On Fri, 29 Jan 1999 GSLevy.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> Hal describes the popular version of the MWI according to which the whole
> universe branching for every quantum event taking place. Needless to say, this
> interpretation invokes a highly nonlocal process.
> My views of MWI (and I am probably not the first one to think that way) is
> that locality can be restored by assuming that the universe is already split
> in a very large number of dimensions and it is WE, the observers, who split as
> the wave function propagates through this superspace. Each point of the wave
> function provides a three dimensional "perspective" of this superspace simply
> because the (everyday) laws of physics are restricted to operate in 3D. I am
> curious to know what the common view of the MWI is: 1) either the whole
> universe splitting for every quantum event, 2) or the wave function
> propagating (and splitting) in a very large dimensional superuniverse.
Everett's view, and the view of all MWIers I know, is that nothing
really splits. There exists the wavefunction, which obeys Shrodinger's
equation. That's it. Qualitatively, the behavior of the solution to that
equation can be described as 'a tree of branches or worlds', regions of
large measure tending to form such shapes in configuration space. The
effective probabilities are due to the fact that consciousness has greater
measure in regions of large |psi|. See my home page for a computationalist
interpretation of that.
- - - - - - -
Jacques Mallah (jqm1584.domain.name.hidden)
Graduate Student / Many Worlder / Devil's Advocate
"I know what no one else knows" - 'Runaway Train', Soul Asylum
My URL:
http://pages.nyu.edu/~jqm1584/
Received on Mon Feb 01 1999 - 11:38:29 PST