lost in the many worlds

From: Wei Dai <weidai.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:02:44 -0800

Suppose our universe is actually a wave function evolving in a computer in
another universe acoording to the standard linear wave equations. If there
is a way to send a signal to the administrator of this computer, how many
bits of information would we need to send in order for him to be able to
find us in the wave function?

My impression (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that this would be a
very large number, much larger than the number of bits needed to
completely describe a human brain. If this is true, then in what sense
does quantum mechanics offer an explaination for our perceptions of the
world (i.e. the inside view in Max Tegmark's terminology)? It seems like
a complete explaination would be longer than the data itself. By complete
explaination I mean boundary conditions of the wave function, the wave
equations, and the information needed to extract the inside view that
we're seeing from the wave function.
Received on Wed Jan 28 1998 - 13:03:29 PST