MANY WORLDS AT 50
Organizer(s): Jonathan Barrett Adrian Kent David Wallace
Collection URL: http://pirsa.org/C07025
The Everett interpretation
Abstract: I shall present an overview of quantum mechanics in the Everett interpretation, that emphasises its structural characteristics, as a theory of what exists. In this respect it shares common ground with other fundamental theories in physics. As such its appeal is conservative; it makes do with the pur...
read moreDate: 21/09/2007 - 10:00 am
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Relative States and the Environment
Abstract: Everett explained “collapse of the wavepacket” by noting that observer will perceive the state of the measured quantum system relative to the state of his own records. Two elements (missing in this simple and compelling explanation of effective collapse) are required to complete relative state int...
read moreDate: 21/09/2007 - 11:40 am
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Probability in the Everett interpretation: state of play
Abstract: I will review the current state of the probability problem. My main focus will be on the attempts by David Deutsch and myself to provide a proof of the Born Rule starting from Everettian assumptions, but I will also attempt to locate these attempts within the more general framework of the probabilit...
read moreDate: 21/09/2007 - 2:50 pm
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Probability in the Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
Abstract: I will rehearse and try to sharpen some of the perennial worries about making sense of probabilities in Everettian interpretations of quantum mechanics, with particular attention to the recent Decision-Theoretic proposals of Deutsch and others
Date: 21/09/2007 - 4:30 pm
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Subjective Probability and Many Worlds
Abstract: Probability is often regarded as a problem for the many-worlds interpretation: if all branches of the splitting wavefunction are equally real, what sense does it make to say that the branches have different probabilities? In the decision-theoretic approach due to Deutsch and Wallace, probabilities a...
read moreDate: 22/09/2007 - 10:00 am
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Which many world worries are uniquely quantum?
Speaker(s):
Max Tegmark - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Abstract: I analyze a series of common objections to Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation. I discuss which ones are unique to quantum mechanics, and which have nothing to do with quantum mechanics per se as they can also be debated in the context of other areas of physics
Date: 22/09/2007 - 11:40 am
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Quasiclassical Realms and Copenhagen Quantum Theory in a Quantum Universe
Speaker(s):
James Hartle - University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB)
Abstract: One of the most remarkable features of our quantum universe is the wide range of time, place, scale, and epoch on which the deterministic laws of classical physics apply to an excellent approximation. This talk reviews the origin of such a quasiclassical realm in a universe governed fundamentally by...
read moreDate: 22/09/2007 - 2:50 pm
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Everett and Evolution
Speaker(s):
Adrian Kent - University of Cambridge (DAMTP)
Abstract: A fundamental question for Everettians is whether they can formulate a many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory which explains why, amongst all possible types of intelligent creature with all possible types of evolutionary and experimental history, we find ourselves among those whose histories a...
read moreDate: 22/09/2007 - 4:30 pm
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Everett Speaks
Abstract: In 'Everett Speaks' I will detail Everett's involvement in operations research during the Cold War. He was, for many years, a major architect of the United States' nuclear war plan. I will talk about his family life and his personal decline. We will hear a portion of the only tape recording of Evere...
read moreDate: 22/09/2007 - 5:40 pm
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Probabilities and Choices in Many Worlds
Abstract: Orthodox thinking about chance, choice and confirmation is a philosophical mess. Within the many-worlds metaphysics, where quantum chanciness engenders no uncertainty, these things come out at least as well, if not better.
Date: 23/09/2007 - 10:00 am
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Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Thoughts about actions in an Everett World
Abstract: The most common objection to the Everett view of QM is that it 'cannot make sense of probability'. The 'Oxford project' of writers such as Deutsch, Wallace, Saunders and Greaves seeks to meet this objection by showing that the Everett view allows some suitable analogue of decision under uncertainty,...
read moreDate: 23/09/2007 - 11:40 am
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The Everettian Evidential Problem
Abstract: Much of the evidence for quantum mechanics is statistical in nature. Close agreement between Born-rule probabilities and observed relative frequencies of results in a series of repeated experiments is taken as evidence that quantum mechanics is getting something --- namely, the probabilities of outc...
read moreDate: 23/09/2007 - 2:50 pm
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Solution(?) to the Everettian Evidential Problem
Abstract: This talk follows on from Wayne Myrvold's (and is based on joint work with Myrvold). I aim (and claim) to provide a unified account of theory confirmation that can deal with the (actual) situation in which we are uncertain whether the true theory is a probabilistic one or a branching-universe one, t...
read moreDate: 23/09/2007 - 4:30 pm
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13 Quotes from Everettian Papers and Why They Unsettle Me
Abstract: 101 years ago William James wrote this about the Hegelian movement in philosophy: 'The absolute mind which they offer us, the mind that makes our universe by thinking it, might, for aught they show us to the contrary, have made any one of a million other universes just as well as this. You can deduc...
read moreDate: 24/09/2007 - 11:40 am
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