On Apr 19, 11:51 am, "Telmo Menezes" <te....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> > Those branches exist even if the experiment is not set
> > up. This follows necessarily from the MWI. Pick any date in history
> > that you like. There must exist fluke branches that have experienced
> > unlikely histories since that time. The example I mentioned previously
> > was no atomic decay since January 1, 1900.
>
> Yes I agree. The second law is just a statistical property, is it not?
> I believe it is possible to observe cases where the second law does
> not hold, even for a long time. But it's extremely unlikely. That
> being said, I would argue that it would be nice if we could come to
> the conclusion that the quantum suicider experiment can work even
> without the need to resort to an highly unlikely stacking of quantum
> choices.
How would it work? The point of the suicider experiement is that the
suicider is able to prove to himself the reality of MWI by forcing
himself to experience only an absurdly low probability set of events.
Thus, he demonstrates to the few versions of himself who remain the
existence of fluke branches, and by extension the truth of the MWI.
Right, I agree that a universe in which entropy decreases
monotonically would be unlikely since it would only happen in those
exceedingly rare fluke branches. However, the point of the quantum
suicide experiment is to prove to the suicider the reality of the MWI
by verifying the existence of fluke branches, and by extension, all of
the other, more likely worlds as well. The suicider steps in for the
cat in the schrodinger experiment. The QTI suicide experiment simply
asks what its like for the cat, instead of the observers who open the
box. You can stay in that box for any length of time, and if MWI is
true, which implies the QTI, you won't die. this only works because we
are eliminating the consciousness of the observer in a great many more
branches.
But it isn't a healthy way to prove MWI in practice. "Don't try this
at home." :)
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Received on Sat Apr 19 2008 - 13:57:55 PDT