What happens if the branch “you” are in gets cancelled with another branch?What happens if the branch “you” are in gets cancelled with another branch?
That can only happen if the “branches” or “worlds” are still in a coherent superposition.
There is an approach to MWI based on coherent superpositions, and a version based on decoherence. These are (for all practical purposes) incompatible opposites, but are treated as interchangeable in Yudkowsky’s writings.
The original, Everettian, or coherence based approach , is minimal, but fails to predict classical observations. The later decoherence based approach, is more emprically adequate, but seems to require additional structure, placing it’s simplicity in doubt
Coherent superpositions probably exist, but their components aren’t worlds in any intuitive sense. Decoherent branches would be worlds in the intuitive sense, and while there is evidence of decoherence, there is no evidence of decoherent branching, as opposed to decoherence.
That can only happen if the “branches” or “worlds” are still in a coherent superposition.
There is an approach to MWI based on coherent superpositions, and a version based on decoherence. These are (for all practical purposes) incompatible opposites, but are treated as interchangeable in Yudkowsky’s writings.
The original, Everettian, or coherence based approach , is minimal, but fails to predict classical observations. The later decoherence based approach, is more emprically adequate, but seems to require additional structure, placing it’s simplicity in doubt
Coherent superpositions probably exist, but their components aren’t worlds in any intuitive sense. Decoherent branches would be worlds in the intuitive sense, and while there is evidence of decoherence, there is no evidence of decoherent branching, as opposed to decoherence.