[ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument)

[Damien Broderick]

At 01:26 AM 1/9/2008 -0500, JKC wrote:

> > A basic premise of quantum theory, as I understand it (in a rudimentary
> > way), is that what we see always comprises a superposition of all
> > possible states of the relevant phenomenon.
>
>But we don't ALWAYS see a superposition of states. If you flip a coin and it
>comes out heads then you are NOT living in the world where it came out
>tails.

Flipping a coin is not a quantum-scale event. Some aspects of the 
neural process underlying the decision to flip it might be (if 
Penrose or Popper/Eccles are right), but that's probably not critical 
here, I suspect.

If you fire a single photon and register its arrival at a detector 
one meter away, you know precisely how long it should take to arrive 
*if it goes straight there*. But on the Feynman account (if I've 
understood it), many components of the supposition meander way the 
hell over the path, and hence should take longer to arrive. If each 
of them is "realized" in a different universe, rather than their 
phases canceling, then in most universes a photon should arrive at an 
apparent v < c. No? (Well, obviously no, but why not?)

Damien Broderick