[extropy-chat] Is Many Worlds testable? - Randall

[Randall Randall]

On Dec 30, 2006, at 5:31 AM, scerir wrote:

> Randall Randall:
>> Really?  What simple experiments?
>
> (I think I've already posted this here.
> Not sure though. Maybe in another world!)

Heh.  My "Really?" was delayed by a very long time,
such that you'd answered and your answer had spawned
a long thread by the time my post made it to the list.

I'm having some ongoing trouble posting to the list,
marked by getting bounces or delay notices, and so
I'm bcc'ing this to you as well.

> Since the MWI picture of the 'splitting' is based
> on measurements, and since here, at t1, no measurement
> whatsoever occurs (the charged particle does not hit
> the scintillating surface m at time t1; the charged
> particle will hit a face of the box only at time
> t2 > t1) we can say that MWI is not an 'ontological'
> interpretation. [2]
>
> Any solution, or hint, is wellcome.


I'm not deeply familiar with MWI, but I don't think
it requires measurements to have been made.  I thought
it was the case that the universe branches at every
possible quantum decision, with every possible choice
being taken.  No doubt this is a simplistic (or just
wrong) view, but it wouldn't have any trouble with
your experiment, because the decisions about which way
the particle goes was made for the universe you are
in when the particle went that way.  So "waves" are
the result of making measurements which do not precisely
distinguish what universe you're actually in, and
measurements on the particles themselves don't show
any waves.

It will be clear from the above that I'm no physicist,
of course; this is just what I think I understand about
the MWI view.

--
Randall Randall <randall at randallsquared.com>
"If you are trying to produce a commercial product in
  a timely and cost efficient way, it is not good to have
  somebody's PhD research on your critical path." -- Chip Morningstar