YVLIAZ comments on Collapse Postulates - Less Wrong

21 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 May 2008 07:49AM

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Comment author: Wiseman 09 May 2008 05:18:42PM 0 points [-]

4 points:

If collapse actually worked the way its adherents say it does, it would be: 1. The only non-linear evolution in all of quantum mechanics. 2. The only non-unitary evolution in all of quantum mechanics. 3.... WHAT DOES THE GOD-DAMNED COLLAPSE POSTULATE HAVE TO DO FOR PHYSICISTS TO REJECT IT? KILL A GOD-DAMNED PUPPY?

Not a valid argument. The physics of the universe are what they are, at the microscopic and macroscopic levels. If it so happens that there is some non-GR-violating non-locality going on (don't complain, just cause you can't imagine it, doesn't mean it's not possible), then your list above simply would be wrong, and there would be no violation of "traditional physics" to complain about.

In any case, since from the perspective of each world we have non-determinism, and the only world we are acting on is our own, why is it necessary to explain many worlds for the purposes of AGI?

Well, first: Does any collapse theory have any experimental support? No.

Neither does MW, they are both interpretations.

I'm going out on a limb on this one, but since the whole universe includes separate branching “worlds”, and over time this means we have more worlds now than 1 second ago, and since the worlds can interact with each other, how does this not violate conservation of mass and energy?

Comment author: YVLIAZ 04 September 2012 09:04:04PM 1 point [-]

I'm going out on a limb on this one, but since the whole universe includes separate branching “worlds”, and over time this means we have more worlds now than 1 second ago, and since the worlds can interact with each other, how does this not violate conservation of mass and energy?

The "number" of worlds increases, but each world is weighted by a complex number, such that when you add up all the squares of the complex numbers they sum up to 1. This effectively preserves mass and energy across all worlds, inside the universal wave function.

Comment author: shminux 04 September 2012 09:16:49PM 0 points [-]

This effectively preserves mass and energy across all worlds, inside the universal wave function.

Even if this were true, conservation of energy across the worlds is not a good argument for or against MWI. There is no reason it should be conserved over non-interacting entities. Also note that energy in our expanding Universe is not conserved (or even well-defined) globally.