martedì 9 giugno 2009

Many Worlds Interpretation (Hugh Everett's Theory) MWI: Testability and Objections

Despite the name "interpretation", the MWI is a variant of quantum theory that is different from others. Experimentally, the difference is relative to collapse theories. It seems that there is no experiment distinguishing the MWI from other no-collapse theories such as Bohmian mechanics or other variants of MWI.
The collapse leads to effects that are, in principle, observable; these effects do not exist if the MWI is the correct theory. To observe the collapse we would need a super technology, which allows "undoing" a quantum experiment, including a reversal of the detection process by macroscopic devices. See Lockwood 1989 (p. 223), Vaidman 1998 (p. 257), and other proposals in Deutsch 1986. These proposals are all for gedanken experiments that cannot be performed with current or any foreseen future technology. Indeed, in these experiments an interference of different worlds has to be observed. Worlds are different when at least one macroscopic object is in macroscopically distinguishable states. Thus, what is needed is an interference experiment with a macroscopic body. Today there are interference experiments with larger and larger objects (e.g., fullerene molecules C60), but these objects are still not large enough to be considered "macroscopic". Such experiments can only refine the constraints on the boundary where the collapse might take place. A decisive experiment should involve the interference of states which differ in a macroscopic number of degrees of freedom: an impossible task for today's technology.[8]
The collapse mechanism seems to be in contradiction with basic physical principles such as relativistic covariance, but nevertheless, some ingenious concrete proposals have been made (see Pearle 1986 and the entry on collapse theories). These proposals (and Weissman's 1999 non-linear MW idea) have additional observable effects, such as a tiny energy non-conservation, that were tested in several experiments. The effects were not found and some (but not all!) of these models have been ruled out.
In most no-collapse interpretations, the evolution of the quantum state of the Universe is the same. Still, one might imagine that there is an experiment distinguishing the MWI from another no-collapse interepretation based on the difference in the correspondence between the formalism and the experience (the results of experiments).
An apparent candidate for such an experiment is a setup proposed in Englert et al. 1992 in which a Bohmian world is different from the worlds of the MWI (see also Aharonov and Vaidman 1996). In this example, the Bohmian trajectory of a particle in the past is contrary to the records of seemingly good measuring devices (such trajectories were named surrealistic). However, at present, there are no memory records that can determine unambiguously (without deduction from a particular theory) the particle trajectory in the past. Thus, this difference does not lead to an experimental way of distinguishing between the MWI and Bohmian mechanics. I believe that no other experiment can distinguish between the MWI and other no-collapse theories either, except for some perhaps exotic modifications, e.g., Bohmian mechanics with initial particle position distribution deviating from the quantum distribution. There are other opinions about the possibility of testing the MWI. It has frequently been claimed, e.g. by De Witt 1970, that the MWI is in principle indistinguishable from the ideal collapse theory. On the other hand, Plaga 1997 claims to have a realistic proposal for testing the MWI, and Page 2000 argues that certain cosmological observations might support the MWI.
Objections to the MWI:
Some of the objections to the MWI follow from misinterpretations due to the multitude of various MWIs. The terminology of the MWI can be confusing: "world" is "universe" in Deutsch 1996, while "universe" is "multiverse", etc. There are two very different approaches with the same name "The Many-Minds Interpretation (MMI)". The Albert and Loewer 1988 MMI mentioned above should not be confused with
Lockwood’ 1996 MMI (which resembles the approach of Zeh 1981). The latter is much closer to the MWI as it is presented here, see Sec. 17 of Vaidman 1998. Further, the MWI in the Heisenberg representation (Deutsch 2001) differs significantly from the MWI presented in the Schrödinger representation (used here). The MWI presented here is very close to Everett's original proposal, but in the entry on Everett's relative state formulation of quantum mechanics, as well as in his book Barrett 1999, Barrett uses the name "MWI" for the splitting worlds view publicized by De Witt 1970. This approach has been justly criticized: it has both some kind of collapse (an irreversible splitting of worlds in a preferred basis) and the multitude of worlds. Now I consider the main objections in detail.
Ockham's Razor:
It seems that the majority of the opponents of the MWI reject it because, for them, introducing a very large number of worlds that we do not see is an extreme violation of Ockham's principle: "Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity". However, in judging physical theories one could reasonably argue that one should not multiply physical laws beyond necessity either (such a verion of Ockham's Razor has been applied in the past), and in this respect the MWI is the most economical theory. Indeed, it has all the laws of the standard quantum theory, but without the collapse postulate, the most problematic of physical laws. The MWI is also more economic than Bohmian mechanics which has in addition the ontology of the particle trajectories and the laws which give their evolution. Tipler 1986 (p. 208) has presented an effective analogy with the criticism of Copernican theory on the grounds of Ockham's razor.
One might consider also a possible philosophical advantage of the plurality of worlds in the MWI, similar to that claimed by realists about possible worlds, such as Lewis 1986 (see the discussion of the analogy between the MWI and Lewis's theory by Skyrms 1976). However, the analogy is not complete: Lewis' theory considers all logically possible worlds, many more than all worlds incorporated in the quantum state of the Universe.

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