Toribash
Originally Posted by Dalliance View Post
I was not, and am not, aguing either for nor against the validity of the interpretation. I was simply describing it.

The validity was implied, I was just making it clear that this is not a mainstream or accepted theory
Originally Posted by Gorman View Post
The validity was implied, I was just making it clear that this is not a mainstream or accepted theory

Fair enough.
Apparently there is a way to travel to alternate dimensions, but in my opinion its bs. It's supposedly called quantum jumping and I believe it has something to do with day dreaming.
http://www.quantumjumping.com/
no
As I understand it, Gorman's first counter argument implies determinism in physics. However according to Richar Feynman there is a certain amount of inherent randomness in quantum physics. I haven't studied enough of it to go further and develop but if you watch his lecture on Quantum Electrodynamics he gave in New Zeland (available on YouTube) he'll give you an excellent example of the randomness of the photons that bounce off of glass ; on a macroscopic scale, the photons that make you see your reflection while looking through certain windows.

However I (with my relatively limited knowledge of physics) find the theory to be a sort of reconciliation between the physics we experience and the one of the very small. Really it seems to merge from the instinctive repulsion people have with chance and probability and from a philosopher's mind (distinction: not a scientists). It's not solving a real problem, just a counter intuitive fact with a different (and maybe slightly more pleasing) counter intuitive idea.

It's the same as saying "the photons appear to bounce randomly but it's just because there are even smaller particles that we can't detect for some reason but they have a strict complex pattern that gets in the way of certain photons".

All that being said, I don't understand enough of your last source to tell if it's gibberish or if it gives more pertinent reasons for there to be a different world appearing every time you shine a LED on a pond. And after all, if there is a world where I chose ketchup instead of mustard on my hot dog, the one choosing ketchup is just as much "me" as anything. If multiple worlds start to merge at the beginning of the universe, then every possibility is covered and everything that could exist exists. If there is no beginning point to the growing tree of possibilities, there is an infinite number of other worlds (also covering the infinite number of possibilities). In any case everything exists but we can't interact with anything else. How is that different from there being no other world than ours?

The distinction could be made if interaction between worlds were possible but if it is then (since everything is possible), there would already be an astronomical (or infinite) number of worlds interacting back and forth with our world and in at least one scenario, we would be aware of it.

EDIT: an interesting subject nonetheless
Originally Posted by kt700 View Post
Apparently there is a way to travel to alternate dimensions, but in my opinion its bs. It's supposedly called quantum jumping and I believe it has something to do with day dreaming.
http://www.quantumjumping.com/

Quantum jumping is a scam on the same level as palm readers and predictions based on stars.

Originally Posted by Muffindo View Post
As I understand it, Gorman's first counter argument implies determinism in physics. However according to Richar Feynman there is a certain amount of inherent randomness in quantum physics. I haven't studied enough of it to go further and develop but if you watch his lecture on Quantum Electrodynamics he gave in New Zeland (available on YouTube) he'll give you an excellent example of the randomness of the photons that bounce off of glass ; on a macroscopic scale, the photons that make you see your reflection while looking through certain windows.

The determinism/free will argument isn't really applicable to this. The many-worlds interpretation is related to the universal wavefunction, the idea that there is a single wavefunction that the entirety of the universe follows, and that wavefunction collapse (the idea that all possible actualities are condensed to a single possibility in the eyes of an observer) is not objective reality. We already know that there is inherent randomness in the universe, work into Bell's theorem has shown this.

Originally Posted by Muffindo View Post
However I (with my relatively limited knowledge of physics) find the theory to be a sort of reconciliation between the physics we experience and the one of the very small. Really it seems to merge from the instinctive repulsion people have with chance and probability and from a philosopher's mind (distinction: not a scientists). It's not solving a real problem, just a counter intuitive fact with a different (and maybe slightly more pleasing) counter intuitive idea.

It isn't an attempt to reconcile anything. It is seen as a consequence of the two events that I explained above being true. If they are true, then the many-worlds interpretation would in all likelyhood be true. However, modern science is not even close to reconciling wave function collapse (the universal wavefunction has more or less been discredited entirely, at least for the moment) so research in many-worlds is non-existent.
Originally Posted by Muffindo View Post
As I understand it, Gorman's first counter argument implies determinism in physics. However according to Richar Feynman there is a certain amount of inherent randomness in quantum physics. I haven't studied enough of it to go further and develop but if you watch his lecture on Quantum Electrodynamics he gave in New Zeland (available on YouTube) he'll give you an excellent example of the randomness of the photons that bounce off of glass ; on a macroscopic scale, the photons that make you see your reflection while looking through certain windows.

It isn't an implication, that was my argument.

Any observed randomness is actually predictable, just not by us.
gorman, you are making a statement based on your own perceived experience rather than on verifiable fact. you have lived your life so far in an environment which appeared to be entirely deterministic, and thus cannot conceive of the possibility that the reality around you finds its basis in random occurences. however, quantum mechanics, which has seen work from some of the world's greatest minds (feynmen, heisenberg, and all those guys) would suggest that that is indeed the case. unless you have an alternative theory that holds up as well as this one, i'm afraid you are going to have to accept it for now as being the best explanation we have.
u mad tho :)
Originally Posted by Shmibs View Post
gorman, you are making a statement based on your own perceived experience rather than on verifiable fact. you have lived your life so far in an environment which appeared to be entirely deterministic, and thus cannot conceive of the possibility that the reality around you finds its basis in random occurences. however, quantum mechanics, which has seen work from some of the world's greatest minds (feynmen, heisenberg, and all those guys) would suggest that that is indeed the case. unless you have an alternative theory that holds up as well as this one, i'm afraid you are going to have to accept it for now as being the best explanation we have.

I don't have to 'just accept it', especially when you don't even try to explain it or cite. Besides, this is a subject that is still up for debate. Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen all argued for determinism. Also, the Schrodinger equation of QM is deterministic. QM is only random if you treat it like classical physics, since they cannot cope with it.
Last edited by Gorman; Sep 8, 2011 at 03:16 AM.
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Originally Posted by Gorman View Post
I don't have to 'just accept it', especially when you don't even try to explain it or cite. Besides, this is a subject that is still up for debate. Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen all argued for determinism. Also, the Schrodinger equation of QM is deterministic. QM is only random if you treat it like classical physics, since they cannot cope with it.

Bell's theorem contradicts Hidden Variable Theory and has more experimental and mathematical evidence to back it up. Also, Max Born's work into probability amplitute showed that the Schrodinger equation may be proof of a probabilistic universe (his interpretation of the wave function, ψ).
Originally Posted by Dalliance View Post
Bell's theorem contradicts Hidden Variable Theory and has more experimental and mathematical evidence to back it up. Also, Max Born's work into probability amplitute showed that the Schrodinger equation may be proof of a probabilistic universe (his interpretation of the wave function, ψ).

Schroedinger said that his support of the randomness of QM was his biggest mistake.

In the end I still think that a deterministic approach will prevail, although at the moment there is certainly more evidence for a probabilistic universe.
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