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Of course it's not right. The Many Worlds interpretation is a much more elegant explanation that does not privilege humans or consciousness.

danieltillett 10y ago
I have always wondered what Hugh Everett would have done in physics if he was not so discouraged.
coldtea 10y ago
And why would that be "more elegant"? If, after merely a few centuries of industrial revolution, we are nearing to be able to make a good enough physics simulation, and thus it's conceivable that in th future (100-1000 years) we could create a very fine simulation of a world (with simulated humans in it too, a la Sims). Then the same (that they themselves will be eventually able to create a simulation) can be said for the inhabitants of the simulated world we've created. This means that in the end, there might be thousands or millions of such simulations inside a prior simulation. This begs the question: why would then our world not be a simulation itself? Certainly if there are 1000's of simulations, it's more probable that we're somewhere in the middle than on the top of the stack. Now consider the simulation above us: they create our universe as a simulation. It would then make sense that: 1) the simulation would be in final analysis discreet. 2) it would only spare computation cycles when it was worth it. So, (1) would involve something like Planks length (and related constants). And (2) would make it so that "reality" (active simulation) exists only when one of us (humans/consciousness) look at it.
- spacehome 10y ago
  MWI is just the unitary, deterministic, local, continuous, linear evolution of a partial differential equation. There's no extra semantics that need to be added to tell you how to interpret it. It's the only interpretation of quantum mechanics that has all of these properties. Others fail most of those qualifications. I'm particularly bothered by the thought that we don't live in a deterministic universe. This is what I mean by "more elegant". As for whether our universe is a simulation, I'm familiar with Bostrom's argument, which you outlined. It's certainly an interesting idea and might be correct, but orthogonal to the original question of interpretations of quantum mechanics.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Well, (1) and (2) don't seem so orthogonal to quantum mechanics. Rather they'd explain them.

danieltillett 10y ago

I have always wondered what Hugh Everett would have done in physics if he was not so discouraged.

coldtea 10y ago

And why would that be "more elegant"? If, after merely a few centuries of industrial revolution, we are nearing to be able to make a good enough physics simulation, and thus it's conceivable that in th future (100-1000 years) we could create a very fine simulation of a world (with simulated humans in it too, a la Sims). Then the same (that they themselves will be eventually able to create a simulation) can be said for the inhabitants of the simulated world we've created. This means that in the end, there might be thousands or millions of such simulations inside a prior simulation. This begs the question: why would then our world not be a simulation itself? Certainly if there are 1000's of simulations, it's more probable that we're somewhere in the middle than on the top of the stack. Now consider the simulation above us: they create our universe as a simulation. It would then make sense that: 1) the simulation would be in final analysis discreet. 2) it would only spare computation cycles when it was worth it. So, (1) would involve something like Planks length (and related constants). And (2) would make it so that "reality" (active simulation) exists only when one of us (humans/consciousness) look at it.

spacehome 10y ago
MWI is just the unitary, deterministic, local, continuous, linear evolution of a partial differential equation. There's no extra semantics that need to be added to tell you how to interpret it. It's the only interpretation of quantum mechanics that has all of these properties. Others fail most of those qualifications. I'm particularly bothered by the thought that we don't live in a deterministic universe. This is what I mean by "more elegant". As for whether our universe is a simulation, I'm familiar with Bostrom's argument, which you outlined. It's certainly an interesting idea and might be correct, but orthogonal to the original question of interpretations of quantum mechanics.
- coldtea 10y ago
  Well, (1) and (2) don't seem so orthogonal to quantum mechanics. Rather they'd explain them.