[ExI] Bell's Inequality

[Adrian Tymes]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 7:36 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki
<rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>> But experiments do have only one outcome, as experienced and observed by
>> the experimenters.  Any alternate worlds are immeasurable and may as well
>> not exist.
>
> ### If you were to say that only the observed experimental outcomes exist,
> then you imply there is something qualitatively different between the part
> of the wavefunction we do experience and the parts that we don't.

Science is all about observability, measurement, and what actually
exists.  If you wish to speculate that something that is never
measurable, observable, or otherwise detectable must still exist, you
need evidence.

> But the other worlds actually *are* measurable - we can calculate from first
> principles the distribution of outcomes for increasingly more complex
> quantum systems, and when we probe parts of the distribution in repeated
> experiments, the predictions tend to agree with outcomes to 7 significant
> digits or so. So, we can't "see" the alternate worlds but sure we can
> measure them.

The correctness of the prediction of the distribution says nothing
about whether other worlds (presumably you mean with different
distributions) exist.

> There is another wrinkle for the Copenhagen believers - imagine that you can
> ab initio calculate the distribution of outcomes in an experiment that
> generates conscious observers

> But will the imaginary conscious observers you generate by the dozen in half
> of your experiments take their ghostly status lying down?

Yes.  They are generated by the experiment; they do not have the
ability to retroactively change the result of things before they were
generated.  (No, there is no "but at the moment of their generation"
confusion: first they are generated, then they have a span of
consciousness.  Consciousness is over a span of time, which like all
spans has a beginning and an end - granted, this span may also include
interruptions such as sleep.)  Therefore their potential
post-experimental existence can not change the outcome, so they have
no choice but to accept the results.

It's like a certain basilisk AI, whose full name some members of this
list would feel better if I did not spell out.  Hypothetically, it
will resurrect (via simulation if necessary) everyone who knew it
could exist but failed to devote their efforts to bring about its
existence - basically God, with everlasting Heaven for its loyal
people and everlasting Hell for any uncooperatives (and not bothering
with the unenlightened masses who never heard of it).  But that
requires that it will exist, and will turn out that way, which is not
guaranteed to be the world that we eventually face; the mere
possibility does not change this.