[ExI] Bell's Inequality

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 2:08 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Because the alternate explanations to MWI aren't testable.  It may seem
> unlikely that all the other worlds don't exist - but there is nothing
> observable that definitely would or would not be true if it just so
> happened that, for whatever reason, only the set of quantum choices that
> happen in the world we wind up in are the ones that happen.
>

### So what is the "whatever reason" you are talking about? "Collapse"?

Collapse is not testable. It is not a part of the mathematical structure of
QM. Why do you want to add something untestable to a self-consistent
mathematical theory that correctly predicts experimental results?

You can't add an in principle untestable term to an equation and still call
it science. New terms are added to improve fit to observations, e.g. the
cosmological constant. You don't add terms because it just feels good.

---------------------------------------

>
> (Remember, it seems just as unlikely - to many people who are not on our
> email list - that God doesn't exist and won't consign them to eternal
> damnation and torment - after they die and are thus unable to report
> results to the living - if they don't do what their local priest says, no
> matter if that priest preaches things in direct contradiction to the book
> that priest claims lays out the details of what God wants.)
>


### You seem to think that taking math seriously (as in accepting MWI) is
actually magical thinking and you compare it to religion? Seriously? After
adding an "observer" as a term to a basic physical theory?

------------------------------------


>
> Conversely, if the Earth were hollow, echoes of quakes and sonograms would
> turn out measurably differently than they have, among other experimental
> data.  The Earth being hollow or not is a testable, and much tested,
> prediction even without directly visiting the Earth's core.
>

### Not if there was an appropriately structured interface layer between
the hollow core and the mantle. Your belief in Earth's iron core is highly
theory-laden and with a different theory you could postulate other
structures for the Earth. For every inconsistency between theory and
observation you can make up a new term in the theory, and voila, you have
your testable predictions. Nothing is testable if you are willing to make
up ad hoc explanations for data.

Just as with QM - if you strongly believe there can only be one branch of
reality, you make up "collapse", and everything is hunky-dory.

On the other hand, if you know you don't know, and you take your theory
seriously, you accept its predictions as true, without tacking on new terms
("collapse") to make it fit your preconceived notions.

Rafal
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