From: scerir (scerir@libero.it)
Date: Wed Jan 08 2003 - 10:41:40 MST
[Hal Finney]
<And to close the circle, if everything exists it doesn't
make sense to ask whether existence is better than non-existence,
because there is no such thing as non-existence. It may still
be possible to do as in the case of the MWI and define a "measure"
function over the entities that exist, and then to work in terms
of probabilities for these entities, in terms of what fraction of
the "multiverse" they occupy.>
Lev Vaidman wrote that we must care about all our 'successive'
worlds in proportion to their measures of existence [Behavior
Principle]. He does not agree to play the 'quantum Russian
roulette' because the measure of existence of worlds with
himself dead (or poor) is be much larger than the measure
of existence of the worlds with himself alive (and rich!).
But is the MWI weird enough to hold, to keep 'everything'?
Let us take Feynman 'literaly'. A particle moves from a point
to another along 'all possible' paths, with the least action
path of classical mechanics being the classical limit. Let us
allow particles to go both directions in time. For all paths,
to be visualized as happening simultaneously, we 'might' have
a particle going 'back and forth in time', along these paths.
All Feynman paths contribute to a single event. With time reversal,
we can 'see' how this can happen in reality.
Now let us talk about the famous 'double slit' interference
experiment. We can say that a particle (photon, electron, neutron,
and the C-60-fullerene) goes through one slit, then goes 'back
in time' through the same slit, and then forward through the other
slit.
Thus, we can imagine the 'same' photon as appearing 'simultaneously'
at both slits. In Feynman diagrams all contribute to a single event.
With time reversal, we can visualize how this can happen in 'reality'.
The above is - in principle - a different weird possibility.
[Hal Finney]
<Another reason has to do with the anthropic principle. [...].
It seems that you need some foundation of multiple universes
like this to invoke the anthropic principle, otherwise it doesn't
really have explanatory value.>
I agree. But 'if' MWI requires 'in principle' an observer, can we
use the antropic principle within the MWI? Is not that a tautology?
s.
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