[extropy-chat] Parallel worlds

[scerir]

A. J. Leggett, 2003 Nobel laureate, will give his lecture soon
http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/2003/leggett-lecture.html

The text is not on-line, but I suppose it will be more or less like
www.nobel.se/physics/symposia/ncs-2001-1/leggett.pdf
after all he gave this lecture right there, in 2001!

He also wrote, i.e., in 'Foundations of Physics'
29 (3) 445-456, March 1999, "Some Thought-Experiments
Involving Macrosystems as Illustrations of Various
Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics"
Abstract: 'I consider various experiments related to the so-called
"macroscopic quantum coherence" experiment, which are probably at 
present in the class of "thought" experiment but are likely to become 
realistic in the next few decades. I explore the way in which outcomes 
consistent with the predictions of quantum mechanics would be 
interpreted by an adherent of, respectively, the Copenhagen, 
statistical, and Bohmian interpretations of the formalism.'

Now the interesting point (Leggett is not a manyworlder, or an
Everettista, but he likes those interpretations, and the original
statistical-ensemble interpretation by Einstein and Ballentine) 
is that he was able to show that also in this macro-world
there are physical, real, superpositional effects. So in that
very readable lecture (link above he was trying to attack the 
so called 'macro-realism' (if I remenber well).

In a certain sense there are physical parallel worlds, but they
all seem to be 'here'. After all this is the meaning of the word
uni-vers!