On 1/7/2025 3:05 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
AG,
The issue isn’t just that true randomness is unintelligible; it’s that
in a single-world framework, there is no such thing as true
randomness. Randomness implies a selection from a set of
possibilities, but if only one world exists, there is no set—only the
one outcome. Without an ensemble of possibilities, the concept of
randomness collapses.
But there are an ensemble of possibilities. That's what Schroedinger's
equation tells us, for example an atom has an ensemble of possible
energy states. And when one of them emits a photon, it is a random
realization of a possibility.
There’s no mechanism, no process, no "roll of the dice." The single
history simply is, with no justification for why it is this and not
something else.
Exactly why is is random.
In contrast, randomness in frameworks like QM operates within a
structure where multiple possibilities exist, even if only
probabilistically.
In a single-world framework there are multiple possibilities that "exist
probabilistically" (where I take that to mean have greater than zero
probability). The world consists of a the realization of possibilities.
But a single-world theory denies the existence of any ensemble.
It doesn't deny the existence in the probabilistic sense you posited.
It renders the idea of “random selection” meaningless because there’s
nothing to select from.
Sure there is. It's random selection from the possibilities.
This isn’t about whether randomness has rules; it’s about whether the
concept of randomness even applies when there’s only one realized
possibility for all eternity.
That's always true of randomness. There's only one realized
possibility. If all possibilities were realized probability has no
meaning...which in fact a problem for MWI.
This is why I find the single-world framework fundamentally
incoherent. It doesn’t just lack explanatory power—it undermines the
very concepts it relies on to describe itself.
I explains why the universe is not simply a clockwork machine as Newton,
Laplace, Lagrange, etc conceived it. A universe in which the whole
future was already written on the first page.
Brent
--
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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/72956e43-87d1-45fe-81b9-164f24bda7a7%40gmail.com.
