[extropy-chat] Many worlds and Hugh Everett

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

MWI does not privilege a single reality, physically instantiated in a "real
world", over possible realities equally consistent with physics. Two
macroscopically different outcomes of a microscopic event to which the laws
of physics only assign a probability are treated as equally valid
projections of reality. I always thought that MWI is conceptually simpler
than other interpretations. We only have to do without the assumption of a
reality that allows itself to be completely described by our language, and
the mathematics of the theory flow beautifully without paradoxes. There is
one wavefunction (reality) evolving in time according to precise laws, only
it does not describe a world of bricks. Conceptual problems only arise when
we try separating out a projection of the wavefunction and using a language
meant for bricks to describe it. Since there is usually interference between
different projections of reality, it is impossible to separate one out as a
stand alone reality. Too bad that brick languages are the only languages
that evolution has developed for us so far.
What happened to Liz after she killed herself? Well since there were
countless version of her in different projections of reality, and since the
closest ones shared a large part of her personality and memories, it seems
reasonable to assume that her consciousness continued in the versions that
had not killed themselves.
Of course this must be a brick-like approximation, perhaps consciousness is
a property of the complete wavefunction that does not allow itself to be
associated to a specific projection.



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of John K Clark
Sent: martes, 30 de diciembre de 2003 16:32
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [extropy-chat] Many worlds and Hugh Everett


There is a new online biography of Hugh Everett, the man who started the
many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics at
http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/everett/ . One thing I didn't know was that
Everett's daughter believed in it and killed herself because she thought she
would be living in a better parallel world with her father. Apparently she
thought if all the unhappy versions of herself died her consciousness would
remain only in the happy ones. There may be a certain amount of logic to
that but before you do something that drastic you had better be very very
sure the theory is correct. I don't know about you but I'm not THAT certain.

John K Clark     jonkc at att.net


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat