Re: Modal Realism vs. MWI

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 11:25:15 +0200

Tim May wrote:



>While I find Deutsch fairly persuasive, the verdict is of course not
>yet in whether MWI is the correct interpretation. The double slit
>results had a "traditional" wave mechanics interpretation 75 years
>ago ("wave-particle duality"), and this remains a viable
>interpretation even today. (I'm not talking about popularity, either
>on this list or in the overall community, just "technical
>viability.")


I am afraid I disagree with the amount of what I understand here :)
What do you mean by "traditional" wave mechanics ? Bohr or de Broglie ?
Copenhague or Bohm?, or perhaps Everett? (through Schroedinger).

You know the wave *has* some probability interpretation. Now you can call the
objects of the domain of uncertainty, states, worlds, or histories,
but the basic
fact is that without the collapse principle those things are *many*.
Once we accept the idea that the observer obeys the wave equation, it is only
by playing with words that we can say decoherence makes those
alternate realities
disappearing, when the wave only describes that they are just
becoming relatively
inaccessible.

[snip ...]


>>
>>Very plausible. But be careful of the solipsist move here.
>>Unless I miss something, like a universal first person may be, I really
>>don't know.
>
>I'm not following you here.


Sometimes I am afraid that Isham and Smolin use toposes and intuitionnist
logic has a way to hide a little bit those *many realities*. I am not
saying this concerning your or Markopoulou's talking of times. Intuitionism
is Brouwer's solipsist philosophy of the subject, (quite similar to "my"
comp notion of first person btw). An intuitionist essentially believes only in
its own constructions. It is a self-developing creator. Beautiful and
actually inescapable (with comp).
The main problem with "pure" intuitionism,is that he has no notion of the
other. (the other being other people or other inaccessible worlds).
But with platonist comp the alternate comp interfere through
relation of similarities ... It is not a matter of choice.




>>I think---with comp---
>>that those brouwerian lattices emerge from the non distributive structures
>>which rises from the coherent glueing of all little pieces of
>>consistent (in a
>>logical sense) histories.
>
>Sounds interesting, but I'm not getting a clear mental picture of
>it. Could you provide a natural transformation from your internal
>picture to one I might be able to form?


I wish I could! I can only offer you a little poetical phrase: stable
physical realities
emerges from the many many many little pieces of possible machines dreams...
(... or comp is wrong).

Bruno
Received on Thu Oct 10 2002 - 05:27:32 PDT