ArisKatsaris comments on How Many Worlds? - Less Wrong

2 Post author: smk 14 December 2011 02:51PM

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Comment author: ArisKatsaris 15 December 2011 01:49:12AM -2 points [-]

And of course every one of these overwhelmingly zillionplexes of zillionplexes of universes is unobservable to us, will never have the slightest affect on us, once they split off from us! Its almost as though they don't exist!

Except things like quantum computers. It's almost like those worlds do exist and that we can even use their transistors to parallel process stuff.

Comment author: mwengler 15 December 2011 02:46:17AM 3 points [-]

Except things like quantum computers. It's almost like those worlds do exist and that we can even use their transistors to parallel process stuff.

Well that is definitely a fun thing to say. It doesn't seem to be consistent with what is currently thought about quantum computers and Many Worlds, though.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 15 December 2011 08:43:10PM 1 point [-]

Your link to the wikipedia article on the MWI does not clarify your objection to the statement made above.

Comment author: mwengler 15 December 2011 10:08:52PM 1 point [-]

The wikipedia article states

However, in 1985 David Deutsch published three related thought experiments which could test the theory vs the Copenhagen interpretation.[69] The experiments require macroscopic quantum state preparation and quantum erasure by a hypothetical quantum computer which is currently outside experimental possibility.

If a quantum computer could correctly be characterized as a computer which utilized the transistors in other branches of the multiverse to speed up calculations in this one, then it would merely require the operation of any quantum computer at all to provide strong evidence for the multiverse. However, the article states that a test for MWI requires a particular special operation of a particular special quantum computer, that the multiverse is not a conclusion we reach merely by seeing a quantum computer work.

Sorry I didn't make that connection clearer before.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 08 April 2012 07:52:45PM 0 points [-]

I'm pretty confident that that paper is in error. Or rather, it assumes that the Copenhagen Interpretation is implemented so that it deviates from pure Quantum Mechanics in a particular, testable, way (or category of ways) - and that renders his version of CI distinguishable from MWI, and less useful for quantum computing. When I get academic library access again, I'll take a closer look at it.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 08 April 2012 07:55:29PM 0 points [-]

Upon returning and rereading... no. Branches in MWI aren't said to have 'split off' until they are mutually decoherent. That renders them unsuitable for quantum computing.

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