Quantum Theory and The Many Worlds Theory

[Cioran]

The fact that you're bringing up both theology (convincing people of MW is like convincing atheists of God? Huh?) and philosophy (MW threatens "free will?" Huh?) into this discussion suggests to me you have ulterior motives behind your "research" to begin with. As for this question: "if the many world proponents are right and we have no free will, they won't be able to change anyone's mind anyway since no one's mind is free to change. So why bother?" This conflates a lack of free will with the obtaining of omniscience. If we found out for 100% sure tomorrow that we had no free-will, this wouldn't change our ignorance of what world we will find ourselves in.

As for the others, I don't see how 1) is a problem for MW since it's not even addressing that, and, as for 2), the interference can be explained by the interactions of the many worlds. MW doesn't need to "get rid of" QM, and that's a rather absurd thing to state. MW is just interpreting one aspect of observed QM (the wave function "collapse") and that's it. I can see why Cioran decided to exit this conversation.

Right, this is why I've dropped out of the conversation. It's the usual message board malady. A profoundly interesting topic is raised and right away the usual suspects move in to muck it up either with willful misunderstanding or some ulterior motive. Thanks for helping me to try to clear up these issues, but I judge the endeavor futile.

It's not that anyone must accept MWI. It's that, if someone wants to discuss it, then one must make at least a minimal effort to comprehend the material in question and not make blatantly asinine assertions, such as, for example: "And so I conclude, since QM has been experimentally verified, that the MWI is false." Uh, no. I explained this many times. MWI is an interpretation, a meta-theory, of QM. Everything about QM is perfectly consistent with MWI, and vice versa. If this were not so, why would MWI be so deeply woven into current academic discussions of QM?

For the last time, MWI is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that resolves all of the mysteries originally raised by QM. For instance, indeterminism in QM exists only if one accepts wave function collapse. The same is true of nonlocality and anti-realism. If one removes the wave function collapse postulate then all these mysteries go away. Unless one can understand this simple point, conversation is futile. And it's such a simple point to understand, backed up by me with so much linked reference material, then I conclude that the failure to grasp the point is deliberate and bespeaks ulterior motives.

Your explanation, btw, in your previous post of what MWI entails is absolute correct. But don't bang your head against a wall. All you'll get is a headache in addition to the same stupid comments over and over from your interlocutors.

[mal4mac]

The "wave collapse" simply means that the electron or other particle-wave object no longer acts as a wave but only as a particle.

How do you know there is a wave to collapse?

The collapse of the wave function is a pretty natural way to describe what actually happens to the particle.

In what way is this pretty natural? Waves and particles are natural terms that everybody uses, but a wave function? I think this is the big problem in explaining this stuff to the layman; watch Feynman again and see how he is, rightly, laughing at tech. speak like 'wave function'. He talks about bullets and water, so even escapes the abstraction of particles and waves

By talking about a wave function collapsing you get oneself in a tiswas trying to visualise a wavey thingy folding up into a ball like thingy - but there is no wavey thingy! There is only the "particle of light' that you actually see, many of these particles of light build up into a dark light pattern in some situations, a "pile of particles" pattern in others. Why bother with interpretations at all, they only confuse, as is shown by there being so many, just describe what happens in experiments.

[MorpheusSandman]

Of course there are ulterior motivations. We wouldn't be discussing this issue on a literature forum if there weren't.

What does discussing this on a literary forum have to do with ulterior motives? When it comes to science, I'm interested in learning the truth; I have no ulterior motives, I want to align my beliefs with reality. Attempts to make reality align with one's prior beliefs is where reality-distortion biases come from. Again, read Yudkowsky who writes primarily about these reality-distorting biases that are hard-wired in our brains.

To try to convince people that parallel universes exist in which there are copies of them running around that they conveniently cannot see and verify is like trying to convince them to believe in a God they do not want to believe in.

I don't know why it would be any harder to convince them of that then that there are mechanisms they cannot see and verify making particle waves collapse in a certain way that is indeterministic. Either way, we're dealing with aspects of reality that seem very strange to our natural intuitions.

Regarding free will, it if does not exist, how can people obtain omniscience or even know they have obtained it?

I think you misunderstood me. People often bring up the argument that "if we have no free-will, then what we do does not matter." Well, that assumes several things: one being a single world, two being a predestined outcome in that world, three being that any actions lead to that predestined end, and finally it implies an omniscience in the person that realizes they have no free-will. All of these things are relevant to the argument that "it doesn't matter what one does because they have no free-will," and none of them may be relevant to the world we actually live in. Our belief or disbelief in free-will and what it means for our actions and, further, what it means regarding the world we end up in is probably more important than whether we ACTUALLY have "free-will" or not. Again, see Yudkowsky: http://lesswrong.com/lw/of/dissolving_the_question/ Let's assume for a moment that MW is correct and all you know is that you don't know which world you will find yourself in but you can envision what world you WANT to find yourself in. Well, there are well established means for choosing the path that is mostly likely to lead to the world you want to live in. I utilize this philosophy in the real world in my profession of poker. I never know the result of any hand going into it, but I know the odds of each outcome, and I choose the odds that are most likely to end in the outcome, the world, I want it to. The same is true for our actions influencing others. We have an established pattern of what actions are most likely to get others to believe something, so it's only a matter of taking those actions and having the best chance at ending up in the world we want to be in.

How is the interference explained by the interactions of the many worlds?

Again, Cioran can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's David Deutsch that has written about this. He could probably give you links, but you seemed to have ignored many he's given you.

The reason why this is unlikely is that the many worlds interpretation is deterministic, but QM is not.

QM is only indeterministic if the wave-function is actually collapsing into a single world.

[Cioran]

QM is only indeterministic if the wave-function is actually collapsing into a single world.

Exactly! How many times does this elementary point need to be explained? Has YesNo read the links I have provided? Has he read some of them? Even ONE of them?

The answer is NO, isn't it, YesNo? So you can remove the first part of your user name and just call yourself No!

But keep on blathering without understanding!

[mal4mac]

... I think it's David Deutsch that has written about this. He could probably give you links, but you seemed to have ignored many he's given you.

He may have better things to do than chase incomprehensible links all day. Why not just answer his question?

[MorpheusSandman]

Why not just answer his question?

Because I really don't feel knowledgeable enough to try and paraphrase the people that have devoted their lives to studying and explicating this subject. YesNo asked why I favored the MWI and I stated it as simply as possible. I'm sorry that you and he find many of these physicists "incomprehensible," but I'm not sure what else you want from Cioran, much less myself who is much less knowledgeable. Probably the only way to understand how the many worlds could interact would be to dig into the mathematical arguments.

[YesNo]

Exactly! How many times does this elementary point need to be explained? Has YesNo read the links I have provided? Has he read some of them? Even ONE of them?

The answer is NO, isn't it, YesNo? So you can remove the first part of your user name and just call yourself No!

But keep on blathering without understanding!

I'm glad you're back, Cioran!

I have read every link you posted, some more than once.

I look at this as a jigsaw puzzle with over a thousand pieces in it. Sometimes you have to look at the piece more than once to understand it.

How do you know there is a wave to collapse?

I suspect there isn't a wave out there. That is just the equation used to describe the particle's probabilistic behavior.

In what way is this pretty natural? Waves and particles are natural terms that everybody uses, but a wave function? I think this is the big problem in explaining this stuff to the layman; watch Feynman again and see how he is, rightly, laughing at tech. speak like 'wave function'. He talks about bullets and water, so even escapes the abstraction of particles and waves

By talking about a wave function collapsing you get oneself in a tiswas trying to visualise a wavey thingy folding up into a ball like thingy - but there is no wavey thingy! There is only the "particle of light' that you actually see, many of these particles of light build up into a dark light pattern in some situations, a "pile of particles" pattern in others. Why bother with interpretations at all, they only confuse, as is shown by there being so many, just describe what happens in experiments.

I guess the wave portion only comes from the Schrodinger equation. I am reading more of Feynman. Thanks for the references to him. They have helped clarify this issue for me.

The reason I mentioned that the wave function collapse seemed natural was because after the light saw which slit the electron went through something changed about it. The probability seemed to go away and it behaved as a particle would. So the wave function that generated probabilities collapsed into a deterministic situation. That seemed like a reasonable way to describe that actually happened.

I don't think there is a universal world wave equation for the universe as a whole. These wave equations only work for specific quantum objects. What do you think?

[mal4mac]

The reason I mentioned that the wave function collapse seemed natural was because after the light saw which slit the electron went through something changed about it. The probability seemed to go away and it behaved as a particle would. So the wave function that generated probabilities collapsed into a deterministic situation. That seemed like a reasonable way to describe that actually happened.

How can an equation collapse into a thing? I thought only things collapsed into things. Would you say the VAT equation collapsed into a pile of five pound notes? It just seems a strange way to describe things. It can only be metaphor, and a bad one at that.

Also, how can light see anything?

[YesNo]

What does discussing this on a literary forum have to do with ulterior motives? When it comes to science, I'm interested in learning the truth; I have no ulterior motives, I want to align my beliefs with reality. Attempts to make reality align with one's prior beliefs is where reality-distortion biases come from. Again, read Yudkowsky who writes primarily about these reality-distorting biases that are hard-wired in our brains.

I have at least two ulterior motives that stimulate my participation in these threads. They could be seen as jigsaw puzzles that I am working on.

The first puzzle could be generically called "consciousness", or in this particular thread, it might be aliased as "free will". I think we actually have it, MWI would claim that we don't. The second puzzle could be called "authority vs evidence". I am interested in how authority uses literary devices to convince others even if the evidence does not support what the authority has to say.

I don't know why it would be any harder to convince them of that then that there are mechanisms they cannot see and verify making particle waves collapse in a certain way that is indeterministic. Either way, we're dealing with aspects of reality that seem very strange to our natural intuitions.

It would be easier to convince people that Gods, or superhuman intentional agents, exist than it would be to convince them that parallel universes exist. Essentially, developmental psychologists have found that children prior to being taught seem to believe in these agents. Since the MWI would reject free will or intentionality, it would go against this aspect of our nature.

I think you misunderstood me. People often bring up the argument that "if we have no free-will, then what we do does not matter." Well, that assumes several things: one being a single world, two being a predestined outcome in that world, three being that any actions lead to that predestined end, and finally it implies an omniscience in the person that realizes they have no free-will. All of these things are relevant to the argument that "it doesn't matter what one does because they have no free-will," and none of them may be relevant to the world we actually live in. Our belief or disbelief in free-will and what it means for our actions and, further, what it means regarding the world we end up in is probably more important than whether we ACTUALLY have "free-will" or not. Again, see Yudkowsky: http://lesswrong.com/lw/of/dissolving_the_question/

We have a lot of constraints on our behavior and free will is not absolute. I've noticed that Yudkowsky does not believe in the reality of free will, but he does believe in the reality of many worlds. Consider actually doing the assignment he makes:

Your homework assignment is to write a stack trace of the internal algorithms of the human mind as they produce the intuitions that power the whole damn philosophical argument.

But instead of the "damn philosophical argument" being whether we have free will or not, let it be whether many worlds exist or not.

Let's assume for a moment that MW is correct and all you know is that you don't know which world you will find yourself in but you can envision what world you WANT to find yourself in. Well, there are well established means for choosing the path that is mostly likely to lead to the world you want to live in. I utilize this philosophy in the real world in my profession of poker. I never know the result of any hand going into it, but I know the odds of each outcome, and I choose the odds that are most likely to end in the outcome, the world, I want it to. The same is true for our actions influencing others. We have an established pattern of what actions are most likely to get others to believe something, so it's only a matter of taking those actions and having the best chance at ending up in the world we want to be in.

In the case of playing poker, when do the worlds split? In one world you win the game in the other you don't.

Also if Yudkowsky is right, you don't "want" anything. That's an illusion. That's a feeling. That is just a program running in your mind in this particular world giving you a deterministic outcome based on input values making you feel that you made some sort of choice. In some other world, you will have different input values or maybe even a different program running in superposition of some sort with this world which will make you do something else.

Don't forget, you have no free will in the MWI world. Most everything you experience to the contrary of that belief is by definition an illusion and should have some sort of "stack trace" to explain it.

Again, Cioran can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's David Deutsch that has written about this. He could probably give you links, but you seemed to have ignored many he's given you.

QM is only indeterministic if the wave-function is actually collapsing into a single world.

The indeterminism occurs prior to the wave function collapse. It is only after the collapse that one has a deterministic system. That is one of the things I learned from Feynman.

This indeterminism, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in action, is what makes the atom as large as it is according to Feynman. That's why I wanted to know how many worlds handles that without the uncertainty principle. The atom is in a state prior to any collapse of a wave function. Also, if there was some deterministic mechanism that could tell that this electron will go through hole 1 and line up in position P and another electron will go through hole 2 and line up also in position P, then the number of electrons that one will find in position P is P12 = P1+P2 which means there was no interference pattern. That contradictions QM. If we have not collapsed the wave function with an experiment, we should see an interference pattern. That means P12 <> P1+P2.

[YesNo]

How can an equation collapse into a thing? I thought only things collapsed into things. Would you say the VAT equation collapsed into a pile of five pound notes? It just seems a strange way to describe things. It can only be metaphor, and a bad one at that.

Also, how can light see anything?

Light seeing something is a bad metaphor. Sorry.

How would you describe what happens to the electron after a measurement has been made?

[KillCarneyKlans]

Contrary to to popular belief parallel universes do exist

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com...=196092&st=255
http://www.christianityboard.com/top...tive-material/
http://www.historum.com/blogs/killca...-big-bang.html

http://www.fixedearth.com/HB%20179%2...T.EVIDENCE.htm
Attachment of Evidence for HB or SB # Sections 2, 3, & 4 “Evidence Confirming ‘Establishment Clause’ Rulings Against ‘Creation Science’ In County And State Courts And The Supreme Court Of The United States”

“According to kabbalistic wisdom, there are two parallel universes; one highly ordered; the other; random and chaotic ....Author Ziman tells us that Kabbalah and physics “…work together to draw a picture of the mysteries of such phenomena as the big bang, parallel universes, relativity theory, and the superstring theory.” All of evolution’s essential concepts (15 billion years, relativity, heliocentricity, big bang, expanding universe)--which are now textbook “science”--are the same concepts that were formulated by Kabbalist(s) ... as far back at least as the 1st century A.D and expanded in the 12th, 13th, 16th and 20th centuries.

http://www.historum.com/blogs/killca...d-origins.html
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com....php?id=196746
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...iscovered.html
http://www.online-literature.com/for...Argument/page3

Scientists say that they have found evidence that our universe was 'jostled' by other parallel universes in the distant past. The incredible claim emerged after they studied patterns in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) – the after-effects of the Big Bang. They say they may have found evidence that four circular patterns found in the CMB are 'cosmic bruises' where our universe has crashed into other universes at least four times. The findings, by Stephen Feeney from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London, are likely to be controversial.

The paper, published online yesterday, comes just a month after a similar study of the background radiation claimed to have discovered evidence that the universe existed before the Big Bang. They say they have discovered 12 examples of concentric circles, some of which have five rings, meaning the same object has had five massive events in its history. [This can also be linked to Geometric forms and Gematria, within the Genesis Narrative] The rings appear around galaxy clusters in which the variation in the background radiation appears to be strangely low. The research appears to cast aside the widely-held 'inflationary' theory of the origins of the universe, that it began with the Big Bang, and will continue to expand until a point in the future, when it will end. They believe the circles are imprints of extremely violent gravitational radiation waves generated by supermassive black hole collisions in a previous aeon before the last big bang.

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic....ack-hole-ever/
http://news.discovery.com/space/mass...xy-121128.html
Astronomers have found a super-super-massive black hole comprising a whopping and unprecedented 59 percent of the mass of stars in the central bulge of its host galaxy

They just found a Galaxy smaller than the Milky Way that is an ancient black hole ... mostly black hole ... which leads me to my next point

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2203663.html
The sheer size of this ejection demonstrates a way for young galaxies to off-load mass: The energy in a quasar we usually see as radiation can be turned into kinetic energy, or energy of motion. This eruption is throwing up some 400 times the mass of the sun every year, and such events last for anywhere from 10 million to 100 million years. That, Arav said, could be the key to why galaxies are generally less massive than they should be, and why the black holes at their centers are the sizes that they are. "It gives the theorists something to work with," he said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole
Supermassive black holes have properties which distinguish them from lower-mass classifications. First, the average density of a supermassive black hole (defined as the mass of the black hole divided by the volume within its Schwarzschild radius) can be less than the density of water in the case of some supermassive black holes. This is because the Schwarzschild radius is directly proportional to mass, while density is inversely proportional to the volume.


If Einstein coulda of discovered [not that it is possible to test] a (GUT) Grand Unified Theory ... the break down of physical matter constrained subtlety by the last elemental ... gravity ... everyone would understand it in a physical sense

Quatum Theory micromanages the physical ... still time is a constant ... past, present & future ... only string theory could raise a model, reality based on a higher order ... though all 3 maybe necessary constituents

[YesNo]

MWI is an interpretation, a meta-theory, of QM. Everything about QM is perfectly consistent with MWI, and vice versa.

I know that is what MWI wants to believe, but I don't know that this consistency is true. I don't think a deterministic interpretation can consistently interpret a non-deterministic theory. That is the heart of my objection.

If this were not so, why would MWI be so deeply woven into current academic discussions of QM?

I find that suspicious also, but I don't think it is so deeply woven as you hope.

For the last time, MWI is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that resolves all of the mysteries originally raised by QM. For instance, indeterminism in QM exists only if one accepts wave function collapse. The same is true of nonlocality and anti-realism. If one removes the wave function collapse postulate then all these mysteries go away.

Again, I don't think MWI resolves many of the mysteries. It certainly adds the mystery of many worlds.

The indeterminism in QM exists before anyone makes a measurement and collapses the wave function or decoheres the world into many worlds if one wants to view it that way. It is prior to the collapse or decoherence that I have a problem with MWI. There are two places where that problem has manifested itself.

1) Feynman asks in Six Easy Pieces, page 34, "Why are atoms so big?" He justified the size of atoms by referring to the uncertainty principle:

What keeps the electrons from simply falling in? This principle: If they were in the nucleus, we would know their position precisely, and the uncertainty principle would then require that they have a very 'large' (but uncertain) momentum, i.e., a very large 'kinetic energy'. With this energy they would break away from the nucleus. They make a compromise: they leave themselves a little room for this uncertainty and then jiggle with a certain amount of minimum motion in accordance with this rule.

The wave functions for the components of atoms have not been collapsed or decohered. These are still atoms with all their components' superpositions of states and they are bigger than they should be based on a deterministic interpretation. So if MWI really does interpret QM, and MWI is deterministic, why are atoms so big?

2) Feynman also mentions in Six Easy Pieces, page 135, something interesting about the standard double slit experiment and any deterministic mechanism at work in the electron. I don't see why that would not include a many worlds deterministic superposition:

Suppose we were to assume that inside the electron there is some kind of machinery that determines where it is going to end up. That machine must 'also' determine which hole it is going to go through on its way. But we must not forget that what is inside the electron should not be dependent on what 'we' do, and in particular upon whether we open or close one of the holes. So if an electron, before it starts, has already made up its mind (a) which hole it is going to use and (b) where it is going to land, we should find P1 for those electrons that have chosen hole 1, P2 for those that have chosen hole 2, 'and necessarily' the sum P1 + P2 for those that arrive through the two holes. There seems to be no way around this. But we have verified experimentally that that is not the case.

If the electron's behavior were deterministic prior to any collapse of its wave function or prior to decohering, then it would not generate the results that are observed in the double slit experiment. There would be no wave interference pattern when there actually is one.

So how does MWI, a deterministic interpretation actually interpret QM without contradicting QM itself?

“According to kabbalistic wisdom, there are two parallel universes; one highly ordered; the other; random and chaotic ....Author Ziman tells us that Kabbalah and physics “…work together to draw a picture of the mysteries of such phenomena as the big bang, parallel universes, relativity theory, and the superstring theory.” All of evolution’s essential concepts (15 billion years, relativity, heliocentricity, big bang, expanding universe)--which are now textbook “science”--are the same concepts that were formulated by Kabbalist(s) ... as far back at least as the 1st century A.D and expanded in the 12th, 13th, 16th and 20th centuries.

I was reading a thread on Hinduism that also wanted to use the MWI interpretation to justify its religious perspectives. I think science offers many justifications for religious belief of various sorts, but the many worlds or parallel universe interpretation is an attempt to justify determinism. Unless the religion in question is promoting determinism, I doubt MWI would be on its side.

[MorpheusSandman]

I have at least two ulterior motives that stimulate my participation in these threads.

You should seriously consider how your ulterior motives are impacting your ability to neutrally and objectively weigh the evidence on either side. You believe in free will, you want to believe in free will, you don't like MWI because you feel it threatens both; your dislike of having this belief challenged is very likely negatively impacting your ability to understand MWI and assess the evidence for it fairly. FWIW, I've had an issue with the concept of "free-will" going back to when I was a child. I remember wondering about exactly what allowed me to make choices even then, and I never could get past the idea that I (and I've come to change that "I" to "we") simply don't have an adequate understanding of the cognitive process that would make any argument from either side meaningful. Arguing about things we don't understand is fruitless from the get-go. Like Yudkowsky, I've come to think that the belief in or lack of belief in free-will is more important than whether there actually is such a thing or not. For me, the latter question is as useful as asking if there are bloberblicks.

As for authorities using "literary devices to convince others," what you're talking about is rhetoric, which has been a subject for study from the Ancient Greeks to modern times. As far as that goes, IA Richards and Wayne C. Booth have excellent books on the subject (The Philosophy of Rhetoric from the former, The Rhetoric of Rhetoric from the latter). The thing to understand about rhetoric is that it's equally effective for both true and false statements, that makes it as dangerous as it is useful. That said, I don't think most scientists tend to be skilled rhetoricians because they're usually more concerned about discovering the truth as opposed to figuring out how to convince others they've found it. Rhetoric is probably more typically and powerfully practiced by people that already have their minds made up, have no desire to learn anything new, and are setting out to convince others. I think part of the lack of acceptance of science amongst the general public is partly due to the level of rhetoric for them as compared to their detractors.

Since the MWI would reject free will or intentionality, it would go against this aspect of our nature.

QM runs contrary to our intuitive nature to begin with, and none of the interpretations adequately reconcile the two. Basically, 20th century science, in general, should've put the death-knell in the coffin of how much we humans value our intuitions when it comes to understanding reality. But, as Yudkowsky said, people cling to their intuitions even in the face of devastating contradictory evidence, and are then capable of doing some remarkable cognitive gymnastics to get out of it.

I've noticed that Yudkowsky does not believe in the reality of free will, but he does believe in the reality of many worlds.

Yudkowsky believes that the current evidence favors Many Worlds, and he presented his lengthy sequence to argue why; have you read it all yet? As for the his opinion on free-will, I think he made it very clear that the argument is flawed from the get-go. There's no hope of fruitfully discussing free-will until we have a good grip on human cognition.

But instead of the "damn philosophical argument" being whether we have free will or not, let it be whether many worlds exist or not.

You mean we should map the cognitive algorithms that lead to a belief in MW? It's not exactly an intuitive belief/concept, you know...

In the case of playing poker, when do the worlds split? In one world you win the game in the other you don't.

The worlds are splitting all the time, because everything is always in superposition. So if the odds for me winning a hand are 70/30, there are 70 worlds in which I win and 30 worlds in which I lose (or the equivalent ratio).

Also if Yudkowsky is right, you don't "want" anything. That's an illusion. That's a feeling. That is just a program running in your mind in this particular world giving you a deterministic outcome based on input values making you feel that you made some sort of choice. In some other world, you will have different input values or maybe even a different program running in superposition of some sort with this world which will make you do something else.

Everything after your third statement is correct, but the first three statements are non-sequitors. There’s nothing about my cognition being an input/output program that makes feelings or desire an illusion. Why would feelings be illusive in a deterministic universe? Further, are you really objecting to the notion that we come pre-wired with impulsive desires and our choices are always concerned with how to achieve those desire impulses? Seriously, name me a single choice you’ve ever made that did not have its root in an impulsive desire that you did not will to be there.

The indeterminism occurs prior to the wave function collapse. It is only after the collapse that one has a deterministic system.

The indeterminism prior to the collapse is reflective of our lack of knowledge of what world it’s going to end up in. As Yudkowsky is fond of saying, mystery is a part of the map/mind, not the territory/reality.

This indeterminism, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in action, is what makes the atom as large as it is according to Feynman. That's why I wanted to know how many worlds handles that without the uncertainty principle.

As for that, I’d have to yield to Cioran.

the many worlds or parallel universe interpretation is an attempt to justify determinism.

No, it's an attempt to solve all of the mysteries of QM (indeterminism, non-locality, non-realism) by doing away with the WF collapse. Why do you have no trouble accepting these mysteries under the classical interpretations? To believe them you have to believe that there is some split between the quantum level and macro level, even though none have been found; you have to believe that reality is inherently random at that quantum level (does that make the macro level the same or different?); you have to believe that the human mind is central to reality and that the past didn't even exist until our measurements conjured it up (as Cioran stated). I don't understand why all of these seem more innately believable than accepting that the wave is not collapsing and that we're merely observing one of the worlds it ends up in.

You bring up religion, but scholars have debated for centuries just how free-will can be reconciled with God's omniscience, since omniscience itself entails a deterministic universe. It's such an old debate that Chaucer even addressed it in Troilus and Criseyde. Whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic there are going to be mysteries, unlikable and counter-intuitive concepts either way. For some reason, you feel more comfortable with the mysteries and consequences of indeterminism, but you should really meditate on whether your preference is blinding you to the truth. I honestly don't feel I have a dog in this fight; it doesn't really matter to me what the truth is, I just want to know what it is, and, again, the thinkers/scientists I respect most are coming on strongest for MWI. I also find it strange you keep quoting Feynman to support the classic interps. despite the fact that Feynman himself came to believe in MW...

[mal4mac]

How would you describe what happens to the electron after a measurement has been made?

I have no idea what happens to the electron after the measurement, because I am no longer looking at it.

[YesNo]

I have no idea what happens to the electron after the measurement, because I am no longer looking at it.

I wonder if anyone has checked where the electron was after the first measurement to see which hole it went through and before the final landing at the detector screen. I assumed it would be deterministic after this, but perhaps it isn't. Also, not using the Schrodinger wave equation might get one away from the metaphor of a wave. I understand the Heisenberg matrix approach generates the same probabilities.

More pieces to the puzzle.

You should seriously consider how your ulterior motives are impacting your ability to neutrally and objectively weigh the evidence on either side. You believe in free will, you want to believe in free will, you don't like MWI because you feel it threatens both; your dislike of having this belief challenged is very likely negatively impacting your ability to understand MWI and assess the evidence for it fairly. FWIW, I've had an issue with the concept of "free-will" going back to when I was a child. I remember wondering about exactly what allowed me to make choices even then, and I never could get past the idea that I (and I've come to change that "I" to "we") simply don't have an adequate understanding of the cognitive process that would make any argument from either side meaningful. Arguing about things we don't understand is fruitless from the get-go. Like Yudkowsky, I've come to think that the belief in or lack of belief in free-will is more important than whether there actually is such a thing or not. For me, the latter question is as useful as asking if there are bloberblicks.

The belief in something certainly influences how one will act, but ultimately we make a choice. I choose to believe that. Notice the choice involved.

As for authorities using "literary devices to convince others," what you're talking about is rhetoric, which has been a subject for study from the Ancient Greeks to modern times. As far as that goes, IA Richards and Wayne C. Booth have excellent books on the subject (The Philosophy of Rhetoric from the former, The Rhetoric of Rhetoric from the latter). The thing to understand about rhetoric is that it's equally effective for both true and false statements, that makes it as dangerous as it is useful. That said, I don't think most scientists tend to be skilled rhetoricians because they're usually more concerned about discovering the truth as opposed to figuring out how to convince others they've found it. Rhetoric is probably more typically and powerfully practiced by people that already have their minds made up, have no desire to learn anything new, and are setting out to convince others. I think part of the lack of acceptance of science amongst the general public is partly due to the level of rhetoric for them as compared to their detractors.

I find Yudkowsky interesting mainly for the issue of authority vs evidence. I need to see more evidence for MWI and less rhetorical arguments in favor of it by Yudkowsky, Deutsch, or Tegmark. It is a lot like a jigsaw puzzle. I look at the pieces that seem to offer the most promise at any one time.

QM runs contrary to our intuitive nature to begin with, and none of the interpretations adequately reconcile the two. Basically, 20th century science, in general, should've put the death-knell in the coffin of how much we humans value our intuitions when it comes to understanding reality. But, as Yudkowsky said, people cling to their intuitions even in the face of devastating contradictory evidence, and are then capable of doing some remarkable cognitive gymnastics to get out of it.

I think 20th century science put an end to materialistic determinism. I sort of agree with Yudkowsky. The devastating contradictory evidence is that QM is non-deterministic. In order to bring back his deterministic intuitions, he has to support something as unintuitive as many worlds. If that does not constitute "remarkable cognitive gymnastics" I don't know what does.

Yudkowsky believes that the current evidence favors Many Worlds, and he presented his lengthy sequence to argue why; have you read it all yet? As for the his opinion on free-will, I think he made it very clear that the argument is flawed from the get-go. There's no hope of fruitfully discussing free-will until we have a good grip on human cognition.

I have read about 10 pages of his blog. I plan to read more, but only as I find it might help understand what MWI is all about. At the moment I see him more as a fundamentalist preacher who can't see outside his own box. Now there is nothing wrong with listening to these kind of people, but I am currently looking for harder evidence.

You mean we should map the cognitive algorithms that lead to a belief in MW? It's not exactly an intuitive belief/concept, you know...

What I am saying is that Yudkowsky's arguments against free will could be turned on many worlds. I consider many worlds a belief system. So how does it happen that one actually acquires such a belief system? That might be worth a cognitive study in itself.

The worlds are splitting all the time, because everything is always in superposition. So if the odds for me winning a hand are 70/30, there are 70 worlds in which I win and 30 worlds in which I lose (or the equivalent ratio).

The idea of worlds splitting needs to become more precise.

Everything after your third statement is correct, but the first three statements are non-sequitors. There’s nothing about my cognition being an input/output program that makes feelings or desire an illusion. Why would feelings be illusive in a deterministic universe? Further, are you really objecting to the notion that we come pre-wired with impulsive desires and our choices are always concerned with how to achieve those desire impulses? Seriously, name me a single choice you’ve ever made that did not have its root in an impulsive desire that you did not will to be there.

When I press the "Submit Reply" button to any post, I've made a choice. There is a lot influencing that choice, but the choice is mine and I must assume responsibility for it. If I have no free will, then I have no responsibility. Admittedly, we have a lot of constraints on our actions, but we are not totally constrained.

The indeterminism prior to the collapse is reflective of our lack of knowledge of what world it’s going to end up in. As Yudkowsky is fond of saying, mystery is a part of the map/mind, not the territory/reality.

The "lack of knowledge" idea is interesting. There are two different ways of viewing it. On one hand one could say that we don't know what happens prior to the measurement, but there is nonetheless something there to know. On the other hand, there might be nothing to know. Perhaps even the electron doesn't know which hole it went through until it was questioned and then made a choice. Perhaps it was lying. Some say it went through both holes. Maybe it went through neither.

No, it's an attempt to solve all of the mysteries of QM (indeterminism, non-locality, non-realism) by doing away with the WF collapse. Why do you have no trouble accepting these mysteries under the classical interpretations?

For why I have no trouble believing these mysteries, it seems that we are responsible for our actions and so there is some indeterminism and free will. I linked to a paper by Conway earlier that associated our free will with the uncertainty of these particles. As far as non-locality goes, I have heard of people who had out-of-body experiences also having non-local experiences. They were seemingly instantaneously in a separate location. Now, I realize you don't believe that these things happen, but the non-locality at the particle level may offer some insight into those accounts. The non-reality I am still puzzling over. I understand it to mean that what we learn about the electron was not necessarily the state of the electron prior to that time, but only the state of the electron at the moment of the experiment. That makes more sense than there being many worlds.

To believe them you have to believe that there is some split between the quantum level and macro level, even though none have been found; you have to believe that reality is inherently random at that quantum level (does that make the macro level the same or different?);

I don't know how random it is. There are constraints at the quantum level, but there is uncertainty. The split between the quantum and the macro level could be explained as a point where our greater mass dominates in some way. Again, which is harder to believe: that we are likely to behave differently than a quantum particle or that there are many worlds with copies of us running around in them?

you have to believe that the human mind is central to reality and that the past didn't even exist until our measurements conjured it up (as Cioran stated). I don't understand why all of these seem more innately believable than accepting that the wave is not collapsing and that we're merely observing one of the worlds it ends up in.

I don't think our consciousness is the only thing that makes a wave function collapse.

You bring up religion, but scholars have debated for centuries just how free-will can be reconciled with God's omniscience, since omniscience itself entails a deterministic universe. It's such an old debate that Chaucer even addressed it in Troilus and Criseyde. Whether the universe is deterministic or indeterministic there are going to be mysteries, unlikable and counter-intuitive concepts either way. For some reason, you feel more comfortable with the mysteries and consequences of indeterminism, but you should really meditate on whether your preference is blinding you to the truth. I honestly don't feel I have a dog in this fight; it doesn't really matter to me what the truth is, I just want to know what it is, and, again, the thinkers/scientists I respect most are coming on strongest for MWI. I also find it strange you keep quoting Feynman to support the classic interps. despite the fact that Feynman himself came to believe in MW...

I don't have any specific religion to offer. The only reason I'm reading Feynman is because mal4mac recommended him. The reason I quote Feynmen is because I think what he says about the size of the atom and the inconsistency of assuming that there are deterministic mechanisms in the electron that we are unaware of make sense to me.