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From: peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Re: QM and Multiple Worlds
Message-ID: <565@baylor.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Aug-85 07:34:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: baylor.565
Posted: Wed Aug 28 07:34:34 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Sep-85 07:06:48 EDT
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Organization: The Power Elite, Houston, TX
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> issue.)  A MWT unconstrained by any laws of physics is preferable,
> because simpler, to one incorporating laws of physics, hence MWTs
> directly do violence to the notion of physics.  Now let me answer some

How on earth do you figure that an unconstrained MWT is simpler or
preferable. The fact that an unconstrained MWT produces a different observed
universe than the one we see here is enough to reject that hypothesis.

> Doug Gwyn wrote:
> > [1]  Not all the alternate worlds are equiprobable!  [2]  There is no
> > observable difference between the alternate-worlds QM and the
> > Copenhagen QM.
> [1] Maybe, but irrelevant to my point.  Also, Occam's razor would suggest
> abandoning any theory of structure in the generation of successor worlds.

I see. What's happened is that you don't understand Occam's Razor, so you're
applying it too broadly. Occams razor simply says that out of (n) hypotheses you
should select the simplest and most testable hypothesis so that you know when
you're wrong as soon as possible. It doesn't say the simples explanation is
right, as you (and the creationists) seem to think. Since your view of how the
EWG multiple worlds model works predicts a complete breakdown of causality we
know it's wrong (or have you observed this breakdown of causality?). The next
thing to do is look at the actual EWG theory. That I'll leave to someone better
versed in it than I.

> For some very interesting reading on these issues, I recommend some
> fictional stories designed to present relevant thought experiments.
> The earliest I know of are Jorge Luis Borges' stories ``The Garden
> of Forking Paths'' which explores the nature of MWTs, and ``The Library
> of Babel'', which explains how all possible writings (read `universes')
> can be generated by a finite library of books (read `world states').
> Both of these can be found in his collection ``Labyrinths'', New
> Directions Pub. Corp., 1964.

Last I heard Borges wasn't a physicist.

> A more recent, and more devastating exploration of MWTs is Larry
> Niven's story ``All the Myriad Ways'', in his collection by the same
> name [Ballantine Books, 1971], and probably in other collections as
> well.

Niven never postulated impossible worlds, as you do. His MWT is vanilla
EWG. His objection is that EWG makes volition meaningless. He's probably
right, but so does determinism.
-- 
	Peter (Made in Australia) da Silva
		UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter
		MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076