Don Page - Many Worlds of Quantum Theory

Quantum theory is very strange. No act is wholly sure. Everything works by probabilities, described by a wave function. But what is a wavefunction? One theory is that every possibility is in fact a real world of sorts. This is the Many Worlds interpretation of Hugh Everett and what it claims boggles the brain. You can't imagine how many worlds there would be.



Don N. Page is a Canadian theoretical physicist at the University of Alberta, Canada.


Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[mynameispaul]

This is sooo far above my pay grade and also I'm so high righ now.

[bajajones]

ask a Yogi. it would be enjoyable to balance your presentations (full length) with some Eastern thought.

[jamesruscheinski]

When roll a pair of dice an infinite number of times, will come out with calculated probability distribution; as compared to rolling a pair of dice a dozen times, in which the distribution will likely be more skewed from the calculated probability? The fewer times the pair of dice are rolled, the further the distribution is likely to be from the calculated probability?

[jamesruscheinski]

Would the many worlds of quantum mechanics be similar to multiple universes in the cosmos?

[jamesruscheinski]

If another world every planck unit of time, does the same me experience each planck time world, or have there been hundreds or thousands of orders of magnitude versions of me, one with each world?

[jamesruscheinski]

Does the wave function of many worlds contain the past and future?

[Meditation]

The Theological Approach to the Many Worlds View totally ruins the Theory. Its fouls up the actual concept of Many Worlds. I give it a definite thumbs down.

[jamessmith]

God has a wild imagination but He's not crazy.

[markbricklin]

Closer to truth...or closer to insanity??

[thomasridley]

I do have one question on a multi reality ?
Where does the energy to support such a system comes from ?
It can't come from nothing.
That would seem to be a limiting factor.

[compellingpoint]

First off, I have to tell you that this line of thinking is doomed. The Copenhagen interpretation and many worlds are close but in the end they both suffer from the same fatal flaw.

All that either theory has to explain are the results of observations. What they fail to address is why those observations occur in the first place. Why do we perceive what we do? How does consciousness emerge from brain activity?

The truth is that neither theory can answer these questions because both are merely tools to analyze what we observe, not the source of those observations. We have no way of knowing why things appear as they do.

The many worlds theory is a radical departure from the Copenhagen interpretation. It has an answer to why we see what we do: every possibility that could be observed becomes an actuality in its own right.

But if every possibility exists then everything, including the human race as we know it, must exist. Every possible permutation of our society must have occurred at some point in time and space.

What does this mean? Does it have any bearing on reality as we know it? The answer is simple: no. Of course not.

[Bill..N]

Mr Page has a brilliant perspective on the expansiveness of God RELATIVE to more common theistic beliefs..He's likely STILL wrong about that part, but it doesn't demenish the STRENGTH of Hugh Everett's Theory..Many worlds makes all the predictions of the Copenhagen interpretation with a simpler equation that removes the parts based on biased and ASSUMPTIVE knowledge..One opinion..

[jamesruscheinski]

Do the many quantum worlds exist in the same universe? If same universe, would be more than one in universe, perhaps at different times. The many quantum worlds could branch off at different times, with many existing but at different times. Maybe there are infinite others of each person just split seconds away. Scary thought.

[litafbobpompeani]

Lmao watch this drunk and you will be scared as hell without kknowing what is going onn. This was lit yet terrifying at the same time.

[jadhabash]

Hugh evertt theiry is correct there is lot lot of worlds and we have choose between them this is freedom of will every world is a 2d sheet hologram and the soul choose between them

[dennistucker]

Quantum Mechanics is so misunderstood. The "Many Worlds" thing was one of the biggest stupid attempts to explain observations without a shred of confirmation.

[ingenuity]

So everyone has billions of chances of going to heaven and hell. Interesting. Is this a joke?

[klausantitheistbolvig]

Simplicity is the key. Adding more and more to describe nature is ugly and I hope it’s wrong like inflation. Such a bad hypothesis. I wonder. Remember inflations isn’t confirmed! Go and study niel turec hypotheses and theory. And return.

[dustinellerbe]

Keep exposing these weak contradictory ideologies.

[xspotbox]

Universe is constructed incredibly simple. Anybody can take a lump of dirt in his hand and grind it with his fingers, to smudge it into tinny grains. We can see those grains are moist and sticky. When dirt is dry, grains doesn't glue together, but they do fall to the grounds much like water would and form a puddle of sand at the bottom. How can it be more simple than that?
So why are those people talking about extra dimensions and mystical forces, it's because nothing we experience or observe is in 3D. Well, reality just isn't like that, it's 4D, all the way down. But what does a 4D mean, things we can see around have height, width and length, so they already contain sense of volume. Space is also a 3D container or 3D objects inside wouldn't fit in. Things move around, they can't just warp from here to there, must gradually overcome 3D geometry landscape, so time emerge from that motion.
Problem is, space is not a thing, it's nothing, doesn't have any dimension at all. More over, whatever object we place inside volume of nothing, empty space will just adjust to those attributes and it will appear as space was always integral part of dimension. What do we mean by space anyway, it's distance between objects with finite sizes.
Now things get really complicated, things doesn't just move but also emit and absorb something we call energy, in matter of fact, this is why everything must move at all times. So somebody might say, OK, objects are glowing and this glow is like resistance, energy flow forms invisible bridges between objects, like they can get pulled or pushed over those energetic pathways. Enter gravity, energy and space are not the same thing. Things have this property called mass, it also radiate a glow of some kind around objects, but not like energy does, space itself became a force because of that phenomena. It's like distance between object became alive somehow, tracking not how things look like but how massive they are inside. It doesn't mean heavy, mass is a reaction of empty space to object's substance. Weight is emergent property, like very heavy things can float on top of very light things, like iron ships on water. They can float because of weight distribution inside stuff, but their mass always stay the same and weight doesn't affect how space is bent. This is why a hammer and a feather fall at same rate at moon's surface, they both have different mass, but this difference in negligible compared to a mass of a moon. Difference in hammer's and feather's mass became important when objects move inside a strong gravitational field, weight emerge from motion and actions inside curved space, bent by mass of all objects. Earth and everything that is made of is a very heavy object, but negligible compared to a mass of entire solar system, that weight nothing compared to a mass of entire galaxy, that is negligible compared to a mass of entire universe. This is what gravity means in reality, empty space is not what we can experience locally, every distance out there is shaped by mass, contained inside every single particle in existence. Gravity is like a fluid that permeate everything, it can't be blocked or cut off, can't be tempered with in any way, because everything we know exist contain same mass property, therefore gravity is something we call dimension of space time. It's not same as 3D property of everything we see exist, it's a special dimension.
One thing only connect space time with 3D objects, matter can't move faster than light, so empty space can't move faster either. Energy is bounded by speed of wave frequencies and interference's, it seems like those energetic interactions make dimension of space time behave in same manner. And this is due to very essence of all massive objects, matter is made from energetic phenomena deep inside, so energy itself is the reason for time to pass the way it does.

All this is important for short summary i want to make, what happens if we could freeze entire universe to a standstill? All massive particles would look like tinny dots, radiating glowing spheres to eternity. Those spheres of influence intersect and those intersections is how space time really looks like. It must be very pure and elegant shape, since it's made from infinetelly small dots, radiating space itself in perfect circles around them. Intersecting parts form pisca and bulges, forming landscape on which energy will travel.
And this is the core of a problem, if we release pause and set universe to motion again, those dots will start to spiral around, reshaping landscape in the process, that forcing energy to stretch and bend in all directions. Spheres doesn't have any sides of preference, they look the same no matter how we turn a ball around, it's like ball exist in only 2 dimensions, since we can't move up and down on it's surface. No height means one dimension is missing from empty space volume also. It gets even worst, dots are not balls at all, they doesn't have any external sizes, this means nothing inside a dot can move sideways or upwards. We are left with only 1 dimension and this is exactly how empty space really is. Therefore motion give rise to dimensional appearance, volumetric objects emerge from interference's and interaction with empty space.
Why are things the way we can observe them, sphere's interact from all sides, we are not those dots but interference of energetic waves those dots make, in space time caused by their property of mass. Therefore there must be many ways or modes how those orbs of potentials we call particles interact, one pathway is shaped in form of us, but this is just one possible vector of channeled force. What happens with the rest of it, can those spheres of matter interact only in this way we call reality or they expand to infinity, causing all kinds of space time realities. It's like asking if something happens on one side of a planet, does this event effect reality of people on other side? One thing we know it does, we call passage of light day and night.