Now, a new thought experiment is confronting these assumptions head-on and shaking the foundations of quantum physics.This is interesting, but it does not affect any predictions of quantum mechanics. It only involves what one observer thinks that another observer is seeing.
Deutsch thinks the thought experiment will continue to support many-worlds. “My take is likely to be that it kills wave-function-collapse or single-universe versions of quantum theory, but they were already stone dead,” he said. “I’m not sure what purpose it serves to attack them again with bigger weapons.”He is a die-hard supporter of the many-worlds interpretation. He apparently thinks that other interpretations have been shown to be "stone dead".
It is a little crazy to think that some stupid thought experiment is convincing about the existence of non-observable parallel universes.
Just because you can IMAGINE another outcome (which takes place in your brain IN THIS WORLD), does not lend it any existence outside of your imagination (unless you write it down, which then gives the imagined world existence in THIS universe as a speculative fiction.)
ReplyDeleteCan I imagine a world where things are different? Sure. What is the likelihood of that world existing? Effectively zero since:
1. That imagined world isn't this one, since it is already demonstrated different from the world that exists in some way, making it a fiction.
2.) There is no way to do any calculation concerning how many imagined worlds there are, therefore, on which number would any possible statistic or average be calculated?
3.) Invoking infinity in a calculation to determine a likelihood of occurrence is ridiculous, we have no way of determining an infinite quantity of anything that actually exists outside of a declared abstraction (saying it so without a way to determine it so). Abstractions do not have physical existence outside of the ideas that contain them.