[extropy-chat] Is Many Worlds testable?

John K Clark jonkc at att.net
Fri Dec 29 06:36:43 UTC 2006


"scerir" <scerir at libero.it>

> But I do not understand why the document cannot
> tell the 'welcher weg'.

If the document says which slit the electrons went through there is no point
to the experiment because everyone agrees what will happen, no interference
bands. If you don't include that information and the conventional
interpretation is correct then a conscious mind has collapsed the wave
function and it will remain collapsed even if the mind has forgotten abut
it, so you will still see no interference bands.  But if MWI is right then
the information on which electron went through which slot no longer exists,
so the universe where it went through slot A is identical to the one where
it went through slot b and so will merge. So now we have a universe with
indications it went through both slots hence interference bands on that
precious all important photographic plate.

> I've got the impression that Deutsch thinks that
> consciousness causes the collapse.

Not true, according to Many Worlds consciousness has nothing to do with it.
In fact in Many Worlds the wave function never collapses at all, it never
falls into just one thing, instead all possibilities are realized. The Many
World people take the mathematics seriously and the mathematics say
nothing about a function collapsing, that was just thrown in by the
Copenhagen people because they just assumed it did. Many Worlds is
cheap on assumptions but expensive in universes. Another advantage is
that unlike Copenhagen it doesn't have to explain exactly what an
observation is because observation has nothing to do with it either.

John K Clark









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