[ExI] New article about the Block Universe

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 9:06 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 3:02 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>
>> * >> 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.*
>>
>
> *The Universal Wave Function (also called the Multiverse) is as far as you
> can get from something that exists in one and only one definite state
> (a.k.a. Realism) as it is possible to be.   *
>

I don't know why you define real as something being and remaining in "one
and only one definite state". Under that definition it seems only abstract
mathematical objects and other universals would foot that bill.

Consider that our observable universe changes about 10^106 times per
second. Yet who would say the universe isn't real on account of the fact
that it is constantly changing?



> *>> 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)*
>>
>
> *I think explanation #2 is the best but both explanations #1 and #2 are
> worth considering, however it would be absolutely impossible to find
> anything sillier than explanation #3; assuming that "silly" is a property
> that grows linearly with the distance it is from what** Occam's Razor
> would recommend.   *
>

I agree.


> *>> 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,*
>>
>
> *In order to obtain that "bird's-eye-view" it would be necessary to, not
> just step out of the universe but step out of the Multiverse which by
> definition contains  EVERYTHING, therefore it is a view from a point that
> does not and can not exist. That would be true even if you don't take
> Quantum Mechanics into account which of course you must. *
>

Many views in science are like this (they exist from an abstract,
non-subjective vantage point, which no observer holds in actuality).

We think about early times of the universe when there were no observers. We
think of the insides of stars where there are no observers. We speak of the
possibility of simulation when no one inside can observe outside it. We
think of places beyond Earth's light cone, or beyond the Hubble volume, etc.

These are all idealized vantage points.



> *And a thought experiment that would be impossible to perform even in
> theory is of no use except to prove that the conditions specified by the
> thought experiment can not exist; for example when Einstein imagined what a
> light beam would look like if he was traveling at the speed of light and
> realized what he saw would violate Maxwell's Equations. To remain
> compatible with Maxwell he needed to hypothesize that it was impossible for
> anything that has mass to travel at the speed of light, and that light must
> always travel at a constant speed.*
>


I'm just stating what the physical equations say. If you believe the
Shrodinger equation describes something called a wave function, and this
wave function exists and functions whether or not there are observers
viewing or thinking about it, then you believe in something physically real
(as opposed to a mere idea, experience, or calculating device), and if you
believe in something real that is realism.

If you want to deny realism under QM, you need something like QBism, or
something that says QM is only about observer knowledge states.


>
>
>> *> 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".*
>>
>
>
> *That's probably because of John Wheeler, Everett's thesis advisor, made
> him cut out about half the stuff in his original 137 page thesis and tone
> down the language so it didn't sound like he thought all those other
> universes were equally real when in fact he did. *
>

I think his original thesis called it relative state as well, but I am not
sure. But it is a shame the paper was so neutered.


*For example, Wheeler didn't like the word "split" and was especially
> uncomfortable with talk of conscious observers splitting, most seriously he
> made him remove the entire chapter on information and probability which
> today many consider the best part of the work. His long thesis was not
> published until 1973, if that version had been published in 1957 instead of
> the truncated Bowdlerized version things would have been different; plenty
> of people would still have disagreed but he would not have been ignored for
> as long as he was.*
>
>
> *According to Everett': "the splitting of observers share an identity
> because they stem from a common ancestor, but they also embark on different
> fates in different universes. They experience different lifespans,
> dissimilar events and at some point are no longer the same person, even
> though they share certain memory records." Everett says that when an
> observer splits it is meaningless to ask "which of the final observers
> corresponds to the initial one since each possesses the total memory of the
> first" he says it is as foolish as asking which amoeba is the original
> after it splits into two. Wheeler made him remove all such talk of amebas
> from his published short thesis, the one that earned him a PhD in physics. *
>
> *> 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
>> <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."*
>>
>
> *I stand by what I wrote, although I don't see how that was a defense of
> Realism. At the time I was thinking about what Niels Bohr said to another
> physicist "your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough to be true?".
> Quantum mechanics is inherently crazy, no interpretation is ever going to
> make it intuitive. If I was betting I'd give Many Worlds about a 70% chance
> of being largely correct, but if it's wrong then something even crazier is
> true. *
>

Could you say what you mean by the term realism, and give an example of a
theory that qualifies?



> *>  MWI recovers a notion of realism *
>>
>
> *No. Since the moon was created 4.5 billion years ago it has continuously
> existed because something has been continually observing it, using the MWI
> definition of the word "observing " . And if you are not looking at the
> moon right now then for you the moon exists but it does not exist in one
> and only one definite state.*
>

I.e., the moon is real.


> *> 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.*
>>
>
> *That depends on what you mean by "observer" and "observation". Many
> Worlds has provided precise definitions of those words, you need to do the
> same.*
>

They make no difference to the math of the equation. They're physical
systems like any other.



>
> *>>>> 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, *
>>
>
> *If that's the way you feel then don't abandon locality, Many Worlds has
> no objection if you embrace locality. As I keep telling you, there is no
> disputing matters of taste.  *
>
> *> and include FTL violations of relativity when the theory doesn't demand
>> it.*
>
>
> *That sort of non-locality would violate Special Relativity but NOT
> General Relativity because information still cannot be transmitted faster
> than light, and General Relativity supersedes Special Relativity.  *
>


I've always found this carve out a lame retreat from what relativity made
so clear: nothing can travel faster than light through a vacuum.

The illusion of spooky action led some to revise this to "no useful
information can travel faster than light" but in my view this would still
represent a violation of relativity. Einstein certainly saw it that way.


>
>
>> *> "Thus the splitting is a local process, transmitted causally at light
>> or sub-light speeds."*
>>
>
> *Nobody thinks the split happens at sub-light speed. And even in theory no
> experiment can differentiate between the split happening at lightspeed and
> the split happening instantaneously. Many Worlds is perfectly happy either
> way. *
>


Consider the qubits in a quantum computer. They can be initialized into a
superposition and then other downstream processes in that computer can read
these qubits and locally split. But because the quantum computer remains
isolated from the environment during its computation, the split doesn't
leave the quantum computer, it takes until the computation finishes and
then the result is read. Only then does the split continue on beyond the
confined of the quantum computer. But note, during the computation, the
split definitely was not going out in all directions at the speed of light.
If it did it would spoil the results of the computation.


>
> *>>>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
>> <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
>> <https://groups.google.com/g/everything-list/c/ei4cdtsz388/m/_urzKnyNAwAJ>
>> (2018)*
>> *"What is more non-local than another universe?"*
>>
>
> *In my defense, that was 11 years ago, and I like to think I've learned a
> little bit more since then and obtained a slightly more nuanced view.  *
>
> *> **This is not a critique; I find it great whenever someone's position
>> evolves.*
>>
>
> *Thank you.  *
>
>
>> *> But I wanted to point out that you previously used to say MWI was
>> non-local.*
>>
>
> *And I still believe you can think of it as being non-local if you like,
> it's just that you can also think of it as being local, it makes no
> difference to Many Worlds.*
>

Maybe but that is a bit like believing in many worlds but also still
believing there are sometimes real wave function collapses. It is a
needless complication, and results in a Frankenstein theory like pilot
wave, which we both agree is ridiculous.



>
>> *> 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.*
>>
>
> *Realism demands that an unobserved thing exists in one and only one
> definite state, but the Multiverse is just another name for the Universal
> Wavefunction,  and it is constantly evolving deterministically. That's true
> for any wave, for example, the phase of a circularly polarized beam of
> light is constantly changing as a function of both time and position along
> its path.*
>

A photon constantly changes its position. Does that mean it isn't real?


> *>>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?*
>>
>
> *Nobody knows. Uniting General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics so they
> don't contradict each other is by far the greatest unsolved problem in
> physics.  *
>
>
> *>> 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?*
>>
>
> *Paul Dirac was perhaps the most skilled mathematician of any physicist of
> his day but he was **notorious for being uninterested in philosophy. His
> new equation was able to make correct predictions about how experiments
> would turn out that were impossible to make before, and as far as he was
> concerned that was enough. And the answer to your question depends on what
> you mean by "influences". Dirac's Equation forbids the sort of influences
> that can be used to transmit information, but not the sort that can't be.
>  *
>

I'll have to read more about his equation. Thank you.

Jason
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