On Sat, Aug 9, 2025 at 3:51 PM Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
*>> Me: Suppose an atom has a half-life of one second and I'm watching it, >> the universe splits and so do I after one second. In one universe the atom >> decays and I observed that the atom has decayed, in the other universe the >> atom has not decayed and I observed that it has not decayed. * > > *In the universe where the atom didn't decay after another second the >> universe splits again, and again in one universe it decays but in the other >> it has not, it survived for 2 full seconds. So there will be a version of >> me that observes this atom, which has a one second half-life, surviving for >> 3 seconds, and 4 seconds, and 5 years, and 6 centuries, and you name it.* >> > > > > *>**Another fanciful result of MWI.* > *> Me: What I have described in the above that was, as you say, obtained as >> a result of MWI, is called the "Quantum Zeno Effect" and it is NOT >> fanciful, in 1990 it was CONFIRMED EXPERIMENTALLY to exist. * > > *> And the quantum Zeno effect is about atoms NOT decaying. * > *Obviously I already knew that because I had just explained it! Is my explanation the first time you've heard of the Quantum Zeno Effect? * > *> There is no experimental support for a continuum branching of > worlds, that's what is fanciful. * > *Immediately after I went into some detail explaining what the Quantum Zeno Effect was, you commented that what I was saying was a "another fanciful result of MWI". But it's not fanciful that the Quantum Zeno Effect exists because it's been experimentally confirmed to exist, and it's not fanciful that it can be derived from Many Worlds, in fact if experimenters had found that the Quantum Zeno Effect did not exist then Many Worlds would've been proven to be wrong. * *> I don't know why you tried to change the question to on of NOT decaying.* > *You really don't know? I didn't change the subject because the relationship between observation and a quantum state decaying or not decaying is what the Quantum Zeno Effect is all about. And I'm not the one who brought up the subject in the first place, you are. You wanted to know if I had asked GPT5 about "**how MWI deals with continuous splitting, as in detecting the decay of radioactive atoms*" and I responded that I didn't need to ask because I already knew the answer and had written a post about that very subject about a year ago. *>> "By utilizing a series of increasingly complex and difficult procedures >> it is possible for the lab (and you) to be in the universe that contains >> labs and versions of you that see the atom surviving for an arbitrarily >> long length of time. But the longer the time past its half-life the more >> splits are involved, * > > > *> Independent of the time past or the value of the half-life the number > of splits, according to MWI, is the same as the number of points on a line, > i.e. infinite.* > *We've been over this many many times before as I'm sure you remember, and yet you STILL bring out that same silly argument even though you must know by now it's invalid. * *1) Many Worlds does NOT insist that the number of worlds is equal to the number of points in a line. * *2) Many Worlds does NOT insist that the number of worlds is equal to the number of countable integers.* *3) Many Worlds does NOT insist that the number of worlds is an infinite number at all.* *4) Many Worlds does NOT say that probabilities can be obtained by counting branches. * * John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* eaz -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv3NkjcTmipAo1n2NsDpw2QGTw4yGE%2BuZgUboUXsucdsbQ%40mail.gmail.com.
