Posted: Oct 06, 2017 4:43 pm
John Platko wrote:DavidMcC wrote:John Platko wrote:DavidMcC wrote:John, how is the Gell-Mann interview video relevant to free will? It is only relevant to interpretation of QM.
It's relevant to the interpretation of multiple histories. And multiple histories suggest branching points, i.e. the actual possibility to do this rather than that. And that is what the concept of free will is all about.Is this not obvious?
It depends whether the "branching point" is just in the probability calculation concerning the "possibility to do this rather than that", and not an actual branching point in the actual history (which implies multiple ACTUAL histories, and multiple ACTUAL universes). Apparently, Everett thought the latter, even though you (and I) consider it to be the former. Apparently, he was so derided by his peers after he published it, that he withdrew from physics.
If what he said was just something about the "probability calculation" then why was he so derided by his peers? And why is his idea, which some found worthy of ridicule, given so much credence today? And why do so many world class physicists seem to really believe that MWI is about more than probability calculation.
That was my point: he didn't say it was just a probaility calculational aid.
Why would I do that? I am not an advocate of even the less whacky version of MWI, but you seem to think that, somehow, I am, just becasue I distiguished between the whacky version and the simply obscure version.
BTW, a few years ago, on the Physics thread, I attempted to explain "spooky action at a distance" (which has nothing to do with MWI, incidentally).