Robin Hanson suggests that if exponentially tinier-than-average decoherent blobs of amplitude (“worlds”) are interfered with by exponentially tiny leakages from larger blobs, we will get the Born probabilities back out.
Shouldn’t it be possible for a tinier-than-average decoherent blobs of amplitude to deliberately become less vulnerable to interference from leakages from larger blobs, by evolving itself to an isolated location in configuration space (i.e., a point in configuration space with no larger blobs nearby)? For example, it seems that we should be able to test the mangled worlds idea by doing the following experiment:
Set up a biased quantum coin, so that there is a 1⁄4 Born probability of getting an outcome of 0, and 3⁄4 of getting 1.
After observing each outcome of the quantum coin toss, broadcast the outcome to a large number of secure storage facilities. Don’t start the next toss until all of these facilities have confirmed that they’ve received and stored the previous outcome.
Repeat 100 times.
Now consider a “world” that has observed an almost equal number of 0s and 1s at the end, in violation of Born’s rule. I don’t see how it can get mangled. (What larger blob will be able to interfere with it?) So if mangled worlds is right, then we should expect a violation of Born’s rule in this experiment. Since I doubt that will be the case, I don’t think mangled worlds can be right.
Robin Hanson suggests that if exponentially tinier-than-average decoherent blobs of amplitude (“worlds”) are interfered with by exponentially tiny leakages from larger blobs, we will get the Born probabilities back out.
Shouldn’t it be possible for a tinier-than-average decoherent blobs of amplitude to deliberately become less vulnerable to interference from leakages from larger blobs, by evolving itself to an isolated location in configuration space (i.e., a point in configuration space with no larger blobs nearby)? For example, it seems that we should be able to test the mangled worlds idea by doing the following experiment:
Set up a biased quantum coin, so that there is a 1⁄4 Born probability of getting an outcome of 0, and 3⁄4 of getting 1.
After observing each outcome of the quantum coin toss, broadcast the outcome to a large number of secure storage facilities. Don’t start the next toss until all of these facilities have confirmed that they’ve received and stored the previous outcome.
Repeat 100 times.
Now consider a “world” that has observed an almost equal number of 0s and 1s at the end, in violation of Born’s rule. I don’t see how it can get mangled. (What larger blob will be able to interfere with it?) So if mangled worlds is right, then we should expect a violation of Born’s rule in this experiment. Since I doubt that will be the case, I don’t think mangled worlds can be right.