On Sunday, February 9, 2025 at 7:38:18 AM UTC-7 John Clark wrote:
On Sat, Feb 8, 2025 at 6:06 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote: *>>>Thus arbitrarily imposing a frequentist model on the world by imagining an ensemble of universes. * *>> Hugh Everett wasn't imagining, he was just taking seriously a prediction that Schrodinger's Equation makes; * *> Which is a very peculiar way of doing empirical science. * *That's not peculiar for empirical science at all. We can't detect virtual particles and we will never be able to, but physicists believe they exist because they can explain how the Casimir Effect works and why the electron has the magnetic moment that it has. And it's not just in quantum mechanics. We don't know if the entire universe is finite or infinite, or if it's open or closed, but either way we do know that the entire universe must be MUCH larger than the observable universe. * *If the universe is open then it has negative curvature, and thus it must be infinite because there cannot be an finite space with uniform negative curvature without introducing boundaries and or singularities. * *For a closed universe with a curvature of 0.4% (if it was larger than that we would've already detected it and we haven't), the radius of curvature would need to be AT LEAST 160 times larger than the observable universe's radius, which is 46.5 billion light years; 160 × 46.5 billion= a radius of 7.4 trillion light years , and the corresponding minimum volume of the entire universe would be 25,600 times the volume of the observable universe. And there's more. Although we can see galaxies that are now 46.5 billion light years away, if they are further away than 17 billion light years (corresponding to a time when the universe was about 500 million years old) and we aimed a beam of light at it, that light would NEVER reach the galaxy because relative to us space would be expanding faster than the speed of light. * *> Schroedinger actually had the same problem with QM; he saw that "measurement" was not explained by the evolution of his equation.* *"Measurement" is not explained by Schrodinger's equation IF you assume that everything follows that equation EXCEPT for a thing called "the observer" which for some unknown reason obeys only classical physics. * *>> it's true that particular prediction can't be tested, but many other predictions that the equation makes can be and they've all passed with flying colors; * *> Neglecting the point that all those other worlds have no existence beyond showing up in mathematics as having a probability bigger than zero and less than one.* *Paul Dirac thought the negative solutions that showed up in his equation had no existence beyond showing up in his mathematics, but he was wrong, it indicated the existence of antimatter. Dirac is later quoted as saying that his equation was smarter than he was.* * >> I see no reason why your default condition should be to assume that other prediction is pure nonsense, especially given the fact that it can explain why the quantum world is so weird.* > *I don't consider it "pure nonsense". * *OK, I'm very glad to hear that! * * > it doesn't actually explain the mechanism of worlds splitting, as evidenced by Sean Carroll's answer to the question whether the splitting is instantaneous across the universe or does it spread out in some way at the speed to light? He says, "It doesn't matter." So much for a better explanation. * * Carroll is saying two things by that:* *1) It's impossible even in theory to ever determine the answer to that question. * *2) The answer to that question is not important, that is to say it makes no observable difference, and it's not even clear that the question makes sense. * *Easily understandable. Carroll has given up on physics and now plays the clown. AG * *I believe both points are valid. Contrary to what some say, Einstein didn't prove the Luminiferous Aether didn't exist, he proved it wasn't important. * > *It doesn't indicate how the Born rule is implemented in the multiple worlds. * *If there are multiple worlds then, until you open the box, you don't have enough information to be certain if you're in the world where the cat is alive or in the world where the cat is dead, so you would have to resort to probability; and if you're using Schrödinger's equation the Born Rule is the only way to make sure the number you get is between zero and one and all the probabilities add up to exactly one. * *> Why doesn't your intuition just embrace probability and reflect that probability means some things happen and other things don't. * *Because Schrodinger's equation is deterministic so "the atom just happens to decay" is an insufficient explanation. And because if X and Y react with each other and then the result of that reaction reacts with Z, I get one end result if I observe the X and Y reaction and something completely different if I don't observe it. Give me an intuitive explanation of how that could be without using Many Worlds. And then give me an intuitive explanation of how interaction free measurement could work without using Many Worlds. * *> When you get a poker hand, do imagine all possible poker hands were dealt in other worlds?* *I could but in that particular case there are vastly simpler computational means I could use to obtain a useful probability. The situation would be very different if instead of cards you gave me a sealed box and I had to bet if there was a live or dead cat in it. * * > not every probability is based on ignorance.* *I think at the deepest level every probability is based on ignorance because I think Many Worlds is correct and all that Many Worlds is saying is that Schrodinger's equation means what it says, and Schrodinger's equation is 100% deterministic. If I always knew what world I was in I would know if the cat was alive or dead before I opened the box and I wouldn't need to resort to probability for anything. * * John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* bpd -- 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. 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