The Born Ultimatum
Hello folks, I'm going to try something different here. The immediate purpose is to provide an outlet for those who want to continue the debate from Chad Orzel's post on the Born Rule in quantum mechanics. A very good reason for continuing elsewhere: comments there are closed now! This post is also for anyone just interested in that subject, and in particular whether we can properly derive the BR from the many-worlds concept.
Well, quantum mechanics is weird so this post will work in a weird way: I first just make this basic outline of the purpose. Then, as time goes on, I will update the post substantially (not just the customary corrections and minor addenda.) So, it will grow along with comments and the development of my thoughts. However, I will put and retain a demarcation line below to show where my initial contribution ended.
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Well, quantum mechanics is weird so this post will work in a weird way: I first just make this basic outline of the purpose. Then, as time goes on, I will update the post substantially (not just the customary corrections and minor addenda.) So, it will grow along with comments and the development of my thoughts. However, I will put and retain a demarcation line below to show where my initial contribution ended.
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posted by Neil Bates at 20:28
3 Comments:
Just to respond to this:
Maybe you can start by explaining how you get infinities of effective "branches" out of a binary choice or finite combinations of same.
You can't, as far as I know! You have to have infinite combinations of binary choices.
But you have to have infinite combinations anyway, before you can talk about the Born rule being satisfied or violated. (Or before I can talk about it, anyway. Bayesians can talk about it as much as they want, but I don't think I'll understand them.)
Anton, I'll get back to this but for now: the problem of "branching" and yielding of 50/50 probability instead of the Born Rule is widely recognized as a baseline problem that needs fixing by some kind of fiddling. It certainly isn't brushed off as a non-issue, even if many folks think it can be solved.
Yeah, I don't think anyone's yet produced a generally accepted derivation of the Born Rule. That said, I personally haven't seen many math/physics people argue that 50/50 probabilities are a more logical consequence of MWI--but I haven't exactly taken a poll!
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