Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcsvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!think!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!davidson
From: davidson@sdcsvax.UUCP (Greg Davidson)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Quantum Mechanics
Message-ID: <1005@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Jul-85 12:27:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.1005
Posted: Wed Jul 24 12:27:06 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 03:04:40 EDT
References: <396@sri-arpa.ARPA>
Reply-To: davidson@sdcsvax.UUCP (Greg davidson)
Organization: EECS Dept. U.C. San Diego
Lines: 21
Keywords: Quantum Mechanics, Reality, Borghes, Niven
Summary: Multiple worlds has severe philosophical problems

The multiple worlds interpretation has some severe problems at the
macroscopic human level.  These problems were explored quite some time
ago in fiction by Borghes in ``The Garden of Forking Paths'' and more
recently, and more devastatingly, by Niven in ``All the Myriad Ways''.
The basic problem is that if all quantum possibilities are followed,
then the orderliness we seem to observe in our macroscopic lives is an
illusion peculiar to the absurdly rare paths through the space of
multiple worlds in which what we consider normal sequences of events
happen to be preserved.

For example, in some worlds, you hit 'n' to this article, in others,
you were injured when your terminal spontaneouly imploded, in others
you were unable to read the article because it had become garbled by
quantum noise into (surprise) a perfect translation in Polish, etc.  As
soon as you take the multiple worlds interpretation seriously, you also
didn't take it seriously, and so on.  Any rational life, including the
life of a physicist, becomes absurd under such circumstances.  Because
of this problem I must reject the multiple worlds interpretation, at
least along all world lines that happen to allow me rational thought.

_Greg Davidson			Virtual Infinity Systems, San Diego