Related papers: The Observer Strikes Back
Quantum mechanics may be formulated as SENSIBLE QUANTUM MECHANICS (SQM) so that it contains nothing probabilistic, except, in a certain frequency sense, conscious perceptions. Sets of these perceptions can be deterministically realized with…
We revisit anthropic arguments purporting to explain the measured value of the cosmological constant. We argue that different ways of assigning probabilities to candidate universes lead to totally different anthropic predictions. As an…
When quantum mechanics was developed in the '20s of the last century another revolution in physics was just starting. It began with the discovery that the universe is expanding. For a long time quantum mechanics and cosmology developed…
Three observational tests of cosmological natural selection, a theory that follows from some hypotheses about quantum gravity, are described. If true, this theory explains the choices of the parameters of the standard model of particle…
A characteristical property of a classical physical theory is that the observables are real functions taking an exact outcome on every (pure) state; in a quantum theory, at the contrary, a given observable on a given state can take several…
In calculations of the probability distribution for the cosmological constant, it has been previously assumed that the a priori probability distribution is essentially constant in the very narrow range that is anthropically allowed. This…
The anthropic principle is an inevitable constraint on the space of possible theories. As such it is central to determining the limits of physics. In particular, we contend that what is ultimately possible in physics is determined by…
Weinberg et al. calculated the anthropic likelihood of the cosmological constant using a model assuming that the number of observers is proportional to the total mass of gravitationally collapsed objects, with mass greater than a certain…
A non-relativistic quantum mechanical theory is proposed that describes the universe as a continuum of worlds whose mutual interference gives rise to quantum phenomena. A logical framework is introduced to properly deal with propositions…
We show that anthropic selection emerges inevitably in the general framework for prediction in quantum cosmology. There the predictions of anthropic reasoning depend on the prior implied by the universe's quantum state. To illustrate this…
Contrary to an oft-made claim, there can be observational distinctions (say for the expansion of the universe or the cosmological constant) between "single-history" quantum theories and "many-worlds" quantum theories. The distinctions occur…
We propose an alternative anthropic probability for calculating the probabilities in eternal inflation. This anthropic probability follows naturally from the weak anthropic principle, and does not suffer the freak observer or the typicality…
How can quantum mechanics be (i) the fundamental theoretical framework of contemporary physics and (ii) a probability calculus that presupposes the events to which, and on the basis of which, it assigns probabilities? The question is…
The existence of multiple regions of space beyond the observable Universe (within the so-called "multiverse") where the vacuum energy density takes different values, has been postulated as an explanation for the low non-zero value observed…
We present a general theory of quantum information processing devices, that can be applied to human decision makers, to atomic multimode registers, or to molecular high-spin registers. Our quantum decision theory is a generalization of the…
A simple proof is given that the probabilities of observations in a large universe are not given directly by Born's rule as the expectation values of projection operators in a global quantum state of the entire universe. An alternative…
Anthropic reasoning is a critical tool to understand probabilities, especially in a large universe or multiverse. According to anthropic reasoning, we should consider ourselves typical among members of a reference class that must include…
The usage of the anthropic principle in modern cosmology is reviewed. It is argued that its recent use to explain the observedvalues of cosmological parameters as most probable values for an ensemble of universes, is not justified. However,…
Probabilities in quantum theory are traditionally given by Born's rule as the expectation values of projection operators. Here it is shown that Born's rule is insufficient in universes so large that they contain identical multiple copies of…
In 1929 Szilard pointed out that the physics of the observer may play a role in the analysis of experiments. The same year, Bohr pointed out that complementarity appears to arise naturally in psychology where both the objects of perception…