The nub of the argument is that every time we look in our sock drawer, we see all our socks to be black.
Many worlds says that our socks are always black.
The Copenhagen interpretation says that us observing the socks causes them to be black. The rest of the time the socks are pink with green spots.
Both theories make identical predictions. Many worlds is much simpler to fully specify with equations, and has elegant mathematical properties. The Copenhagen interpretation has special case rules that only kick in when observing something. According to this theory, there is a fundamental physical difference between a complex collection of atoms, and an “observer” and somewhere in the development of life, creatures flipped from one to the other.
The Copenhagen interpretation doesn’t make it clear if a cat is a very complex arrangement of molecules, that could in theory be understood as a quantum process that doesn’t involve the collapse of wave functions, or if cats are observers and so collapses wave functions.
According to this theory, there is a fundamental physical difference between a complex collection of atoms, and an “observer” and somewhere in the development of life, creatures flipped from one to the other.
You seem to refer to some strawman version of the Copenhagen interpretation that no physicist subscribes to. Being brainwashed by Eliezer’s writings can do that. He is very eloquent and persuasive. Consider reading other sources. Scott Aaronson’s blog is a good start. Wikipedia has a bunch of useful links, too.
Consider a theory to be a collection of formal mathematical statements about how idealized objects behave. For example, Conways game of life is a theory in the sense of a completely self contained set of rules.
If you have multiple theories that produce similar results, its helpful to have a bridging law. If your theories were Newtonian mechanics, and general relativity, a bridging law would say which numbers in relativity matched up with which numbers in Newtonian mechanics. This allows you to translate a relativistic problem into a Newtonian one, solve that, and translate the answer back into the relativistic framework. This produces some errors, but often makes the maths easier.
Quantum many worlds is a simple theory. It could be simulated on a hypercomputer with less than a page of code. There is also a theory where you take the code for quantum many worlds, and add “observers” and “wavefunction collapse” with extra functions within your code. This can be done, but it is many pages of arbitrary hacks. Call this theory B. If you think this is a strawman of many worlds, describe how you could get a hypercomputer outside the universe to simulate many worlds with a short computer program.
The bridging between Quantum many worlds and human classical intuitions is quite difficult and subtle. Faced with a simulation of quantum many worlds, it would take a lot of understanding of quantum physics to make everyday changes, like creating or moving macroscopic objects.
Theory B however is substantially easier to bridge to our classical intuitions. Theory B looks like a chunk of quantum many worlds, plus a chunk of classical intuition, plus a bridging rule between the two.
The any description of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics seems to involve references to the classical results of a measurement, or a classical observer. Most versions would allow a superposition of an atom being in two different places, but not a superposition of two different presidents winning an election.
If you don’t believe atoms can be in superposition, you are ignoring lots of experiments, if you do believe that you can get a superposition of two different people being president, that you yourself could be in a superposition of doing two different things right now, then you believe many worlds by another name. Otherwise, you need to draw some sort of arbitrary cutoff. Its almost like you are bridging between a theory that allows superpositions, and an intuition that doesn’t.
The nub of the argument is that every time we look in our sock drawer, we see all our socks to be black.
Many worlds says that our socks are always black.
The Copenhagen interpretation says that us observing the socks causes them to be black. The rest of the time the socks are pink with green spots.
Both theories make identical predictions. Many worlds is much simpler to fully specify with equations, and has elegant mathematical properties. The Copenhagen interpretation has special case rules that only kick in when observing something. According to this theory, there is a fundamental physical difference between a complex collection of atoms, and an “observer” and somewhere in the development of life, creatures flipped from one to the other.
The Copenhagen interpretation doesn’t make it clear if a cat is a very complex arrangement of molecules, that could in theory be understood as a quantum process that doesn’t involve the collapse of wave functions, or if cats are observers and so collapses wave functions.
Nope. What distinguishes worlds, if their contents are the same?
Nope. That would be consciousness-causes-collapse. Which is a different theory.
You seem to refer to some strawman version of the Copenhagen interpretation that no physicist subscribes to. Being brainwashed by Eliezer’s writings can do that. He is very eloquent and persuasive. Consider reading other sources. Scott Aaronson’s blog is a good start. Wikipedia has a bunch of useful links, too.
Consider a theory to be a collection of formal mathematical statements about how idealized objects behave. For example, Conways game of life is a theory in the sense of a completely self contained set of rules.
If you have multiple theories that produce similar results, its helpful to have a bridging law. If your theories were Newtonian mechanics, and general relativity, a bridging law would say which numbers in relativity matched up with which numbers in Newtonian mechanics. This allows you to translate a relativistic problem into a Newtonian one, solve that, and translate the answer back into the relativistic framework. This produces some errors, but often makes the maths easier.
Quantum many worlds is a simple theory. It could be simulated on a hypercomputer with less than a page of code. There is also a theory where you take the code for quantum many worlds, and add “observers” and “wavefunction collapse” with extra functions within your code. This can be done, but it is many pages of arbitrary hacks. Call this theory B. If you think this is a strawman of many worlds, describe how you could get a hypercomputer outside the universe to simulate many worlds with a short computer program.
The bridging between Quantum many worlds and human classical intuitions is quite difficult and subtle. Faced with a simulation of quantum many worlds, it would take a lot of understanding of quantum physics to make everyday changes, like creating or moving macroscopic objects.
Theory B however is substantially easier to bridge to our classical intuitions. Theory B looks like a chunk of quantum many worlds, plus a chunk of classical intuition, plus a bridging rule between the two.
The any description of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics seems to involve references to the classical results of a measurement, or a classical observer. Most versions would allow a superposition of an atom being in two different places, but not a superposition of two different presidents winning an election.
If you don’t believe atoms can be in superposition, you are ignoring lots of experiments, if you do believe that you can get a superposition of two different people being president, that you yourself could be in a superposition of doing two different things right now, then you believe many worlds by another name. Otherwise, you need to draw some sort of arbitrary cutoff. Its almost like you are bridging between a theory that allows superpositions, and an intuition that doesn’t.