wedrifid comments on MWI, copies and probability - Less Wrong

13 [deleted] 25 June 2010 04:46PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 26 June 2010 01:04:23PM 0 points [-]

This apparently has little to do with valuing "extra copies in other quantum branches" though - there is no "Everett merge" procedure.

While for the purposes of this discussion it makes no difference, my understanding is that the "Everett branches" form more of a mesh if you look at them closely. That is, each possible state for a world can be arrived at from many different past states, with some of those states themselves sharing common ancestors.

Comment author: timtyler 26 June 2010 02:00:33PM *  0 points [-]

Maybe - but that is certainly not the conventional MWI - see:

"Why don't worlds fuse, as well as split?"

Comment author: wedrifid 26 June 2010 03:19:21PM *  2 points [-]

Yes, entropy considerations make recombining comparatively rare. Much like it's more likely for an egg to break than to recombine perfectly. Physical interactions being reversible in principle doesn't mean we should expect to see things reverse themselves all that often. I doubt that we have a substantial disagreement (at least, we don't if I take your reference to be representative of your position.)