5 ms·

Einstein had amazingly good intuition for the character of physical laws, i.e. what shape the laws of physics must necessarily take. And in this case he was ri

Einstein had amazingly good intuition for the character of physical laws, i.e. what shape the laws of physics must necessarily take. And in this case he was right, too. God doesn't play dice; the universe is deterministic. Unfortunately, he didn't stumble upon the right answer, Many Worlds. I sometimes wonder how much longer it will take popular science writers to stumble upon it, too.

danharaj 11y ago
The relational interpretation is much more intuitive without any of the ontological extravagance.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  Replying to cancel an accidental downvote.
joefkelley 11y ago
I think the trouble arises when you try to connect that to consciousness and human experience. From my perspective ("me" being the version in me in the "current" universe or whatever), I only experience one timeline, and so the universe appears totally nondeterministic. What use is this to science or even philosophy? I disagree that Einstein's intuition carried him through quantum mechanics. I rather think that history shows him to be probably on the wrong side of the EPR/Copenhagen split. Not only did he cling to determinism (and I think he would have believed in something stronger than MW, which is a sort of very-weak determinism) but he also constantly objected to "spooky action at a distance" aka quantum entanglement which has now been very well observed.
- spacehome 11y ago
  It is true that Einstein was wrong about his insistence that there must be hidden variables, but I'm not so sure I would call him on the wrong side of the debate, as the correct hypothesis wasn't available during his lifetime. I wonder what he would have done with it had he heard about it. Einstein's objection to spooky action at a distance and clinging to determinism is exactly the kind of thing to point to when trying to explain his amazingly good intuition for the character of physical law. He was 100% right about the action at a distance not being real and physics being deterministic. To be clear, entanglement is real, but there's no effect that happens at faster than lightspeed; the resolution to this is, of course, MWI. As for what use there is - the primary use is that we can all stop being confused about this. And stop thinking that just because quantum physics is mysterious, it must necessarily be connected to other concepts that are mysterious too, like consciousness. And when else would we question the justification for learning the truth of what we all and the universe are made of? (P.S. In what sense do you believe that MWI is very-weak determinism? It's deterministic through and through.)
- mirimir 11y ago
  Maybe we only experience one timeline, but we can imagine many. And maybe there's leakage among them at small scales. But I'm not a physicist. I just enjoy SF. Anyway, for those interested in such matters, I recommend Anathem by Neal Stephenson, and Diaspora by Greg Egan :)
trhway 11y ago
>he didn't stumble upon the right answer, Many Worlds. i hope you're joking. Many Worlds to treat the alleged indeterminisity is like cutting the head off to treat an acne.
- spacehome 11y ago
  Haha, no, not joking. Many worlds is by far the best hypothesis to date.
  - trhway 11y ago
    >Many worlds is by far the best hypothesis to date. well, to me it actually works in the opposite direction, like prove by contradiction - if the Many Worlds is the best/logical/natural consequence of the indeterministic view of QM than the indeterministic view is definitely have to be overturned. All the Bell experiments i read about so far have obvious gaps allowing for obvious explanations. And if you take the latest one, the heralded loop-free, then there is obvious question - why didn't they published the statistics of the unconnected, non-entangled runs? I mean it is obvious from current QM orthodoxy that non-entangled runs wouldn't produce S>2, yet from alternative, locally-realistic, experiment result explanations the S>2 would be produced in that case too (the S>2 isn't possible in the locally realistic world, yet it is possible to locally realistically explain S>2 in all the Bell experiments that so far i've seen)
    - eigenket 11y ago
      Many worlds is not a logical consequence of the non-deterministic view of quantum mechanics. One of the reasons cited in favour of the MWI is that it is wholly deterministic. That is probability doesn't appear at all in it's framework. This is much more in keeping with previous physical theories (Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell's laws of electrodynamics for example) which were also wholly deterministic. If you're interested other reasons the MWI is often considered "nice" is that it is: linear, local, causal, realist, entirely unitary and in some sense (this is often disputed) minimal. Other interpretations have to add mechanisms (for example wavefunction collapse) in a rather ad-hoc way in order to stop many worlds happening.
gohrt 11y ago
Is there any conceivable experiment to prove or disprove MWI is true. I'd think not, since it has "I"nterpretation in it.
omalleyt 11y ago
Many Worlds? That just abstracts the probability one step further, ie why am I in THIS world and not the other one (or if you prefer, why did my universe experience the string of events A-C-C-A-B and not A-C-C-A-A)? The deterministic solution to quantum mechanics is Pilot Wave theory. It can explain nearly all quantum weirdness. Spacetime vibrates.

danharaj 11y ago

The relational interpretation is much more intuitive without any of the ontological extravagance.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago
Replying to cancel an accidental downvote.

joefkelley 11y ago

I think the trouble arises when you try to connect that to consciousness and human experience. From my perspective ("me" being the version in me in the "current" universe or whatever), I only experience one timeline, and so the universe appears totally nondeterministic. What use is this to science or even philosophy? I disagree that Einstein's intuition carried him through quantum mechanics. I rather think that history shows him to be probably on the wrong side of the EPR/Copenhagen split. Not only did he cling to determinism (and I think he would have believed in something stronger than MW, which is a sort of very-weak determinism) but he also constantly objected to "spooky action at a distance" aka quantum entanglement which has now been very well observed.

spacehome 11y ago
It is true that Einstein was wrong about his insistence that there must be hidden variables, but I'm not so sure I would call him on the wrong side of the debate, as the correct hypothesis wasn't available during his lifetime. I wonder what he would have done with it had he heard about it. Einstein's objection to spooky action at a distance and clinging to determinism is exactly the kind of thing to point to when trying to explain his amazingly good intuition for the character of physical law. He was 100% right about the action at a distance not being real and physics being deterministic. To be clear, entanglement is real, but there's no effect that happens at faster than lightspeed; the resolution to this is, of course, MWI. As for what use there is - the primary use is that we can all stop being confused about this. And stop thinking that just because quantum physics is mysterious, it must necessarily be connected to other concepts that are mysterious too, like consciousness. And when else would we question the justification for learning the truth of what we all and the universe are made of? (P.S. In what sense do you believe that MWI is very-weak determinism? It's deterministic through and through.)
mirimir 11y ago
Maybe we only experience one timeline, but we can imagine many. And maybe there's leakage among them at small scales. But I'm not a physicist. I just enjoy SF. Anyway, for those interested in such matters, I recommend Anathem by Neal Stephenson, and Diaspora by Greg Egan :)

trhway 11y ago

>he didn't stumble upon the right answer, Many Worlds. i hope you're joking. Many Worlds to treat the alleged indeterminisity is like cutting the head off to treat an acne.

spacehome 11y ago
Haha, no, not joking. Many worlds is by far the best hypothesis to date.
- trhway 11y ago
  >Many worlds is by far the best hypothesis to date. well, to me it actually works in the opposite direction, like prove by contradiction - if the Many Worlds is the best/logical/natural consequence of the indeterministic view of QM than the indeterministic view is definitely have to be overturned. All the Bell experiments i read about so far have obvious gaps allowing for obvious explanations. And if you take the latest one, the heralded loop-free, then there is obvious question - why didn't they published the statistics of the unconnected, non-entangled runs? I mean it is obvious from current QM orthodoxy that non-entangled runs wouldn't produce S>2, yet from alternative, locally-realistic, experiment result explanations the S>2 would be produced in that case too (the S>2 isn't possible in the locally realistic world, yet it is possible to locally realistically explain S>2 in all the Bell experiments that so far i've seen)
  - eigenket 11y ago
    Many worlds is not a logical consequence of the non-deterministic view of quantum mechanics. One of the reasons cited in favour of the MWI is that it is wholly deterministic. That is probability doesn't appear at all in it's framework. This is much more in keeping with previous physical theories (Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell's laws of electrodynamics for example) which were also wholly deterministic. If you're interested other reasons the MWI is often considered "nice" is that it is: linear, local, causal, realist, entirely unitary and in some sense (this is often disputed) minimal. Other interpretations have to add mechanisms (for example wavefunction collapse) in a rather ad-hoc way in order to stop many worlds happening.

gohrt 11y ago

Is there any conceivable experiment to prove or disprove MWI is true. I'd think not, since it has "I"nterpretation in it.

omalleyt 11y ago

Many Worlds? That just abstracts the probability one step further, ie why am I in THIS world and not the other one (or if you prefer, why did my universe experience the string of events A-C-C-A-B and not A-C-C-A-A)? The deterministic solution to quantum mechanics is Pilot Wave theory. It can explain nearly all quantum weirdness. Spacetime vibrates.