seeds wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2019 3:48 amI suggest that Everett’s “Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics” is perhaps the most ridiculous theory in existence (at least in terms of theories that are actually taken seriously by physicists).
That being said, I’d be interested in hearing why you think it might possibly be true.
Er, well because I cannot think of a reason why it's impossible, I suppose. If you take the Faraday quote in the OP seriously, and I do, then "Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature..." The Schrödinger equation is a brilliant description of everything we know happens and as Schrödinger himself said the different outcomes are "not alternatives but all really happen simultaneously".
For all I know, those Hippy physicists you thought could rub me up the wrong way might be right. So might you. So might Atla - Schrödinger was a very experimental thinker and looked seriously at stuff like the Vedas. The study of reality is this magical playground; the fact that there is anything at all is indistinguishable from a miracle. So is the fact that this bonkers stuff can organise itself into living things. So is the fact that at least some configurations are conscious. I mean, how the fuck did that happen?
Ultimately the choices we make are based on our background and education, but the final decision is aesthetic - generally people who haven't had some bullshit hammered into them since childhood will pick a philosophy because it has some 'fittingness', to use a Kantian term - it suits them. Some people like swings, some like roundabouts and some people get proper arsey if you suggest you can play on both. (Fundamentally, this is what Thomas Kuhn was saying in 1962, here's the article wot I wrote about him for the current edition of Philosophy Now
https://philosophynow.org/issues/131/Th ... _1922-1996)
So what happens when you play with many worlds? Well, it just depends where you want to go. Suppose for instance some fruitloop tells you that some god of theirs is infinite. Oh yeah? Call that infinite? Try this on for size: every possible quantum event that could ever have happened, actually happened. Everything that could have happened to you did, and it's all out there. Maybe when we shuffle off this mortal coil we are released into the garden, because somewhere in there is the world in which you discover the cure for death and live forever and ever, Amen.
Is that impossible? Not as far as I can tell. But if anyone tells you they know that it's true, back away slowly and look for something heavy to hit them over the head with.
The book this thread is about, as Greta quite rightly pointed out, is simply a composition of the most mainstream models that physicists currently use. I don't pretend to know how reality really works, but it's a fucking trip.
seeds wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2019 3:48 am(Btw, thanks for the nice history lesson.)
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Hey man; peace.