I Multiverse theory -- Why don't strange things happen here sometimes?

rolnor
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Why is our universe always so "normal"??
If I have a brittle piece of rock and hit it with a hammer, can a round ball split of in some universe, verses in our universe a piece with rugged ends always form? If so, why do we always, in our universe seem to get "expected" results? Why dont strange things happen here sometimes? Why is our universe so "normal" if there is always a chance of strange things happening? Edit: There is no "our universe", its the universe I am experiencing I mean.
 
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This seems to be a question about the MWI, since that is the only QM interpretation in which a kind of "multiverse" appears (multiple branches of the wave function that don't interfere with each other). Is that what you want to discuss?
 
Strange things do happen here sometimes. What would be the signature of an "appropriately strange" event?
 
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PeterDonis said:
This seems to be a question about the MWI, since that is the only QM interpretation in which a kind of "multiverse" appears (multiple branches of the wave function that don't interfere with each other). Is that what you want to discuss?
Yes. Thanx
 
hutchphd said:
Strange things do happen here sometimes. What would be the signature of an "appropriately strange" event?
But the world we experience mostly seems to follow logic? The same logic year by year? If this is not true, what examples do you have where it does not follow logic? If someone is born without arms, this is due to DNA-damage, not quantum processes?
 
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rolnor said:
But the world we experience mostly seems to follow logic?
Hmm, I'd say that "logic" can sometimes be in the eyes of the beholder. E.g. some may see relativity (just an example off the top of my hat) as illogical, while others may see it as logical.
rolnor said:
The same logic year by year? If this is not true, what examples do you have where it does not follow logic?
I'd say there are a number of things in quantum mechanics that could by some be viewed as illogical, e.g. that fundamental (edit addition: individual) quantum processes are/seem to be completely random.
 
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Yes, but the outcome of these quantum events does not give rise to "strange things" on earth? Our universe should also "take strange ways" just as the "other" universes that are fantasised about? If my skin turned green in five years time, this would be "strange", science would have a hard time to explain this and there are no such reports in history that this has happened? really nothing in history seems to completely defy logic, maybe the building of the pyramids is hard to explain, but that is one of the few things that really deffy logic, at least according to some people?
 
rolnor said:
If my skin turned green in five years time, this would be "strange", science would have a hard time to explain this and there are no such reports in history that this has happened?
It's not hard to explain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypochromic_anemia
rolnor said:
really nothing in history seems to completely defy logic,
Nothing defies the laws of physics, that is the only relevant thing to focus on.
Logic is an ambiguous term.

rolnor said:
maybe the building of the pyramids is hard to explain, but that is one of the few things that really deffy logic, at least according to some people?
Well we have a pretty standard explanation for the pyramids, not that fascinating.
Yes you can always find people who have a hard time grasping even basic stuff. The imporant thing is just not the generelize one's own lack of knowledge to everyone else.
 
Motore said:
It's not hard to explain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypochromic_anemia

Nothing defies the laws of physics, that is the only relevant thing to focus on.
Logic is an ambiguous term.Well we have a pretty standard explanation for the pyramids, not that fascinating.
Yes you can always find people who have a hard time grasping even basic stuff. The imporant thing is just not the generelize one's own lack of knowledge to everyone else.
I do not generalize, mere say that the building of the pyramids are under debate.
 
  • #10
rolnor said:
I do not generalize, mere say that the building of the pyramids are under debate.
And "we" whos are that?
 
  • #11
rolnor said:
I do not generalize, mere say that the building of the pyramids are under debate.
Maybe my example with green skin is not the best, lets say blue skin instead.
 
  • #12
rolnor said:
I do not generalize, mere say that the building of the pyramids are under debate.
Well the details of the construction are under debate, but otherwise:
Most of the construction hypotheses are based on the belief that huge stones were carved from quarries with copper chisels, and these blocks were then dragged and lifted into position. Disagreements chiefly concern the methods used to move and place the stones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramid_construction_techniques

rolnor said:
Maybe my example with green skin is not the best, lets say blue skin instead.
Sure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria
 
  • #13
To move 80ton granit beams up the slope of Ceops, thats not a small thing...
 
  • #15
Motore said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramid_construction_techniques#Ramps
"Some researchers suggest" This is from your reference, the wiki. Its under debate, its not proven anything. And I am not discussing this anymore, its not relevant to the topic. OK?
1692173105957.png
 
  • #16
rolnor said:
"Some researchers suggest" This is from your reference, the wiki. Its under debate, its not proven anything. And I am not discussing this anymore, its not relevant to the topic. OK?
View attachment 330614
I am just asking the forum a question, I am not claiming that I am right in anyway. I just want to understand the MVT better
 
  • #17
Sure the details are not agreed upon, but the method is. And if there is not enough evidence to determine those details that is a matter of evidence not logic. I don't see what your point is and we already veered way off topic now. Their constructon does not in any way defy logic or physical laws.
 
  • #18
The MWI says that if you have a wavefunction and perform a measurement, let's say you measure the spin of the particle to be up, than you are on the branch (world) of the wavefunction where the spin is measured to be up. Another version of you that measured spin down is on the other branch (world). Everything still works acording to the physical laws, so this is a limitation. Nothing can happen in any world (branch) that could defy the laws of physics.
 
  • #19
Thats good, that means that "anything" is not possible, this is often statet in popular science. It greatly reduces what can happen then. Thanx! I was right, popular science, again, is BS.
 
  • #20
One thing, does that mean that the big bang "must" be the same in all universes? the laws of physics must be the same? that also limits what is possible, if the start is very similar?
 
  • #21
Because the observable world is fully classical. Or even better - fully clasically-equivalent based in quanta. This is why airplanes fly, boats float, ricks fall down, etc. It's just that if you want to explore how it all works down there, there is a limit to what can be known with precision after a certain limit which at presents sits at around 2nm(from processor industry finding). After it, the world starts fighting back turning to quantum mode and the particles become akin to probabilities. This limit on knowledge and what can be inferred about quanta is fundamental and cannot be overcome.
The way nature hides what can be known, suggests that there aren't trillion worlds and that the MWI is likely wrong.
 
  • #22
rolnor said:
Yes, but the outcome of these quantum events does not give rise to "strange things" on earth? Our universe should also "take strange ways" just as the "other" universes that are fantasised about? If my skin turned green in five years time, this would be "strange", science would have a hard time to explain this and there are no such reports in history that this has happened? really nothing in history seems to completely defy logic, maybe the building of the pyramids is hard to explain, but that is one of the few things that really deffy logic, at least according to some people?
Well, the outcome of an experiment is often not strange at all. E.g., if you do a Stern-Gerlach experiment, then it's not stranger that the Ag atom is measured to have spin up than it is that it's found to have spin down. It's just prepared in a state before the experiment, where this is indetermined before the measurement is done.

The only thing which I find puzzling with the MWI is, why all of us experience obviously the same "branch of the universe". Also why don't I spontaneously experience a jump to another branch, i.e., I wake up one day and everything is at least slightly changed from yesterday?
 
  • #23
GarberMoisha said:
Because the observable world is fully classical. Or even better - fully clasically-equivalent based in quanta. This is why airplanes fly, boats float, ricks fall down, etc. It's just that if you want to explore how it all works down there, there is a limit to what can be known with precision after a certain limit which at presents sits at around 2nm(from processor industry finding). After it, the world starts fighting back turning to quantum mode and the particles become akin to probabilities. This limit on knowledge and what can be inferred about quanta is fundamental and cannot be overcome.
The way nature hides what can be known, suggests that there aren't trillion worlds and that the MWI is likely wrong.
This envokes the quantum-classical cut a la some flavors of the Copenhagen interpretations. This is also highly dissatisfying, because there's not the slightest hint that such a cut really exists in Nature. To the contrary better and better measurements reveal "quantum behavior" at larger and larger macroscopic systems.
 
  • #24
vanhees71 said:
This envokes the quantum-classical cut a la some flavors of the Copenhagen interpretations. This is also highly dissatisfying, because there's not the slightest hint that such a cut really exists in Nature. To the contrary better and better measurements reveal "quantum behavior" at larger and larger macroscopic systems.

The microprocessor industry has been dealing with the cut for a decade.
 
  • #25
GarberMoisha said:
The microprocessor industry has been dealing with the cut for a decade.
Does that mean that the "strange" things" are something seen i the quantum world, not the classical world? There will not be universes where the earth is made of icecream?
 
  • #26
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  • #27
GarberMoisha said:
The microprocessor industry has been dealing with the cut for a decade.
Can you explain what you mean by that? Semiconductors are described by QT. You cannot describe them with classical mechanics.
 
  • #28
rolnor said:
Does that mean that the "strange" things" are something seen i the quantum world, not the classical world? There will not be universes where the earth is made of icecream?

Yes, it suggests that there are likely no such universes
 
  • #29
vanhees71 said:
Well, the outcome of an experiment is often not strange at all. E.g., if you do a Stern-Gerlach experiment, then it's not stranger that the Ag atom is measured to have spin up than it is that it's found to have spin down. It's just prepared in a state before the experiment, where this is indetermined before the measurement is done.

The only thing which I find puzzling with the MWI is, why all of us experience obviously the same "branch of the universe". Also why don't I spontaneously experience a jump to another branch, i.e., I wake up one day and everything is at least slightly changed from yesterday?
Yes, thats interesting, our consciousnesses seem to follow the same line of universe. I think this is a indication that there are only one universe. Not a proof, but an indication.
 
  • #30
vanhees71 said:
Can you explain what you mean by that? Semiconductors are described by QT. You cannot describe them with classical mechanics.
See post 26
 
  • #31
vanhees71 said:
The only thing which I find puzzling with the MWI is, why all of us experience obviously the same "branch of the universe".
This branch version of me and this branch version of you experience the same branch, but you cannot interfere with another branch where there is already (in parallel) a different version of me and a different version of you.

The same as the spin up of the Ag atom, cannot suddenly become the spin down.
 
  • #32
GarberMoisha said:
Tunneling limits the minimum size of devices used in microelectronics because electrons tunnel readily through insulating layers and transistors that are thinner than about 1 nm
https://semiengineering.com/quantum-effects-at-7-5nm/
That the more underlines the fact that QT is the right way to describe semicondutors, not classical mechanics/electrodynamics.
 
  • #33
Motore said:
This branch version of me and this branch version of you experience the same branch, but you cannot interfere with another branch where there is already (in parallel) a different version of me and a different version of you.

The same as the spin up of the Ag atom, cannot suddenly become the spin down.
An that's just by an additional assumption of the MWI proponents?
 
  • #34
vanhees71 said:
That the more underlines the fact that QT is the right way to describe semicondutors, not classical mechanics/electrodynamics.

And that if you can infer the dynamics with precision, nature fights back with the full arsenal of quantum behaviour.
 
  • #35
GarberMoisha said:
Yes, it suggests that there are likely no such universes
Thanx, I feel better now.
 
  • #36
vanhees71 said:
An that's just by an additional assumption of the MWI proponents?
I am not sure if it's an asumption, it just follows from unitarity of the wavefunction. I am no expert so for details you should really take a look at an MWI paper (if you are interested).
 
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  • #37
That would be interesting. Do you know a paper, where this is demonstrated using unitary time evolution?
 
  • #38
Not off the top of my head, but is should be in most of the papers about MWI. This is one thing the MWI is known for, to preserve the unitary time evolution (eg. no collapse).
 
  • #39
One thing, the physical world, such that we experince, is often about chemistry. Our thoghts are managed by synapses and transmittor substanses. these processes are not affected by waht spin a certain carbon atom in dopamine has? Or what spin an electron in a orbital in that atom has? So how does the quantum processes really change anything in the physical world?
 
  • #40
rolnor said:
Our thoghts are managed by synapses and transmittor substanses. these processes are not affected by waht spin a certain carbon atom in dopamine has?
No. In my opinion to explain any bilogical proccess you don't need QM.

rolnor said:
So how does the quantum processes really change anything in the physical world?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications_of_quantum_mechanics
 
  • #42
rolnor said:
Thanx! It really boils down to that most things will be the same in the "other" universes?
I think so. But as we cannot acces other universes (if they exist) we cannot and will never know.
 
  • #43
rolnor said:
One thing, the physical world, such that we experince, is often about chemistry. Our thoghts are managed by synapses and transmittor substanses. these processes are not affected by waht spin a certain carbon atom in dopamine has? Or what spin an electron in a orbital in that atom has? So how does the quantum processes really change anything in the physical world?
All processes are fundamentally quantum. The open question is how they become classical, how does nature pull this trick. Because we observe an orderly, intuitive world which seems classical, but is not.
To whatever problem you have, even biological or medical, you will find a classical physics explnation.
Neurotransimitters mediate electrical circuits which are perceived as "classical". They can shift a neural circuit based on electrical conductivity and make you a schizophrenic. The number of your dopamine receptors in your brain cells determine what your thoughts will be wrt to mood, excitement, pleasure, obsession. Or insanity if they get too many.
Entirely classical process. Or as far as classical physics goes, which is a subset of the quantum.
 
  • #44
GarberMoisha said:
All processes are fundamentally quantum. The open question is how they become classical, how does nature pull this trick. Because we observe an orderly, intuitive world which seems classical, but is not.
To whatever problem you have, even biological or medical, you will find a classical physics explnation.
Neurotransimitters mediate electrical circuits which are perceived as "classical". They can shift a neural circuit based on electrical conductivity and make you a schizophrenic. The number of your dopamine receptors in your brain cells determine what your thoughts will be wrt to mood, excitement, pleasure, obsession. Or insanity if they get too many.
Entirely classical process. Or as far as classical physics goes, which is a subset of the quantum.
Thanx! Now we are getting somewhere. If we dont know how the Q-world affects the C-world, we dont know anything about the other universes, do we? Schizofrenia is a consequence of severe childhood trauma, the symptoms are increased dopamine activite, not the reason for it. According to many psycotherapists. its under debate.
 
  • #46
rolnor said:
Thanx! Now we are getting somewhere. If we dont know how the Q-world affects the C-world, we dont know anything about the other universes, do we? Schizofrenia is a consequence of severe childhood trauma, the symptoms are increased dopamine activite, not the reason for it. According to many psycotherapists. its under debate.

Not always, there are people who have never had childhood trauma who get schizophrenia. Which means it is not the cause. Stress certainly plays a part, as prolonged high level of cortisol causes neural damage(neuropathy). The driver of schizophrenia is an adverse autoimmune attack on enzymes that participate in the building of neutrotransmitters(I have dealt with such people for over a decade and have a close friend who is a professor psychiatrist and have open access to patients). Your neurotransmitters need to be within a specific threshold to perceive this reality as normal people do. Out of this range, birds start commenting in human language as you pass by them and you "hear" them talking(hallucinate).
This has a bearing on the current thread only as much as perception goes and how consistant it is. That schizophrenics don't agree on a single perceived reality as we normal people do, proves their distorted realities are bogus and not real. But they see and experience something that appears like a different world(reality).
Back to quantum physics. The brain does not need quantum mechanics. So far at least, there is no indication that quantum behavior, which is just nature preventing certain kind of knowledge, plays any part in brain's activity.
 
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  • #47
GarberMoisha said:
Not always, there are people who have never had childhood trauma who get schizophrenia. Which means it is not the cause. Stress certainly plays a part, as prolonged high level of cortisol causes neural damage(neuropathy). The driver of schizophrenia is an adverse autoimmune attack on enzymes that participate in the building of neutrotransmitters(I have dealt with such people for over a decade and have a close friend who is a professor psychiatrist and have open access to patients). Your neurotransmitters need to be within a specific threshold to perceive this reality as normal people do. Out of this range, birds start commenting in human language as you pass by them and you "hear" them talking(hallucinate).
This has a bearing on the current thread only as much as perception goes and how consistant it is. That schizophrenics don't agree on a single perceived reality as we normal people do, proves their distorted realities are bogus and not real. But they see and experience something that appears like a different world(reality).
Back to quantum physics. The brain does not need quantum mechanics. So far at least, there is no indication that quantum behavior, which is just nature preventing certain kind of knowledge, plays any part in brain's activity.
Thanx, that says a lot about what changes could be found i the "alternate universes" mentioned in popular science. I have a psycosis illness myself and has studied litterature and gone in therapy fo 8years and to large degree feel well today. What you say is what psychiatrists say, no psycoanalysts. My mother has cronic psycosis and is not a very nice person, she has no friends whatsoever. Its a emotional problem, a consequence of bad parenting, not a neurotransmittor problem. My two brothers also suffer from mental illness. And my mother was physicaly abused as a child,
 
  • #48
rolnor said:
Why is our universe so "normal" if there is always a chance of strange things happening?
Strange things don't happen because their probability is too small. Typically, expectation time needed for them to happen is many orders of magnitude larger than the age of the universe.
 
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  • #49
Demystifier said:
Strange things don't happen because their probability is too small. Typically, expectation time needed for them to happen is many orders of magnitude larger than the age of the universe.
OK, that means that the popscience idéas are wrong, D.Trump does not become president of Finland in some universe.
 
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  • #50
rolnor said:
OK, that means that the popscience idéas are wrong, D.Trump does not become president of Finland in some universe.
Maybe he does, but then other circumstances in the other universe are also different, so that it doesn't look so strange after all.
 

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