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However Everett's work was incomplete. He was attempting to show how the seemingly non-random "real world" leads from the indeterminancy of the quantum world, but he left this last crutial step unexplained. You see only one measure, and no hint of these other values or other "yous" measuring the other values, how is this to be explained?
The many-worlds interpretation assumes that the states of an observer correspond to separate world states, so each should be unaware of the others. This may be considered a problem, since it predict entities that can't be verified by observation, but is not generally considered an incompleteness that needs to be patched. Also, the many-worlds explains how the indeterminancy of experiments leads from determinate physical laws, not the other way around. As such, I think it is best to remove this entire paragraph. I've also removed:
This interpretation thus has the added advantage of being "local" in the general relativity sense of the term, because all of the decision making takes place in your mind.
because Everett's interpretation is local in the general relativistic sense, having abandoned collapse, which is the only non-local feature of other interpretations.
This is not correct. It is the quantum state itself which is nonlocal (without any dynamical nonlocality, such as spurious action at a distance).
In general, I think the text here is fairly suspect and could do with revision by someone more familiar with what this interpretation is supposed to be about. In particular, I think this page has overstated its benefits and understated its flaws, given the mistakes above and that one of its authors has since disavowed it.
The Everett interpretation is now very popular, since it is the only dynamically consistent quantum theory.
The article says: "However Albert and Loewer suggest that the mental does not supervene on the physical, because individual minds have trans-temporal identity of their own. The mind selects one of these identities to be its non-random reality, while the universe itself is unaffected. The process for selection of a single state remains unexplained. This is particularly problematic because it is not clear how different observers would thus end up agreeing on measurements, which happens all the time here in the real world. There is assumed to be a sort of feedback between the mental process that leads to selection and the universal wavefunction, thereby effecting other mental states as a matter of course. In order to make the system work, the "mind" must be separate from the body, an old duality of philosophy to replace the new one of quantum mechanics. In general this interpretation has received little attention, largely for this last reason."
I challenge the objection that "different observers ... end up agreeing on measurements ... all the time here in the real world"! It seems that, in contrast to the most basic predefined facts which are agreed to in advance, many practical observations (and interpretations of observations) differ from each other somewhat and are not perfectly repeatable. Some inconsistency seems to be the rule. We tend to dismiss this as the result of randomness, noise, measurement errors, etc. Those things seem real enough, but may not be the whole story. Possibly a component of the inconsistency is more fundamental, a result of different minds (and bodies, and measurement devices, and measured systems) interacting and themselves changing over time, further confounding agreement. The many minds interpretation may suggest why "observer bias" or "differences of opinion" seem inevitable in so many areas. Can we actually completely agree on anything, even just with ourselves over time? This question also applies to the many minds interpretation itself, which might just offer the only way out. -- Parsiferon 01:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
(Excuse the heretical thought, but "reality" in this Wikipedia laboratory changes over time, based upon the introduction of new authors' preexisting beliefs and the addition or destruction of citations which seem more reliable than they are. My mind changes similarly: whatever I thought I knew before forces my interpretation of the world now, and influences the future directions I can take in gathering information. But new observations modify the impact of the earlier "facts," often increasing our overall degree of doubt & disagreement, if we are honest.) -- Parsiferon 02:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Isn't this a bit misleading:
For the majority of time, systems will evolve according to the Schrödinger equation, evolving in a way that makes the system more and more indeterminate, becoming more "random" in the sense that its physical qualities can take on a greater range of values.
The time evolution of a state governed by the Schrödinger equation is totally deterministic. The last half sentence is more in sync facts (in the sense that...). Volunteers for a better formulation?
Pjacobi 22:18, 2005 Jun 9 (UTC)
The following statement from The central problems section is definitely out of place here.
I am removing it, because regardless of whether it means anything or not, doesn't address what is the central problem addressd by many-worlds or many minds. -- CSTAR 16:20, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
The concept was first introduced in 1970 by H. Dieter Zeh
The idea of many minds was suggested early on by Zeh in 1995.
The article is completely inconsistent about the date at which Zeh started many minds. A reference would help -- even one!!!
-- Michael C Price 10:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I've temporarily moved some text here for clarification:
First, wouldn't a criticism of Everett's theory be better placed in its own article? Second, I am not clear what the alleged deficiency of Everett's MWI refers to. Is that we see subjective indeterminancy whilst the equations are deterministic, or is it that you don't see how the Born probability law emerges, or is it how come we have a consistent memory of the past? All of these issues were addressed by Everett and elaborated on by his sucessors. Of course not everyone is happy with the answers he gives, but that is true of most aspects of most interpretations of quantum theory. -- Michael C. Price talk 21:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there a source I could see for the claim that Zeh "first introduced the concept" of the many-minds interpretation? This part of the article is kind of ambiguous. It's not clear whether we should take this to mean that the interpretation was first introduced by Zeh or simply the idea that there are multiple minds that, in some way, factor into the MWI. I did some snooping around the internet but all I could find was this line: "There are two very different approaches with the same name "The Many-Minds Interpretation (MMI)". The Albert and Loewer 1988 MMI mentioned above should not be confused with Lockwood’[s] 1996 MMI (which resembles the approach of Zeh 1981)." ( http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/)
If these approaches are relevantly different, the article should explain how this is so. Also, the Zeh work cited in the above quote is from 1981, not 1970. What happened in 1970? ZRPerry ( talk) 23:41, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
ZRPerry ( talk) 20:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)"[If you accept the many-minds theory] then you have something for the probabilities to apply to in an absolutely familiar and conventional way, and so on and so forth. The only trouble with such a proposal is that it is preposterous."
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
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However Everett's work was incomplete. He was attempting to show how the seemingly non-random "real world" leads from the indeterminancy of the quantum world, but he left this last crutial step unexplained. You see only one measure, and no hint of these other values or other "yous" measuring the other values, how is this to be explained?
The many-worlds interpretation assumes that the states of an observer correspond to separate world states, so each should be unaware of the others. This may be considered a problem, since it predict entities that can't be verified by observation, but is not generally considered an incompleteness that needs to be patched. Also, the many-worlds explains how the indeterminancy of experiments leads from determinate physical laws, not the other way around. As such, I think it is best to remove this entire paragraph. I've also removed:
This interpretation thus has the added advantage of being "local" in the general relativity sense of the term, because all of the decision making takes place in your mind.
because Everett's interpretation is local in the general relativistic sense, having abandoned collapse, which is the only non-local feature of other interpretations.
This is not correct. It is the quantum state itself which is nonlocal (without any dynamical nonlocality, such as spurious action at a distance).
In general, I think the text here is fairly suspect and could do with revision by someone more familiar with what this interpretation is supposed to be about. In particular, I think this page has overstated its benefits and understated its flaws, given the mistakes above and that one of its authors has since disavowed it.
The Everett interpretation is now very popular, since it is the only dynamically consistent quantum theory.
The article says: "However Albert and Loewer suggest that the mental does not supervene on the physical, because individual minds have trans-temporal identity of their own. The mind selects one of these identities to be its non-random reality, while the universe itself is unaffected. The process for selection of a single state remains unexplained. This is particularly problematic because it is not clear how different observers would thus end up agreeing on measurements, which happens all the time here in the real world. There is assumed to be a sort of feedback between the mental process that leads to selection and the universal wavefunction, thereby effecting other mental states as a matter of course. In order to make the system work, the "mind" must be separate from the body, an old duality of philosophy to replace the new one of quantum mechanics. In general this interpretation has received little attention, largely for this last reason."
I challenge the objection that "different observers ... end up agreeing on measurements ... all the time here in the real world"! It seems that, in contrast to the most basic predefined facts which are agreed to in advance, many practical observations (and interpretations of observations) differ from each other somewhat and are not perfectly repeatable. Some inconsistency seems to be the rule. We tend to dismiss this as the result of randomness, noise, measurement errors, etc. Those things seem real enough, but may not be the whole story. Possibly a component of the inconsistency is more fundamental, a result of different minds (and bodies, and measurement devices, and measured systems) interacting and themselves changing over time, further confounding agreement. The many minds interpretation may suggest why "observer bias" or "differences of opinion" seem inevitable in so many areas. Can we actually completely agree on anything, even just with ourselves over time? This question also applies to the many minds interpretation itself, which might just offer the only way out. -- Parsiferon 01:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
(Excuse the heretical thought, but "reality" in this Wikipedia laboratory changes over time, based upon the introduction of new authors' preexisting beliefs and the addition or destruction of citations which seem more reliable than they are. My mind changes similarly: whatever I thought I knew before forces my interpretation of the world now, and influences the future directions I can take in gathering information. But new observations modify the impact of the earlier "facts," often increasing our overall degree of doubt & disagreement, if we are honest.) -- Parsiferon 02:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Isn't this a bit misleading:
For the majority of time, systems will evolve according to the Schrödinger equation, evolving in a way that makes the system more and more indeterminate, becoming more "random" in the sense that its physical qualities can take on a greater range of values.
The time evolution of a state governed by the Schrödinger equation is totally deterministic. The last half sentence is more in sync facts (in the sense that...). Volunteers for a better formulation?
Pjacobi 22:18, 2005 Jun 9 (UTC)
The following statement from The central problems section is definitely out of place here.
I am removing it, because regardless of whether it means anything or not, doesn't address what is the central problem addressd by many-worlds or many minds. -- CSTAR 16:20, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
The concept was first introduced in 1970 by H. Dieter Zeh
The idea of many minds was suggested early on by Zeh in 1995.
The article is completely inconsistent about the date at which Zeh started many minds. A reference would help -- even one!!!
-- Michael C Price 10:43, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I've temporarily moved some text here for clarification:
First, wouldn't a criticism of Everett's theory be better placed in its own article? Second, I am not clear what the alleged deficiency of Everett's MWI refers to. Is that we see subjective indeterminancy whilst the equations are deterministic, or is it that you don't see how the Born probability law emerges, or is it how come we have a consistent memory of the past? All of these issues were addressed by Everett and elaborated on by his sucessors. Of course not everyone is happy with the answers he gives, but that is true of most aspects of most interpretations of quantum theory. -- Michael C. Price talk 21:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there a source I could see for the claim that Zeh "first introduced the concept" of the many-minds interpretation? This part of the article is kind of ambiguous. It's not clear whether we should take this to mean that the interpretation was first introduced by Zeh or simply the idea that there are multiple minds that, in some way, factor into the MWI. I did some snooping around the internet but all I could find was this line: "There are two very different approaches with the same name "The Many-Minds Interpretation (MMI)". The Albert and Loewer 1988 MMI mentioned above should not be confused with Lockwood’[s] 1996 MMI (which resembles the approach of Zeh 1981)." ( http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/)
If these approaches are relevantly different, the article should explain how this is so. Also, the Zeh work cited in the above quote is from 1981, not 1970. What happened in 1970? ZRPerry ( talk) 23:41, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
ZRPerry ( talk) 20:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)"[If you accept the many-minds theory] then you have something for the probabilities to apply to in an absolutely familiar and conventional way, and so on and so forth. The only trouble with such a proposal is that it is preposterous."