea is that high-measure branches contain exponentially more observer > instances, > Where do the additional observers come from?. If they come from unitary evolution, via decoherence or the equivalent, then they each come on a separate branch, so counting them is just branch counting. If they come at random, just by individuals looking at the result on some branch, or from random populations carried along with the observer as his branch splits, then the number of such is not in your control. Those additional observers are not the result of unitary evolution, and the number is certainly not determined by any amplite of the initial wave function. So relying on additional observers is either branch counting, or arrant nonsense. making them overwhelmingly likely to be experienced. This is not an > arbitrary assumption—it is a direct consequence of how amplitudes influence > the evolution of the wavefunction. > It is pure fantasy on your part. You state that no alternative approach can work, yet multiple avenues are > actively being explored. Your argument does not refute MWI—it challenges > one specific approach (branch counting) while ignoring others. > My argument has nothing to do with branch counting. You should get that idea out of your head. If you claim MWI is falsified, you need to address the broader question: > why should amplitudes govern quantum behavior in every other context except > observer frequencies? > Because the amplitudes play no role in determining the possible outcomes from some measurement process. They may play other roles, but they are not relevant here. 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/CAFxXSLTF-e%2BkJWvO5EDzMjYi3C9yPm4jiB2J1VTXMp_HHNpOrg%40mail.gmail.com.
