All five dimensions (three space, one time, one probability) exist as a solid unchanging block, an enormous, incomprehensible overarching solution to some equally enormous, incomprehensible mathematical equation.
And if you look at it from one particular direction it almost certainly looks like forty-two.
It’s a fairly common trope in science fiction, and might even be science fact. The idea is that realities split from every decision point, some we’re aware of and some - due to quantum fluctuations - we’re not. Indeed, it might only be the quantum weirdness that’s valid and human decisions are merely emergent phenomena.
If you take a look at any quantum experiment, you get things like particles interfering with themselves and apparently appearing in many places at once. Tissue thin neighbouring universes along some probability axis interfering with each other, one for each possible position of a particle, would explain what’s known as the “many worlds interpretation”. The MWI doesn’t talk about a probability axis though. That’s the fictional part until proven otherwise.
It would still be a dimension even if things were more discrete though. Like, separately identifiable parallel universes where no intermediates exist. Hopping from one to the other could still be interpreted as moving within some extra dimension, and there’s nothing really stopping us from calling that probability.
\1) Even the creator of MWI, Hugh Everett, agreed that wavefunction is relative and wrote a paper on that, but then he also claims there is a “universal” wavefunction. That makes about as much sense as saying there is a “universal velocity” in Galilean relativity. There is never a mathematical justification for how there can possibly be a universal wavefunction. It is just asserted that there is. It does not fall out of QM naturally, a theory which only deals with relative wavefunctions.
This paper shows some technical arguments for the impossibility of a universal wavefunction:
\2) The EPR paper proves that the statistical predictions of QM violate causal locality (although not relativistic locality), and MWI proponents claim they can get around this by assuming that the statistical predictions, given by the Born rule, are just a subjective illusion. But this makes no sense. A subjective illusion still arises somehow, it still needs a physical explanation, and any attempt to give a physical explanation must necessarily reproduce Born rule probabilities, which as Einstein already proved, violate causal locality. Some try to redefine locality to be in terms of relativistic locality (no-communication), but even Copenhagen is local in that sense!
These papers show how interpretations like MWI simply cannot be compatible with causal locality:
\3) MWI proponents also forget that nobody on earth has ever seen a wavefunction. The wavefunction is just a mathematical tool used to predict the behavior of particles with definite values. The Born rule wasn’t added for fun. Einstein had lamented at how if you evolve a radioactive atom according to the Schrodinger equation, it never at any point evolves into anything that looks like decay or no-decay. The evolved wavefunction is very different than anything we have actually ever observed, and you only can tie it back to what we observe with the Born rule, which then converts the wavefunction into a probability distribution of decay or no-decay.
If you throw out the Born rule, then you are thus left with a mathematical description of the universe which has no relationship to anything we ever observe or can ever observe. This lecture below explains this problem in more detail:
All five dimensions (three space, one time, one probability) exist as a solid unchanging block, an enormous, incomprehensible overarching solution to some equally enormous, incomprehensible mathematical equation.
And if you look at it from one particular direction it almost certainly looks like forty-two.
and if you do that you must turn the wheel on its side and see the tower that is ‘I’ or you will zero sum and cease to exist.
First the Yagrum meme now this. Lemmy be fire lately
I’m curious about the notion of probability as a dimension, care to elaborate?
It’s a fairly common trope in science fiction, and might even be science fact. The idea is that realities split from every decision point, some we’re aware of and some - due to quantum fluctuations - we’re not. Indeed, it might only be the quantum weirdness that’s valid and human decisions are merely emergent phenomena.
If you take a look at any quantum experiment, you get things like particles interfering with themselves and apparently appearing in many places at once. Tissue thin neighbouring universes along some probability axis interfering with each other, one for each possible position of a particle, would explain what’s known as the “many worlds interpretation”. The MWI doesn’t talk about a probability axis though. That’s the fictional part until proven otherwise.
It would still be a dimension even if things were more discrete though. Like, separately identifiable parallel universes where no intermediates exist. Hopping from one to the other could still be interpreted as moving within some extra dimension, and there’s nothing really stopping us from calling that probability.
Many Worlds is a rather bizarre interpretation.
\1) Even the creator of MWI, Hugh Everett, agreed that wavefunction is relative and wrote a paper on that, but then he also claims there is a “universal” wavefunction. That makes about as much sense as saying there is a “universal velocity” in Galilean relativity. There is never a mathematical justification for how there can possibly be a universal wavefunction. It is just asserted that there is. It does not fall out of QM naturally, a theory which only deals with relative wavefunctions.
This paper shows some technical arguments for the impossibility of a universal wavefunction:
\2) The EPR paper proves that the statistical predictions of QM violate causal locality (although not relativistic locality), and MWI proponents claim they can get around this by assuming that the statistical predictions, given by the Born rule, are just a subjective illusion. But this makes no sense. A subjective illusion still arises somehow, it still needs a physical explanation, and any attempt to give a physical explanation must necessarily reproduce Born rule probabilities, which as Einstein already proved, violate causal locality. Some try to redefine locality to be in terms of relativistic locality (no-communication), but even Copenhagen is local in that sense!
These papers show how interpretations like MWI simply cannot be compatible with causal locality:
\3) MWI proponents also forget that nobody on earth has ever seen a wavefunction. The wavefunction is just a mathematical tool used to predict the behavior of particles with definite values. The Born rule wasn’t added for fun. Einstein had lamented at how if you evolve a radioactive atom according to the Schrodinger equation, it never at any point evolves into anything that looks like decay or no-decay. The evolved wavefunction is very different than anything we have actually ever observed, and you only can tie it back to what we observe with the Born rule, which then converts the wavefunction into a probability distribution of decay or no-decay.
If you throw out the Born rule, then you are thus left with a mathematical description of the universe which has no relationship to anything we ever observe or can ever observe. This lecture below explains this problem in more detail:
If you do the math right and make a few questionable assumption you can have as many dimensions as you want