Let me try to state this problem a little more precisely. (And I’ll frame it in terms of this year’s election.)
Using Newtonian mechanics, we can calculate where the Earth should be (relative to some galactic coordinate system) on election day 2024. Then consider the past light-cone of that Earth, back to the present day, the end of January. That’s covers a region of space about ten light-months around the solar system.
We are asking: Suppose we knew the quantum state of that 20-light-month-diameter region of space, as precisely as possible. What is the uncertainty in the outcome of the 2024 election, 10 months in the future?
I think the uncertainty is pretty large, because quantum uncertainty isn’t just in radioactive decays, it’s in every emission of a photon from an excited atom or molecule. We are surrounded by an ocean of quantum thermal noise. And so any dynamical system which chaotically amplifies microscopic differences, will be amplifying that ubiquitous quantum thermal uncertainty. This is definitely the case for fluids like the atmosphere, and it must surely be the case for biological decision makers made out of neurons, even if it is filtered by canalization of neural and cognitive dynamics. There would be other macroscopic material processes in which quantum uncertainty gets amplified, e.g. fractures in solids under stress. (It would be interesting to calculate the role of amplified quantum uncertainty in earthquakes!)
My proposition is, that in a quantum world, exact microscopic knowledge of the physical state of the world, may do nothing to reduce the uncertainty of an event like an election. That may be overstating a little, because better knowledge of people and the world and the events that might come to pass in the remaining months, can reduce the uncertainty. But in systems which are authentically chaotic or dynamically unstable, the quantum uncertainty in initial conditions has exactly the same effect as merely epistemic uncertainty—it renders the future unpredictable.
Let me try to state this problem a little more precisely. (And I’ll frame it in terms of this year’s election.)
Using Newtonian mechanics, we can calculate where the Earth should be (relative to some galactic coordinate system) on election day 2024. Then consider the past light-cone of that Earth, back to the present day, the end of January. That’s covers a region of space about ten light-months around the solar system.
We are asking: Suppose we knew the quantum state of that 20-light-month-diameter region of space, as precisely as possible. What is the uncertainty in the outcome of the 2024 election, 10 months in the future?
I think the uncertainty is pretty large, because quantum uncertainty isn’t just in radioactive decays, it’s in every emission of a photon from an excited atom or molecule. We are surrounded by an ocean of quantum thermal noise. And so any dynamical system which chaotically amplifies microscopic differences, will be amplifying that ubiquitous quantum thermal uncertainty. This is definitely the case for fluids like the atmosphere, and it must surely be the case for biological decision makers made out of neurons, even if it is filtered by canalization of neural and cognitive dynamics. There would be other macroscopic material processes in which quantum uncertainty gets amplified, e.g. fractures in solids under stress. (It would be interesting to calculate the role of amplified quantum uncertainty in earthquakes!)
My proposition is, that in a quantum world, exact microscopic knowledge of the physical state of the world, may do nothing to reduce the uncertainty of an event like an election. That may be overstating a little, because better knowledge of people and the world and the events that might come to pass in the remaining months, can reduce the uncertainty. But in systems which are authentically chaotic or dynamically unstable, the quantum uncertainty in initial conditions has exactly the same effect as merely epistemic uncertainty—it renders the future unpredictable.