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

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sat, Oct 11, 2025 at 2:26 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2025, 1:32 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 3:46 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) then the only way to explain how the correct answer ends up in the registers of a computer following a quantum computation is to admit the reality of the wave function, and all the intermediate steps of the computation.
>>
>> False dichotomy.  There are other ways to explain it.
>>
>> When you drop a ball into a funnel, the exit of which is pointed down,
>> does the ball "actually" fall in all the ways other than through the
>> funnel's exit?  No, it does not - unless the ball's atoms all
>> quantum-teleport through the funnel's wall, an event so unlikely that
>> it has yet to happen once in the universe - and no multiverse is
>> needed to explain this.  Likewise in a quantum computer, the answer
>> that comes out was so very likely (though this might only be formally
>> provable in hindsight, with much more computation time than the
>> quantum computer needed) that it's the only one that comes out.
>
> Saying "it's probable" doesn't escape the implication of intermediate states.

And technically there are intermediate states, just not the ones
you're thinking of.  By analogy to the funnel:
* The times when the ball is falling through the funnel do exist.
Likewise, intermediate moments where the quantum computer is forming
an answer do exist.  (If they did not, the quantum computer would
provide literally instantaneous answers, which it does not.  It is at
least limited to the speed of light.)
* This does not mean that the states where the ball falls through the
funnel's walls, or the quantum computer fully contemplates the answers
that will have been incorrect, existed.
* These intermediate states were not the same as they would have been
in a classical computer.  Nothing in this implies that a classical
computer's intermediate states existed.  By analogy, the funnel - a
static object that does not react to the world - does not consciously
examine where the ball should go and choose that it will go out the
exit.  Objections about the existence of a classical computer's
intermediate states are irrelevant.

Quite often when considering truly new technological bases, people try
to understand it by making a detailed, step-by-step parallel to
technology they understand, and then get frustrated or conclude the
technology is not what it says it is when this analogy leads to
seemingly impossible intermediate steps.  Consider a contemporary of
the Wright brothers considering their flying machine as a hot air
balloon, or a certain infamous early detraction that using rockets to
get to orbit was impossible because they have nothing to push against.

(Granted, there are a lot of scams out there that rely on "trust me,
don't apply classical analysis".  When classical analysis predicts a
failure, the new theory predicts a success, and independent
experiments generally get successes, that's evidence it might not be a
scam.)