Re: Free will (was: Re: Nucleus Accumbens Transplant)

John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Sun, 6 Dec 1998 02:07:22 -0500

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Michael Lorrey <retroman@together.net>

>apparently nobody got the implications of the Transactional
>Interpretation till John Cramer's work in 1986 which demonstrated that given the
>apparent proof of the accuracy of Feynman's QED interpretation, then parallel
>universe theory is bunk.

Physicists believe in QED not because of philosophy but because it gives the correct answers. Feynman predicted in 1948 that the magnetic moment of an electron can't be exactly 1 as had been thought because it's effected by an infinite (and I mean infinite not just astronomical) number of virtual particles. He brilliantly figured out a way to calculate this effect and do so in a finite amount of time, he calculated it must be 1.00115965221 Amazingly, the best modern experiments give a figure of 1.00115965221 with an uncertainty of 3 in the last digit.

The trouble with Quantum mechanics isn't that it has no interpretation it's that it has too many and they all work. Everett's many world interpretation is consistent with all experimental results performed up to now, the same is true of John Cramer's Transactional Interpretation, or David Bohm's Pilot Wave Interpretation or Niels Boor's Copenhagen Interpretation. Which one is right? All of them? None of them?

Just for fun in the 1980's L David Raub polled 71 physicists if they thought in their gut the Many World's interpretation was true, 59% said yes, 18% no, 13% said maybe, Feynman said yes and so did Richard Hawking, Penrose said no ; not that this is something a vote can decide.

John K Clark jonkc@att.net

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