Are world counts incoherent in Everett interpretations?

[RobinHanson]

Still, there is something that bothers me. The extra branching process could happen later than the coinflip, right? In that case, you're letting probabilities be influenced by events that happen later in time. Does that make sense?

I don't see a problem with it.

 

[Ontoplankton]

according to the APP/outcome counting, if the extra branching process happens later than the coinflip, then the extra process does not influence the probability that the coinflip comes up heads or tails

If post-experiment branching doesn't matter, then isn't that already enough to complete the erasure proof in section 8?

 

[Ontoplankton]

Quantum Arson: You can win the lottery by resolving to burn a lot of stuff if you win, because that will generate a lot of entropy, so it will have happened in more worlds.

 

[straycat]

FYI, in the latest issue of the British Journal of the Philosophy of Science, Hillay Putnam has an article http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/56/4/615" , wherein he rejects the many worlds view because of the conflict between world counting and the Born rule.

Unfortunately, Wash U does not have an online subscription to BJPS .

D

 

[straycat]

Quantum Arson: You can win the lottery by resolving to burn a lot of stuff if you win, because that will generate a lot of entropy, so it will have happened in more worlds.

No, this wouldn't work, because the APP, as I understand it, is transitive.

David

 

[straycat]

I've started a new thread on a different but (obviously) closely related topic to this one.

"Attempts to make the Born rule "emerge" explicitly from outcome counting"

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=101982

If the Born rule can be made to emerge explicitly from world counts, then that would be an "existence proof" to the claim that the title-question of this thread is: no!



David