That's the same as asking "why am I me and not you?" What do you think of that question?

I think it's a bit silly, but in the same way my question about universe 1/2 is silly. Not bad or wrong but a bit outlandish, is all I mean there.


I'm struggling to see how many-worlds can be interpreted as deterministic, but again it seems like we're coming back to terminology in the first place.

To wrap back around to your OP:

There seems to be a common intuition, but not a universal one, that the Principle of Sufficient Reason, if it were true, would imply Determinism is also true. — flannel jesus

Where do you fall on the question?

I'm struggling to see how many-worlds can be interpreted as deterministic, — Moliere

If I had a computer program where you press a button, and it rolls a dice, and you see a random number between 1 and 6 afterward, that would be indeterministic in a sense, right?

Now what if I had a computer program where you press a button, and it rolls a dice, and then it deletes the original window and spawns 6 new windows, one for each dice side? And then you press the button again and for each of those 6 windows, it spawns another 6 windows, so now there's 36 windows, and in the first window the history is a roll of a 1 and then a 1, and the second window has a history of a 1 and a 2, ... all the way to the 36th window which is a 6 and a 6?

And then you close the program down and run it again and it happens the exact same way every time.

Would you think that program, with a new window for every possible roll, is indeterministic? After all, it does the same thing every time.

I'm not sure -- but I am certain that analogies between computer programs and reality are basically misleading, at least in our day and age.

More directly: I don't think any of the executions of a program are deterministic, but are manufactured such that they appear, or are mostly, deterministic.

So my skepticism of determinism, more than the PSR, is my motivation here.

After all, it does the same thing every time. — flannel jesus

"does the same thing every time" isn't what I said with respect to different kinds of events.

"does the same thing every time" isn't what I said with respect to different kinds of events. — Moliere

I have no idea what you're trying to say with this. You asked me how many worlds is deterministic, I tried to give you a visualization to help you see it

Many worlds is analogous to my dice example.

Another way to explain it: In the many worlds view, the Schrödinger equation is king. The Schrödinger equation evolves the wave function deterministically, and - unlike some other interpretations - in many worlds the wave function never collapses, which means it keeps getting evolved by the Schrödinger equation forever.

Heh. I suppose we just see probability differently then -- your dice example reminded me of my quarter example, but whereas you want many worlds to explain the actual results I'd just say that this is the nature of dice, quarters, or other trivia wanting more explanation than we are warranted in believing.

we're not talking about if many worlds is true or not, just what the consequences of it would be and why it's considered deterministic. Right? You can understand why many worlds is deterministic separately from questioning if it's true or not.

It can be deterministic and also just not the right interpretation, not matching reality.

we're not talking about if many worlds is true or not, just what the consequences of it would be and why it's considered deterministic. Right? You can understand why many worlds is deterministic separately from questioning if it's true or not. — flannel jesus

You may be able to, but I cannot understand why Many Worlds is deterministic for the reason I said -- why am I in the up-world and not the down-world? What is the deterministic law that makes it such that I experience this world I am in?

We can make up one, but our experience is such that we get a probability distribution -- we might be in the up- or down- world, but we have to perform the experiment to see which we're in.

And if we're in the up-world, what does positing a down-world we're not a part of do? Doesn't that explode our ontology beyond our ability to judge true or false? There may be a left-world, for instance, but we have only observed up- and down- quarks.

You may be able to, but I cannot understand why Many Worlds is deterministic for the reason I said -- why am I in the up-world and not the down-world? What is the deterministic law that makes it such that I experience this world I am in? — Moliere

That's an indexical problem. The answer to that is not a problem for many worlds, it's a problem for ANY multi-consciouness existence, even if many worlds is not true. Why are you you and not me? If you can answer that question coherently, you can also answer why you're this version of you in MWI and not some other version of you.

And the other version of you is wondering the same thing - why is he that version, instead of the version you are?

Imagine putting a conscious being inside my dice program. By the time you roll the dice twice, there's now a person who has seen a 1 and a 1, and ap erson who has seen a 1 and a 2, etc.. all the way to 6 and a 6.

Now you run the program once and the guy who sees a 1 and a 3 wonders aloud, "why am I this one and not the one that saw a 6/6?" and the guy who sees 6/6 says "Wow! Two sixes in a row! I'm so lucky!"

And every time you run the program from scratch, you see it again: the guy who sees a 1 and a 3 wonders aloud, "why am I this one and not the one that saw a 6/6?" and the guy who sees 6/6 says "Wow! Two sixes in a row! I'm so lucky!"

Now you know there's nothing particularly lucky about the 6/6 guy, right? Not from your perspective. From your perspective, outside the program, that's a natural, inevitable consequence of the program running - every time you roll the dice twice, there will ALWAYS be a guy who saw 6 and then 6, and that guy will ALWAYS say "Wow! Two sixes in a row! I'm so lucky!".

And the first guys question is kinda weird too. There's no reason why he's the one who saw 1 and 3 instead of some other one, that question assumes he COULD HAVE seen something else, in some ontologically strong sense of "could", but the reality is his consciousness was in some sense created the moment that window split into the dice roll of 3. He's the one who saw 1 and 3 because he was invented at that moemnt to be the one that saw 1 and 3. He is almost by definition, the version of that consciousness that sees 1 and 3. If he saw something else, he'd just... be somethig else.

So can you answer why you're you and not me? Can you tell me why I'm me and not you? And can you try to apply that answer to many worlds versions of yourself?

---

I just realized, it might first be worth clarifying, do you understand why MWI is deterministic if we set aside the problem of conscious experience? Like if you have an MWI-flavor world but just without any experience happening in it, can you accept that THAT world is deterministic?

That's an indexical problem. The answer to that is not a problem for many worlds, it's a problem for ANY multi-consciouness existence, even if many worlds is not true. Why are you you and not me? If you can answer that question coherently, you can also answer why you're this version of you in MWI and not some other version of you. — flannel jesus

I'm me and not you cuz there was a percentage chance I was you, and a percentage chance I was me -- and I just happened to flip heads.

Are you sure that's the answer? Doesn't that pre suppose that you have some kind of pre-existent identity with which to flip heads?

The universe in which you're you and I'm me is identical to the universe in which I'm you and you're me - so identical in fact that I posit it's most likely correct to say that the very concept that I could be you and you could be me is probably incoherent.

Are you sure that's the answer? Doesn't that pre suppose that you have some kind of pre-existent identity with which to flip heads? — flannel jesus

I don't think so -- and obviously the stochastic process is more complex than flipping a quarter -- but I do think that I'm me and not you simply cuz that's how the world evolved, in the same manner that a quarter can be heads or tails before you flip, but after you have a determined token.

The universe in which you're you and I'm me is identical to the universe in which I'm you and you're me - so identical in fact that I posit it's most likely correct to say that the very concept that I could be you and you could be me is probably incoherent. — flannel jesus

Why would we believe this? It seems to me that there's a very salient difference between those universes -- namely that I'd be typing what you've been typing, and vice-versa.

and how would someone detect that difference? How could WE detect that difference? How do you know this isn't our second time through these lives, and we have already switched places?

Well, you can't, you see -- that's what I'm getting at. We can say these things, but there's no way of telling which is what -- why am I in the up and not the down universe? -- so the ontology is exploded beyond our ability to judge.

I don't think it is. I think it's just fine that one of us is me and one of us is you, and I don't think it makes sense to ask "why am I me and not you?". If I was you, I would just be you, it wouldn't be me at all.

And the same thing is true of your many worlds question.

You understand that the Schrödinger equation is deterministic tight? And that many worlds is just the idea that the Schrödinger equation continues to evolve the wave function with no collapse?

You understand that the Schrödinger equation is deterministic tight? And that many worlds is just the idea that the Schrödinger equation continues to evolve the wave function with no collapse? — flannel jesus

I understand that it's not deterministic, but that's probably contributing to our misunderstandings.

what is "it"? The "it" that you understand isn't deterministic.

The Schrodinger equation is not deterministic, by my understanding -- unless probability distributions as events are somehow deterministic, but that seems to go against anything I understand of determinism.

a deterministic function is a function that gives the same output given the same input. The Schrödinger equation outputs probability clouds of configurations based on inputs of probability clouds of configurations. Given the same input, it gives the same output, which is why it's deterministic.

Have you googled if it's deterministic? What does a bit of googling tell you?

(Ps my description of the input and output is not exactly correct, but it's close enough to correct for casual conversation, and still completely correct that given the same input it gives the same output)

Have you googled if it's deterministic? What does a bit of googling tell you? — flannel jesus

Heh, no. In school I solved the Schrodinger equation in the one and only case that it's analytic as an exercise -- one proton and one electron.

So rather than googling I'm drawing upon my studies from whenever ago. (and it might sound impressive, but really it's just a partial differential equation -- so if you know them maths you can solve it too)

a deterministic function is a function that gives the same output given the same input — flannel jesus

If so then sure it's deterministic, but with a probablistic mathematics which makes it such that you cannot tell what will necessarily happen.

so then sure it's deterministic, but with a probablistic mathematics which makes it such that you cannot tell what will necessarily happen — Moliere

In many worlds you can - what happens is all of it. That's why many worlds is deterministic. It takes the output of a deterministic function and says "that entire thing is real, that entire thing happens"

It says it, but how do we know it's true?

this conservation isn't about if its true. You expressed confusion about why people think many worlds is deterministic. Regardless of if it's true or not, you can hopefully be able to gain an understanding of why it's a deterministic world view.

It says the world evolves according to the Schrödinger equation, it says the entire output of the Schrödinger equation is real in some sense, the Schrödinger equation is deterministic so that makes many worlds deterministic.

this conservation isn't about if its true. You expressed confusion about why people think many worlds is deterministic. Regardless of if it's true or not, you can hopefully be able to gain an understanding of why it's a deterministic world view. — flannel jesus

OK, got it.

I thought you were claiming it rather than saying there's a possible interpretation of the equation such that determinism is true.

there's not a "possible interpretation". It's an equation that is by definition deterministic. Indeterminism in various interpretations of quantum mechanics come AFTER the Schrödinger equation, not in the equation. There's no question it's deterministic

There's no question it's deterministic — flannel jesus

Well, I for one have a question -- namely that it uses probablity and you have to do the experiment to find out which "world" you happen to be in.

I prefer the Copenhagen interpretation. No infinite worlds, but simply a probability in one world. But probability throws a wrench into the notion that every event is connected by necessity -- which is what I think of when I think of determinism.

right, with the Copenhagen interpretation the indeterminism comes AFTER the deterministic Schrödinger equation. The Schrödinger equation deterministically outputs a probability distribution, and then some mystery process indeterministically chooses a random result to obtain from that distribution.

The distribution always comes from the Schrödinger equation though, and that's decided deterministically. Even in Copenhagen

Heh, maybe.

I don't think I'd be wise enough to be able to tell if indeterminism comes after determinism, or elsewise.

What I know is that you have to perform the experiment in order to find out the outcome -- much like a quarter.

I like the example of a quarter because it takes it out of the realm of abstract science and into the realm of our everyday understanding.

I'd use Yahtzee and Pachinko interchangeably with that example.

All of them can be interpreted as being in a deterministic world -- where this very coin flip must be heads -- but that interpretation, so I think, is beyond our ability to judge things true or false.

Rather, we have some macroscopic events which behave in accord with probability. And also some microscopic ones that surprised us along the way.

On the other side of things, I like to mention proton-pumps -- proton transfer is a big part of biochem, and the reason they work is cuz of quantum properties -- this event may not have transferred the proton, but the next one may not or will, and so on. The probability distribution of position/momentum is what makes the transfer happen.

(This especially with respect to the notion that D2O is H2O -- the extra weight of that neutron is what makes it deadly to us)