shminux comments on [LINK] The Wrong Objections to the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics - Less Wrong

17 [deleted] 19 February 2015 06:06PM

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Comment author: shminux 19 February 2015 07:48:27PM 5 points [-]

I have commented there, and I will quote my comment here. To clarify, I am not anti-MWI, I am pro- experimental evidence.

It seems to me that you strawman a bit the main objection. Indeed, as you say

MWI certainly does predict the existence of a huge number of unobservable worlds. But it doesn’t postulate them. It derives them, from what it does postulate.

However, this does not answer the objection that

MWI is not a good theory because it’s not testable

if you phrase it the way the MWI opponents usually mean it:

MWI is no more testable than shut-up-and-calculate-only-probabilities-are-real

or than any other interpretation favored by a particular MWI opponent, as long as that interpretation makes exact same predictions as the orthodox QM.

You are certainly right, MWI does not need an extra collapse postulate, it comes out in many possible ways from using the L^2 norm for probability in conjunction with, say, unitarity, or some other equivalent experimentally justified assumption.

Unfortunately your “rightness” is rather hollow, because you still have no definitive experiment that would convince your opponent. And so the argument becomes philosophical rather than physical, as it cannot be resolved by the scientific method.

Needless to say, a QM formulation which would lead to a testable prediction beyond those derivable from the orthodox approach, would be an exceedingly big deal. But one can hope.

Comment author: spxtr 19 February 2015 08:54:01PM 3 points [-]

If you have a different version of QM (perhaps what Ted Bunn has called a “disappearing-world” interpretation), it must somehow differ from MWI, presumably by either changing the above postulates or adding to them. And in that case, if your theory is well-posed, we can very readily test those proposed changes. In a dynamical-collapse theory, for example, the wave function does not simply evolve according to the Schrödinger equation; it occasionally collapses (duh) in a nonlinear and possibly stochastic fashion. And we can absolutely look for experimental signatures of that deviation, thereby testing the relative adequacy of MWI vs. your collapse theory.

He asserts that such an experiment exists. I would love it if he were to expand on this assertion.

Comment author: shminux 20 February 2015 01:37:56AM 1 point [-]

Yes, dynamical collapse appears to make new falsifiable predictions. MWI doesn't, unless you take Deutsch's reversible quantum consciousness seriously.

Comment author: Aleksander 23 February 2015 03:20:22AM 0 points [-]

And even if you do, then the only viewpoint you will have really falsified is one which postulates that (a) the state vector collapse is caused by consciousness, and (b) concludes that therefore any consciousness has to do the trick, even one simulated on a quantum computer. I have met exactly zero physicists who'd treat (a) seriously, but even if you believe in (a), (b) still doesn't need to follow (someone could believe that only real human brain makes the magic happen).

(I assume you were referring to experiment 3. from Deutsch's "Three experimental implications of the Everett interpretation in Quantum Concepts in Space and Time.")