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no, copenhagen interpretation is wave function + born rule. the "branching mechanism" is not part of the fundamental mechanism of the everett interpretation. T
by ithkuil 3y ago
no, copenhagen interpretation is wave function + born rule.
the "branching mechanism" is not part of the fundamental mechanism of the everett interpretation. The "branching" is an emergent phenomenon similar to what happens when you mix to liquids of two different colors. At "some point" the the fluids intermix in such a way that you no longer distinguish them and finding the right boundary when that exactly happen may seem a bit "fuzzy", but the physics of what's going on is perfectly clear to anybody; the two substances are still there, but just mixed up in way that is completely intractable to reverse in practice.
- bowsamic 3y agoIt still posits that we are in one of (probably) infinite universes corresponding to each possible outcome (unless you are getting confused with the "Consistent histories" interpretation). That is a part of the fundamental mechanism of the Everett interpretation, it's literally why it's called the Many World Interpretation. Just because you can make a physical analogy for that branching doesn't mean it isn't an extra element in your ontology
- ithkuil 3y agoyeah, I'd argue though that it's not adding those universes. They're there all along. Branching is an epiphenomenon of there being information processing machines that are embedded in the real universe, and those machines interpret their interactions with the surrounding as if they were only part of a subset of that universe, and upon reasoning about that they call the real universe the "multi-verse"
- bowsamic 3y agoOkay but once again that is an extra postulate that is not really much less crazy than postulating the Born rule
- ithkuil 3y agowell, whether the postulate is crazy or not is a matter of perspective. Postulating that nature just does the Born rule is postulating an additional thing that nature does. Postulating that hey perhaps we ain't that special and perhaps we should just think through the consequences of our own brains being embedded in the very nature we're trying to describe. On one hand, it feels like we're adding a lot by buying into the Everrettian model, because it does require us to think and throw away some intuition about ourselves. But OTOH, it actually requires adding much much less to what nature actually does.
- kgwgk 3y agoWe have to assume that nature “does” those consequences of our own brains being embedded in the very nature we're trying to describe though. Even if we can’t even articulate precisely what they are the assumption is not so mild.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]