Many Worlds

John K Clark (johnkc@well.com)
Mon, 12 Jan 1998 22:34:01 -0800 (PST)


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On Mon, 12 Jan 1998 "Mark D. Fulwiler" <mfulwiler@earthlink.net> Wrote:

>The problem with these multiple universe theories is that I know of
>no way they could be proven. And something that cannot be proven is
>totally irrelevant.

A theory can be disproved but no theory can be proven because you can always
add a wheel within a wheel to produce an alternate theory that also explains
the facts, it's just that we pick the simplest one for connivance. Obviously
a good theory must make good predictions, but it must do more, it must help
us form mental models that allow more to be learned about the universe.
A good theory might not even be true, Newton's ideas were enormously
productive and served us well for 300 years before running out of gas.
Classical physics last gift to us was its successor, a theory that worked
better.

It's possible to explain the operation of a Quantum Computer without
resorting to the Many Worlds theory, but doing so is convoluted and difficult,
if you were to program such a machine I believe it would be more productive
to think not of one device but of trillions running in parallel. Of course
nobody has made a Quantum Computer, but I predict that if somebody ever does
then Many Worlds will become the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics
because it will be the easiest way to think about certain problems.

John K Clark johnkc@well.com

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