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Emile comments on How Many Worlds? - Less Wrong
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Comments (64)
How many ink blots are in this picture ?
For "many worlds", imagine that evolving in time, with fuzzy borders.
The Many Worlds Interpretation doesn't imply a countable number of worlds that suddenly branch, it's more like a fuzzy continuum; talking of branching worlds and timelines is just a high-level abstraction that makes things easier to discuss.
This is a really good analogy to explain what a wrong question is.
It rather seems to me an imprecise analogy which makes thinks harder to discuss. But I agree with the general sentiment.
Not countable many, but continuum many? Is that what you say?
Maybe - I'm not sure of what you mean by "continuum many" - you mean like real numbers? I was thinking more of something like "roughly countable, though the count will depend on which definition of "world" (or "blob") you use", or even better, "it doesn't really matter".
Yes, I mean as many as real numbers. Or maybe even more, I don't know. I am asking you, who is telling us that:
(Of course, MWI is popular, but I agree with those who say - it's just ridiculous.)
Thanks for answering!
I guess I was confused by this:
That is a somewhat useful analogy, but it can be taken too far. But it seems to me to be saying the same thing (though perhaps not as clearly) as the inkblot above:
Can you really count it? Not really!
I thought that when it said "At the beginning there is one blob, at the end there are two blobs" it was saying that the "worlds" did eventually become discrete, you just couldn't tell exactly when.
When you mix regions of stability and chaos, eventually things settle down into relatively discrete zones... along some directions... while being smeared out all over the place in others.
Edited to add: Are these downvotes from people who know quantum mechanics or dynamics in phase space, or is my comment just making people confused again (a bad thing to be sure), or what? I can probably fix it, but it'd be best to know what about it needs fixing.
No idea why whoever downvoted you did so, but here’s why I think I felt your comment was not useful to me, or much less useful of what it could have been if you happen to know what you’re talking about (I don’t so I can’t tell):
Your statement states a fact without any explanation, examples or pointers to such. If you had said something like “When you mix regions of stability and chaos, things never settle down into discrete zones... it’s all smeared out all over the place.” — then the effect of reading it would pretty much have been the same unless I already knew about the subject enough not to need your comment.
Imagine someone not having any education in astronomy saying something like “I thought the sun and stars turn around the Earth”, and you commenting “Actually, the Earth spins around itself, and it turns around the sun, while the other stars pretty much go every which way.” Unless the first person knew you were a good astronomer, they don’t really learn anything. And even if they did believe you knew you to be an expert on what you were talking about, they might learn it as a rote fact, but won’t really understand much.
Oi, if that's the problem I'll just call a halt. Chaos theory is kind of like quantum mechanics: done right, it's tough, and done easy, comes out horribly wrong.
So... your comment was an attempt at “done easy”, or was it “tough”?
(It occurs to me that the line above would be normally interpreted as snarky. My intent was half friendly joke, half “if you have that opinion about Chaos theory, what did you try to achieve in your earlier comment?” I just don’t know how to express that in written English...)