[ExI] New article about the Block Universe

[John Clark]

On Thu, Mar 19, 2026 at 9:41 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*>> According to the block universe time is not an illusion, it is a
>> variable; and it's not a new idea, theologians have been playing around
>> with the predestination concept for over 1000 years. But today we know
>> something that neither those ancient theologians nor the scientists who
>> first proposed the block universe idea did not. It has been experimentally
>> shown that Bell's Inequality is violated, and that proves that either local
>> hidden variables do not exist or it proves the universe is not realistic;
>> that is to say unmeasured things do NOT exist in one and only one definite
>> state, so there can be more than one result in an experiment because there
>> is ALWAYS more than one experimenter performing the experiment, at least an
>> astronomical number to an astronomical power of them, and possibly an
>> infinite number. *
>>
>
> *> Existing as a multiplicity does violate realism*
>

*Yes.*


> * > or locality in QM,*
>

 *Existing as a multiplicity does not violate locality. And the
experimental fact that Bell's inequality is violated does not mean locality
must be false, but it does mean that if locality is true then either
realism or determinism must be false.*


> *> the wave function is still real,*
>

*Being "unrealistic" does not mean nothing is real, in physics the word has
a very precise meaning, experimental results always have more than one
result because unobserved objects always exist in more than one state.   *


> *> and moons still exists when no one is looking.*
>

*The moon doesn't exist when nobody's looking according to the Copenhagen
interpretation, or at least that's what some followers of the Copenhagen
interpretation say, but its fans can't agree even among themselves exactly
what the Copenhagen interpretation is saying. Niels Bohr, the inventor of
Copenhagen, was notorious for being very obscure in his philosophical
musings, he was a great scientist but a lousy philosopher.  *


> *> And changes still only propagate at c.*
>

*As to that Many Worlds is agnostic. The Many Worlds idea is consistent if
the split (a.k.a. change) happens instantaneously, but it also remains
consistent if the split only propagates at the speed of light. *

*> "To recap. Many-worlds is local and deterministic.*
>

*Yes. But it is not realistic. *


> *> Local measurements split local systems (including observers) in a
> subjectively randomfashion, distant systems are only split when the
> causally transmitted effects of the local interactions reach them.*


*Yes.*

*> There are many conceptions of QM with block time.*


*According to Many Worlds** the "Multiverse" and the "Universal Wave
Function" mean the same thing, so I suppose you could call that a "Block
Universe" if you wanted to, although I can't see the advantage in doing
so. *

>

> *> So where did Bell and Eberhard go wrong?*
>

*I don't know much about Eberhard but Bell did not go wrong, he believed in
the Pilot Wave Interpretation of quantum mechanics, and that is realistic
and deterministic, but not local. Many Worlds is deterministic and local
but not realistic. Experiments have proven that, except for
Superdeterminism (which is idiotic), no theory that successfully predicts
the outcome of experiments can be deterministic, local and realistic; at
least one of those three things has got to go. *

*I do disagree with Bell in that I prefer Many Worlds not pilot waves
because it makes fewer assumptions. **Many Worlds has only two fundamental
axioms, and they are both simple:*

*1) The quantum wave function contains all the physical information
about a system.*
*2) The quantum wave function evolves according to the Schrödinger
equation.*

*In some places and at some times the quantum wave function has a very low
amplitude but is nevertheless greater than zero, therefore according to
axiom #1 it must be physical, and being physical has consequences. And
according to axiom #2 one of those consequences is that the universe is
deterministic (because Schrodinger's equation is deterministic) and local,
but NOT realistic. The great virtue of Many Worlds is that it takes quantum
mechanics at face value, it needs no extra machinery to explain
measurement or observation. *

*By contrast the** pilot wave interpretation (which Bell preferred) keeps
Schrödinger's equation but adds another very
complicated equation that describes the behavior of something called a
"pilot wave" which has some very unusual properties. The pilot wave
is extremely non-local, it has to take the state of the entire universe
into account in order to know if it should guide an electron through the
right slit or the left slit in an experiment, and influences can be
instantaneous, and distance does not diminish effects, so a grain of sand
in the Andromeda galaxy 2 million light years away might be just as
important in making the decision of which split the electron will go
through as an elephant that is only 1 foot away.*

*Also, the pilot wave can affect an electron but an electron cannot affect
the pilot wave, the wave pushes the particle but the particle can NOT push
back. This sort of one-way causation has never been observed before. And
the asymmetry means that matter is real (it always has one definite
position and velocity) but is fundamentally passive, matter is guided by
the pilot wave but matter is unable to influence the pilot wave. Human
Beings are made of matter so we are just puppets, the pilot wave pulls the
strings. Well OK… Technically we're marionettes not puppets. *

*Pilot Wave supporters argue that all of this additional byzantine
complexity is worth it because it maintains realism. I disagree, I think
that is far too high a price to pay. At the end of the day all the pilot
wave does is provide a little arrow that points at a particle and says
"this is the real particle, ignore all others". This is why detractors of
pilot wave theory have called it "the disappearing worlds theory" or "Many
Worlds theory in denial.   *

*As for super determinism, I can't prove it's wrong but I can prove that
super determinism is silly. The greater the violation of Occam's Razor that
your theory needs to be true the sillier it is, and by that metric it would
be impossible to be sillier than super determinism.  *


*John K Clark*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20260320/bb7fe7fc/attachment.htm>