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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

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 :)

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 :)