Suppose we have a software package, UnitaryQM, of predefined functions. There is a competition, the Kolmogorov Challenge, in which you have to implement a new function, Born(). There are two development teams, Collapse and MWI. Collapse does the job by handcoding a new primitive function, collapse(), and adding it to the library. The MWI team really wants to use just the existing functions, but MWI 1.0 actally gives the wrong answers. The current hope for MWI 2.0 is a function called mangle(), but mangle only exists as pseudocode. The MWI team know how they want it to behave in certain limits, but to completely specify it requires an arbitrary parameter, objectiveDecoherenceThreshold.
Now interestingly, there have been two generations of Collapse as well. In Collapse 1.0, collapse has to be called directly by the user, from a command line. In Collapse 2.0, collapse can be called from within another function; but of course, now you can’t rely on the user to determine when it happens. So instead there is an adjustable parameter, objectiveCollapseFrequency.
The Collapse 2.0 team are at peace with the fact that their implementation of Born requires a free parameter, and they have consequently submitted some actual code to the Kolmogorov Challenge. The MWI 2.0 team are not. As a result, they haven’t submitted any code, just pseudocode. Obviously Collapse 2.0 wins by default.
This is a stupid analogy, but:
Suppose we have a software package, UnitaryQM, of predefined functions. There is a competition, the Kolmogorov Challenge, in which you have to implement a new function, Born(). There are two development teams, Collapse and MWI. Collapse does the job by handcoding a new primitive function, collapse(), and adding it to the library. The MWI team really wants to use just the existing functions, but MWI 1.0 actally gives the wrong answers. The current hope for MWI 2.0 is a function called mangle(), but mangle only exists as pseudocode. The MWI team know how they want it to behave in certain limits, but to completely specify it requires an arbitrary parameter, objectiveDecoherenceThreshold.
Now interestingly, there have been two generations of Collapse as well. In Collapse 1.0, collapse has to be called directly by the user, from a command line. In Collapse 2.0, collapse can be called from within another function; but of course, now you can’t rely on the user to determine when it happens. So instead there is an adjustable parameter, objectiveCollapseFrequency.
The Collapse 2.0 team are at peace with the fact that their implementation of Born requires a free parameter, and they have consequently submitted some actual code to the Kolmogorov Challenge. The MWI 2.0 team are not. As a result, they haven’t submitted any code, just pseudocode. Obviously Collapse 2.0 wins by default.
That’s a rather good explanation of the issue at hand.