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I like Sean Carroll's suggestion: Austere Quantum Mechanics. Because many worlds is really just taking the state of quantum mechanics and accepting what we do k

I like Sean Carroll's suggestion: Austere Quantum Mechanics. Because many worlds is really just taking the state of quantum mechanics and accepting what we do know about it without added assumptions. There's a wave function, it obeys the Schrödinger equation. Other interpretations always posit some extra stuff, like wave function collapse, or pilot waves. Many Worlds just takes the Schrödinger equation seriously on its own. Therefore it is in a very real sense the most austere interpretation, even though it posits all those worlds.

jakear 4y ago
See also: "The Zen Anti-Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=5359 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=5359
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  Love me a good Scott Aaronson blogpost! I go back and forth myself on whether I buy the austere interpretation. Mainly I struggle with the open question of probabilities. Something about the combination of probability and philosophical argument - the two most hard to intuit things in the world - makes my head spin. Though there are also so many compelling advantages, like providing an arrow in time in that branches of the wave function never re-merge. I'm also fascinated by superdeterminism. I don't have the same philosophical issues with it that others have. I settled on the "useful fiction" view of free will a long time ago anyway. But I've yet to see any logic supporting the idea that the entire universe would, or even could conspire in this way. But I also used to think many worlds was inherently illogical, so I don't know. Then there's the voice in me that says "it's just a collapse, it just has to be when there's enough moving parts", but again, can't think of a justification for it other than intuition. And now there's a 4th shouting at me "why are you thinking about this, you're a programmer". I guess I'm just wired that way, I can't not ponder the things I don't understand, no matter how irrelevant they are to my life.
  - jakear 4y ago
    Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand. ― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    I find super determinism fascinating too. It's not really scientific because it's ultimately untestable. I just like the idea that the universe is whole, compete from end to end and time is just another axis through it. In my interpretation I'm not traveling through time but just exist in each moment of time thinking that I'm traveling through it because I remember the last moment. It's not a belief, just a thought.
galaxyLogic 4y ago
> There's a wave function, it obeys the Schrödinger equation." Or perhaps more precisely: "There is no wave function. The wave-function we talk about is just a mathematical recipe for computing the expected test-observations". Functions are abstract things, they don't exist in the physical world. They only describe the physical world, at best. So that really leaves the question why do our measurement results follow the predictions of the wave-function unanswered. I think we would like to come up with some theory of why the wave-function so closely predicts our observations.
- jakear 4y ago
  How can you know there's not a Universal Quantum Turing Machine that has encoded precisely the functions we've discovered based on the test-observations we've conducted? And if there is, would the question "why" anything occurs be well defined? It does what it does because it was constructed to do so.
  - resource0x 4y ago
    What hardware does this Turing Machine run on?
    - jakear 4y ago
      It's all in your head.
- BadThink6655321 4y ago
  Earlier today I came across this on Scott Aaronson's site: "Also, are the ultimate equations that govern the universe “real,” while tables and chairs are “unreal” (in the sense of being no more than fuzzy approximate descriptions of certain solutions to the equations)? Or are the tables and chairs “real,” while the equations are “unreal” (in the sense of being tools invented by humans to predict the behavior of tables and chairs and whatever else, while extraterrestrials might use other tools)? Which level of reality do you care about / want to load with positive affect, and which level do you want to denigrate?" https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=3628 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=3628
Jensson 4y ago
> Therefore it is in a very real sense the most austere interpretation, even though it posits all those worlds. I strongly disagree. Wave function collapse is the best description for a randomized phenomena we can observe. That exact same phenomena exists in many worlds as well, just that many worlds invent whole different universes to try to get away from the fact that to us the event is random. So instead of saying "our universe is random" you say "Our universe is not random, we just observe a random part of the universe and can never observe the real whole part of it", that isn't solving anything at all, its just a more elaborate way to say "the universe is random".
- mort96 4y ago
  Wave function collapse is an additional mechanism. If you remove the wave function collapse, you get many worlds.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    But we observe a random phenomena and call that wave function collapses, we don't observe many worlds. Many worlds is outside of observation, it is an additional feature of the universe that isn't based on any observations.
    - mort96 4y ago
      I mean you're right of course, if this was easily experimentally testable we would've done so already. So we're left to choose between two theories: one in which the rules for macro systems and quantum systems are completely different and quantum systems collapse into a state consistent with the rules for macro systems when they interact with a macro system -- and one where there is only the one set of rules and no collapse. That doesn't mean you should choose to believe one or the other, but it means that one model requires fewer mechanisms than the other. At least that's my understanding.
      - Jensson 4y ago
        > one in which the rules for macro systems and quantum systems are completely different and quantum systems collapse into a state consistent with the rules for macro systems when they interact with a macro system That is wrong, quantum state collapse just makes the quantum wave take the shape of another quantum wave, nothing in it requires it to be related to macro state nonsense like pointwise particles etc. If that is the reason you don't like wavefunction collapse then you just misunderstood quantum mechanics basics, all wave function collapse is is that it is a rule for how quantum waves can transform, there is nothing about it that connects it to our macro world view. > and one where there is only the one set of rules and no collapse. MWI still has wave function collapse, the "we observe random part of the universe" part is the wave function collapse, that remains unexplained, why do we only see a random subset? You can't explain that. Many worlds make it harder to see that this part is unexplained, that makes it strictly worse as an interpretation in my opinion.

jakear 4y ago

See also: "The Zen Anti-Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=5359 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=5359

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Love me a good Scott Aaronson blogpost! I go back and forth myself on whether I buy the austere interpretation. Mainly I struggle with the open question of probabilities. Something about the combination of probability and philosophical argument - the two most hard to intuit things in the world - makes my head spin. Though there are also so many compelling advantages, like providing an arrow in time in that branches of the wave function never re-merge. I'm also fascinated by superdeterminism. I don't have the same philosophical issues with it that others have. I settled on the "useful fiction" view of free will a long time ago anyway. But I've yet to see any logic supporting the idea that the entire universe would, or even could conspire in this way. But I also used to think many worlds was inherently illogical, so I don't know. Then there's the voice in me that says "it's just a collapse, it just has to be when there's enough moving parts", but again, can't think of a justification for it other than intuition. And now there's a 4th shouting at me "why are you thinking about this, you're a programmer". I guess I'm just wired that way, I can't not ponder the things I don't understand, no matter how irrelevant they are to my life.
- jakear 4y ago
  Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand. ― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
- jemmyw 4y ago
  I find super determinism fascinating too. It's not really scientific because it's ultimately untestable. I just like the idea that the universe is whole, compete from end to end and time is just another axis through it. In my interpretation I'm not traveling through time but just exist in each moment of time thinking that I'm traveling through it because I remember the last moment. It's not a belief, just a thought.

galaxyLogic 4y ago

> There's a wave function, it obeys the Schrödinger equation." Or perhaps more precisely: "There is no wave function. The wave-function we talk about is just a mathematical recipe for computing the expected test-observations". Functions are abstract things, they don't exist in the physical world. They only describe the physical world, at best. So that really leaves the question why do our measurement results follow the predictions of the wave-function unanswered. I think we would like to come up with some theory of why the wave-function so closely predicts our observations.

jakear 4y ago
How can you know there's not a Universal Quantum Turing Machine that has encoded precisely the functions we've discovered based on the test-observations we've conducted? And if there is, would the question "why" anything occurs be well defined? It does what it does because it was constructed to do so.
- resource0x 4y ago
  What hardware does this Turing Machine run on?
  - jakear 4y ago
    It's all in your head.
BadThink6655321 4y ago
Earlier today I came across this on Scott Aaronson's site: "Also, are the ultimate equations that govern the universe “real,” while tables and chairs are “unreal” (in the sense of being no more than fuzzy approximate descriptions of certain solutions to the equations)? Or are the tables and chairs “real,” while the equations are “unreal” (in the sense of being tools invented by humans to predict the behavior of tables and chairs and whatever else, while extraterrestrials might use other tools)? Which level of reality do you care about / want to load with positive affect, and which level do you want to denigrate?" https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=3628 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=3628

Jensson 4y ago

> Therefore it is in a very real sense the most austere interpretation, even though it posits all those worlds. I strongly disagree. Wave function collapse is the best description for a randomized phenomena we can observe. That exact same phenomena exists in many worlds as well, just that many worlds invent whole different universes to try to get away from the fact that to us the event is random. So instead of saying "our universe is random" you say "Our universe is not random, we just observe a random part of the universe and can never observe the real whole part of it", that isn't solving anything at all, its just a more elaborate way to say "the universe is random".

mort96 4y ago
Wave function collapse is an additional mechanism. If you remove the wave function collapse, you get many worlds.
- Jensson 4y ago
  But we observe a random phenomena and call that wave function collapses, we don't observe many worlds. Many worlds is outside of observation, it is an additional feature of the universe that isn't based on any observations.
  - mort96 4y ago
    I mean you're right of course, if this was easily experimentally testable we would've done so already. So we're left to choose between two theories: one in which the rules for macro systems and quantum systems are completely different and quantum systems collapse into a state consistent with the rules for macro systems when they interact with a macro system -- and one where there is only the one set of rules and no collapse. That doesn't mean you should choose to believe one or the other, but it means that one model requires fewer mechanisms than the other. At least that's my understanding.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      > one in which the rules for macro systems and quantum systems are completely different and quantum systems collapse into a state consistent with the rules for macro systems when they interact with a macro system That is wrong, quantum state collapse just makes the quantum wave take the shape of another quantum wave, nothing in it requires it to be related to macro state nonsense like pointwise particles etc. If that is the reason you don't like wavefunction collapse then you just misunderstood quantum mechanics basics, all wave function collapse is is that it is a rule for how quantum waves can transform, there is nothing about it that connects it to our macro world view. > and one where there is only the one set of rules and no collapse. MWI still has wave function collapse, the "we observe random part of the universe" part is the wave function collapse, that remains unexplained, why do we only see a random subset? You can't explain that. Many worlds make it harder to see that this part is unexplained, that makes it strictly worse as an interpretation in my opinion.