Related papers: Set Theory and Many Worlds
Set theory brought revolution to philosophy of mathematics and it can bring revolution to philosophy of physics too. All that stands in the way is the intuition that sets of physical objects cannot themselves be physical objects, which…
This is a discussion of how we can understand the world-view given to us by the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, and in particular the role played by the concept of `world'. The view presented is that we are entitled to use…
Objective probability in quantum mechanics is often thought to involve a stochastic process whereby an actual future is selected from a range of possibilities. Everett's seminal idea is that all possible definite futures on the pointer…
The interpretation of quantum mechanics is an area of increasing interest to many working physicists. In particular, interest has come from those involved in quantum computing and information theory, as there has always been a strong…
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum entanglement experiments is at best incomplete, since the intermediate state induced by collapse of the wave function apparently depends upon the inertial rest frame in which the experiment is…
In the many-worlds interpretations (MWIs) of Everett and others, if I am the observer, there are several versions of me but no version is singled out as the one corresponding to my perceptions. However, it can be shown that the probability…
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…
The status of the uncertainty relations varies between the different interpretations of quantum mechanics. The aim of the current paper is to explore their meanings within a certain neo-Everettian many worlds interpretation. We will also…
The Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) famously avoids the issue of wave function collapse. Different MWI trees representing the same quantum events can have different topologies, depending upon the observer. However, they are all isomorphic…
Everett suggested that there is no such thing as wavefunction collapse. He hypothesized that for an idealized spin measurement the apparatus evolves into a superposition on the pointer basis of two apparatuses, each displaying one of the…
The notion of objective probability or chance, as a physical trait of the world, has proved elusive; the identification of chances with actual frequencies does not succeed. An adequate theory of chance should explain not only the connection…
How can probabilities make sense in a deterministic many-worlds theory? We address two facets of this problem: why should rational agents assign subjective probabilities to branching events, and why should branching events happen with…
This is a tutorial for the many-worlds theory by Everett, which includes some of my personal views. It has two main parts.The first main part shows the emergence of many worlds in a universe consisting of only a Mach-Zehnder interferometer.…
Everett's many-worlds or multiverse theory is an attempt to find an alternative to the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Everett's theory is often claimed to be local in the Bell sense. Here, we show that this is not…
I make the case that the Universe according to unitary (no-collapse) quantum theory has a branching structure, and so can literally be regarded as a "many-worlds" theory. These worlds are not part of the fundamental ontology of quantum…
There is a compelling intellectual case for exploring whether purely unitary quantum theory defines a sensible and scientifically adequate theory, as Everett originally proposed. Many different and incompatible attempts to define a coherent…
Difficulties over probability have often been considered fatal to the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. Here I argue that the Everettian can have everything she needs from `probability' without recourse to indeterminism,…
Since the 1970s, the Everett-Wheeler many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of Quantum Mechanics (1955) has been much in the news. One wonders about the worlds in question, their branches, their splittings, their number. It is most often ignored…
We argue that the many-worlds of quantum mechanics and the many worlds of the multiverse are the same thing, and that the multiverse is necessary to give exact operational meaning to probabilistic predictions from quantum mechanics.…
Everett's Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics is discussed in the context of other physics disputes and other proposed kinds of parallel universes. We find that only a small fraction of the usual objections to Everett's theory…