[ExI] New article about the Block Universe

[Jason Resch]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 8:38 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 20, 2026 at 9:20 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>
>> *>>> 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. *
>>>
>>
>> *> Then the term you are looking for is  "conterfactual definiteness."
>> (CFD)*
>>
>
> *No, that is not the term I am looking for. If things are realistic then
> you automatically get counterfactual definiteness. But in light of the
> experimental fact that Bell's Equality is violated, there is no way to
> explain how counterfactual definiteness could exist unless things are
> realistic.*
>

It's easy: Add the realism of a multiverse. With a multiverse, experiments
no longer have single outcomes, and then things remain realistic, but CFD
is violated.


>
> *> You are apt to confuse a lot of people if you use "realism" in place
>> of, or to refer to CFD. Since conventionally the word realism simply refers
>> to the assumption that there is an observer independent reality.*
>>
>
> *CFD means the ability to speak meaningfully about the definiteness of the
> results of measurements that have not been performed; but the experimental
> fact that Bell's Inequality is violated tells us that it would be
> impossible to explain how CFT could be true unless either realism or
> locality did not exist. *
>

So far, creative people have identified 3 outs to explain Bell's
inequalities. Any *one* of these is sufficient:

1. FTL non-local influences (spooky action)
2. Abandon the notion that experiments result in unique outcomes, in other
words, drop CFD (many worlds)
3. Assume nature conspires to force us to measure only those things that
maintain the illusion of Bell statistics (hidden variables+super
determinism)

So as they say, pick your poison.


>
> *And in Many Worlds an "observation" need not be made by something that
> has a brain or is even alive because ANYTHING that produces a change, that
> is to say causes something to be in more than one definite state, can be
> called an "observer". But if something does have a brain and if it is
> capable of forming a thought makes the observation then at the very least,
> a change has been made in the observer's brain, because otherwise he
> wouldn't be able to remember he had made the observation.   *
>
>
>
>> *>>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.  *
>>>
>>
>> *>Well if you say the moon exists when no one is looking according to MW,
>> then MW is realistic.*
>>
>
> *According to Many Worlds the moon exists, but NOT in one and only one
> definite state. Since the moon's creation 4.5 billion years ago there has
> not been one nanosecond when something wasn't observing it, because any
> change it produces is an observation, and the moon is constantly making a
> lot of changes: for example in the tides the Moon produces on the Earth by
> gravitation, and in the photons of light that bounce off the moon's surface
> and hit the Earth.  So a sphere centered on the moon with a radius of 4.5
> billion light years is not and has never been in one and only one definite
> state. *
>

There is the bird's-eye-view of reality, in which there is one state of the
universal wave function, and then there is the frog's-eye-view of reality,
within any particular branch. This is why Everett named his theory
"relative state" rather than "many worlds." Different observers have their
own unique relative state, to what is ultimately one shared reality, just
as in relativity different observers have their own unique reference
frames, despite sharing one shared spacetime. If you would not call
relativity an unrealistic theory, on account of observer relativeness, then
you should not call QM unrealistic either, and account of observer
relativeness.

I consider what you said in this thread to be a defense of realism:
https://groups.google.com/g/everything-list/c/uYohmetzOFo/m/rRouLHV3CAAJ
In particular, you say: "Everett says everything allowed by Schrodinger's
wave equation is physically real, and equally so, and things forbidden by
Schrodinger are not." and "For me the idea that when I turn my head to look
at the moon the universe splits into one where I'm looking at the moon and
into another where I'm not is crazy, but the idea that the moon isn't real
when I'm not looking at it is even crazier."

Both of these are supportive of realism, in the sense that Einstein meant,
when he asked Pais if he believed the moon isn't really there when he
wasn't looking at it.
Likewise, MWI recovers a notion of realism that Schrodinger found lacking,
and what motivated him to make his cat in a box argument.

Certainly, one's notion of realism shifts under MWI, from a belief in a
single branch, to one of a multiverse, but the only thing that has changed
is what we believe is real. We have not abandoned the notion of a reality
that exists independently of observers or observation. This, to me, is
realism.


>
>
>> *>>> 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. *
>>>
>>
>> *> I'm not sure about that. The Schrodinger equations doesn't contain
>> anything moving faster than c, so why should we assume that?*
>>
>
> *For one thing because the speed of light does not even show up in
> Schrodinger's Equation, but also because no one has even proposed an
> experiment, much less actually performed it, that could determine if the
> split occurs instantaneously or if it propagates only at the speed of
> light. Many Worlds does not need to make the assumption that the split
> occurs at the speed of light, nor does it need to make the assumption that
> the split occurs instantaneously, it works fine either way.*
>

It seems foolhardy to abandon locality, and include FTL violations of
relativity when the theory doesn't demand it. Consider this excerpy from
the many-worlds FAQ:

"Another way of seeing this is examine how macrostates evolve.
Macrostates descriptions of objects evolve in a local fashion. Worlds
split as the macrostate description divides inside the light cone of the
triggering event. Thus the splitting is a local process, transmitted
causally at light or sub-light speeds."


>
> *> Much easier to think of it in terms of local effects of a superposition
>> that can spread at most by the speed of the particles that carry the
>> superposition.*
>>
>
> *Fine. As far as Many Worlds is concerned, if you prefer thinking about it
> in that way Many Worlds has no objection. There's no disputing matters of
> taste.  *
>
> *> >>"To recap. Many-worlds is local and deterministic.*
>>>>
>>>
>>> *>> Yes. But it is not realistic. *
>>>
>>
>> *>You used to say MWI was non-local.*
>>
>
> *I don't remember saying that. *
>

Here are some examples:

https://groups.google.com/g/foar/c/YbnK-JjEhEg/m/q1k7SrFcBgAJ (2015)
"And yes I know it's easy to find people on the web saying MWI is local,
but I think they have an excess of excrement."

https://groups.google.com/g/everything-list/c/ei4cdtsz388/m/_urzKnyNAwAJ
(2018)
"What is more non-local than another universe?"

This is not a critique; I find it great whenever someone's position
evolves. But I wanted to point out that you previously used to say MWI was
non-local.

One could legitimately define other branches to be non-local, but this
would be a use of the term "non-local" that is different from its standard
definition in physics. The standard definition of locality is only that:
physical things can only be influenced by other physical things in their
immediate vicinity, i.e. by things that are local to them.



> *But if you changed your mind and now prefer thinking that the split
> happens instantaneously then that's fine. As I said before, there's no
> disputing matters of taste. *
>
>
>> *> Strictly speaking MW is realistic regarding the wave function*
>>
>
> *I'm not sure how something that is constantly changing as rapidly as is
> physically possible could be said to be existing in one and only one
> definite state.  *
>

Nothing about realism implies things can't change.


>
>
>
>> *>> 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. *
>>>
>>
>> *> Relativity can be much better understood in terms of geometric
>> consequences of a block universe.*
>>
>
> *An understanding of relativity is necessary but not sufficient to
> understand the universe, you also need to understand quantum mechanics.  *
>

So what do we get when we assume both are true? As I see it, we get a
"block multiverse." Do you arrive at a different picture?


>
>
>> *> Arguably the block universe conception is the only philosophy of time
>> consistent with relativity.*
>>
>
> *Special Relativity is OK but General Relativity is inconsistent with
> Quantum Mechanics, and resolving that conflict is the biggest challenge in
> modern physics.  *
>
>
> *>>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.   *
>>>
>>
>> *> I think even Bohm (I think it was him if I recall correctly) admitted
>> pilot wave leads to the same multiverse ontology of MW.*
>>
>
> *Yes. Bohm thought, correctly I think, that Schrodinger's Equation
> produces the Many Worlds ontology, but for some reason he felt that was a
> fault that needed correcting; so he devised a super complex non-local pilot
> wave equation whose only purpose was to get rid of those nasty other
> universes that he did not like. That's why some say the pilot wave
> interpretation of quantum mechanics should be called the Disappearing
> Universes Interpretation; others say it is the Many Worlds interpretation
> in denial. *
>
> *I like Occam's Razor so **I prefer a theory that needs the fewest
> assumptions. Just like Many Worlds, Pilot Wave needs Schrodinger's Equation
> but it also needs another equation that is even more complex, the pilot
> wave equation, and to this day nobody has been able to make a version of it
> that is compatible with special relativity; Paul Dirac was able to produce
> a version of Schrodinger's Equation that was compatible with Special
> Relativity way back in 1927. *
>

Shouldn't Dirac's equation imply that MW is local? Would it not forbid FTL
propagations of influences?


>
>
>
>> * > Pilot wave just adds a metaphysical pointer that says, yes all those
>> other branches and all the things happening then, with observers living out
>> their lives are there, it's just that only this particular branch, the one
>> that I am pointing to, only the observers in this one branch are conscious.*
>>
>
> *Y**ep, that's all the hideously complex non-local pilot wave equation
> does. And that's why Many Worlds is bare bones, no nonsense Quantum
> Mechanics with no ridiculous and unnecessary bells and whistles.
> Schrodinger's Equation is hard enough to solve on its own and we don't need
> the pilot wave equation to predict experimental results. *
>
> *> The observers in all the other branches which I am not pointing to are
>> zombies, even though those observers walk and talk as if they're conscious,
>> they're mistaken.*
>> *It is of course ridiculous.*
>>
>
> *I agree.  *
>


Great. :-)

Jason


>
>
> * John K Clark*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>> *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.  *
>>>
>>>
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