[ExI] Google’s Willow Quantum Chip: Proof of the Multiverse?

[John Clark]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 3:47 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> It is proof of a multiverse for the following reason: unless one is
> willing to go so far as to admit there are effects without causes (which is
> magical thinking in my view)*
>

*Logic not magic allows us to conclude that there are only two
possibilities, an iterated sequence of "why" questions either goes on
forever or terminates in a brute fact, an event without a cause. I think
it's a brute fact that consciousness is the way data feels when it is being
processed intelligently.*

*However back in 1986 in his book "The Ghost in the Atom" David Deutsch
proposed a way to test Everett's Many Worlds idea; the experiment would be
difficult to perform but Deutsch argues that is not Many Worlds fault, the
reason it's so difficult is that the conventional view says conscious
observers obey different laws of physics, Many Worlds says they do not, so
to test who's right we need a mind that uses quantum properties.*

*In Deutsch's experiment to prove or disprove the existence of many worlds
other than this one, a conscious quantum computer shoots electrons at a
metal plate that has 2 small slits in it. It does this one at a time. The
quantum computer has detectors near each slit so it knows which slit the
various electrons went through. The quantum mind now signs a document for
each and every electron saying it has observed the electron and knows which
slit it went through. It is very important that the document does NOT say
which slit the electron went through, it only says that it went through one
and only one slit and the mind has knowledge of which one. Now just before
the electron hits the plate the mind uses quantum erasure to completely
destroy the memory of what slits the electrons went through, but all other
memories including all the documents remain undamaged. *

*After the document is signed the electron continues on its way and hits
the photographic plate. Then after thousands of electrons have been
observed and all which-way information has been erased, develop the
photographic plate and look at it. If you see interference bands then the
many world interpretation is correct. If you do not see interference bands
then there are no worlds but this one and the conventional interpretation
is correct.*

*Deutsch is saying that in the Copenhagen interpretation when the results
of a measurement enters the consciousness of an observer the wave function
collapses, in effect all the universes except one disappear without a trace
so you get no interference. In the many worlds model all the other worlds
will converge back into one universe when the electrons hit the
photographic film because the two universes will no longer be different
(even though they had different histories), but their influence will still
be felt. In the merged universe you'll see indications that the electron
went through slot X only and indications that it went through slot Y only,
and that's what causes interference.*


*John K Clark*
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