How do you explain this 'apparently real' world instead of any other? — Posty McPostface

One explanation is that there is no other.

why is this reality real and apparent to my sensory apparatus and not any other, like one where I won the lotto — Posty McPostface

This reality is apparent to the sensory apparatus of P McP that is in this reality, and the reality in which P McP wins the lottery is apparent to the sensory apparatus of PMcP that is in the reality where PMcP wins the lottery.

Perhaps you are extrapolating from the quantum suicide thought experiment. The difference between that and this is that, in that thought experiment, in all the other realities there is no PMcP to experience that he has died, because he has died. So the only reality that can be experienced by a PMcP is the one in which he has survived. Those conditions do not apply in the lottery case, because neither winning nor losing the lottery causes your sensory apparatus to cease functioning.

Seems like a circular explanation to me. Why not assert the inconvenient truth and say that consciousness does not factor into the evolution or decoherence of a wavefunction in MWI. Then, this would ad hoc deny everything metaphysical in this thread and the suicide thought experiment?

Because the multiverse doesn't know which you you are or the outcome you want (it doesn't give a shit in fact). Every-time you select the lotto numbers, there are millions of other yous in other universes each with a unique selection of numbers and it just puts you wherever. (and it if was willing to discriminate on your behalf, how would it know which you to favor? The math works out here with wonderful elegance:

The odds of you being a you with the correct combination of lotto numbers is

(The number of yous with the correct combination)
__________________________________________
(The total number of yous)

Since we can assume that there are an equally infinite number of multiverses for each possible lotto number selection that there are an equally infinite number of yous with each unique lotto number combination, we cancel the infinities and the odds then become:

1 times the number of unique tickets purchased by a given you
________________________________________
total # of lotto number combinations

Which mindbogglingly is the exact same calculation we would get if we just determined the odds of you winning the lottery in a single universe!

The universe truly is beautiful and mysterious :)

What you're describing is the fact that the stochastic distribution of my likelihood of winning the lottery being so low, that I am not experiencing that particular reality. But, the implicit assumption here in this thread is that reality is governed by the super-determinism of the MWI. So, again, why should this reality appear real to me, and seemingly obeys the probability distribution of events happening in a certain way, this denying the 'truth' of MWI.

I think you might have a misunderstanding of MWI. There is nothing in it, so far as I know, that says anything about a relationship between consciousness and decoherence or wave function collapse.

As to the circularity you think you see in my explanation - why not point out where you think it lies and we can discuss it?

I think you might have a misunderstanding of MWI. There is nothing in it, so far as I know, that says anything about a relationship between consciousness and decoherence or wave function collapse. — andrewk

Well, that's the point isn't it? The wave function doesn't collapse in MWI. Just splits apart when an eigenstate is realized, as far as I know. So, why would this reality seem real to me, rather than some other?

Yet, here is the gist, why is this reality real and apparent to my sensory apparatus and not any other, like one where I won the lotto? How do you explain this 'apparently real' world instead of any other? — Posty McPostface

There are yous in all the others, to whom those realities are apparent?

edit: I should have read the thread before answering; not surprisingly someone has already given this obvious answer

So, why would this reality seem real to me, rather than some other? — Posty McPostface

This was answered in post 2, and has been answered again in the post immediately above this. You say you find the response 'circular' but you have not explained what you mean by that, or why you think that.

I think, as Deep Thought pointed out so long ago, the problem is that you don't really understand what the question is.

This was answered in post 2, and has been answered again in the post immediately above this. You say you find the response 'circular' but you have not explained what you mean by that, or why you think that. — andrewk

Then, which version of 'me' is the real one? I feel as though I am the only real Posty McPostface living life, and none other.

Then, which version of 'me' is the real one? — Posty McPostface

I don't know what you mean by 'the real one' and I suspect that you don't either.

It seems obvious that the solution is to drop the Platonism and with it the ridiculous extravagances of MWI, and so dissolve the 'problem' as sensical to begin with.

I don't know what you mean by 'the real one' and I suspect that you don't either. — andrewk

I'm not trolling, so let me recap.

You assert that each world is real, as would any other version of me would say upon being asked upon in any other world. I assert that I only feel one world to be real, and not any other. Is there some linguistic game at play with what is 'real' or is this problem of multiple realities inconsistent with the way we use language?

I'm not sure how else to phrase the issue.

You assert that each world is real — Posty McPostface

I didn't say that. I wouldn't, because I don't know what it means.

The closest I came is to echo your use of the term 'a reality', which I did in the interests of following your terminology. I assumed by 'a reality' you meant 'one of the worlds in the many-worlds collection'. At any rate, that is what I meant by it, and such a use provides no basis for asserting that the sentences 'that world is real' or 'that world is not real' mean anything.

I think you will find it easier to understand MWI if you drop all attempts to divide things into the 'real' and 'not real'.

Ok, well I hope I'm on the same page now.

But, my question still is undecided or still stands. That, I only experience this world and not any other. I mean to say that my world is the only one that seems real to me.

This state of affairs leaves me questioning some issues. Namely if anything meaningful can be said about alternate realities and if the idea is logically or scientifically sound.

I think you will find it easier to understand MWI if you drop all attempts to divide things into the 'real' and 'not real'. — andrewk

Then it would all be metaphysics and sophistry then, no?

Metaphysics yes. Sophistry no.

I've deleted my reply, because it duplicates the same answer already given by several other people.

Someone identical, or nearly identical, to you is asking the same question in another of the "many worlds". Most of them haven't won Lotto either.

By the way, the big-win Lotto games are psychologically-inadvisable.

Michael Ossipoff

When you flip a coin it can land on either heads or tails, but it must land on one of them. Current realty is just simply the way things landed.

I think it's just a brute fact @Posty McPostface.

If the multiverse is real, whatever membrane separates us is not permeable enough for humans to squeeze through.

Think of what it would be like if you had awareness of another you, let alone infinite yous.

If you prime could just drift through alternate yous and insert itself into whichever you it pleases it might not even be aware that it is doing so given the only perceivable difference might be a single indirectly observed wave-function collapse (where all events prior to the point of transition are the same). If you prime could perceive or inhabit any universe within the multiverse (including universes whose timeline has long since deviated from it's own), then it would arrive in or perceive a universe in which it has no account of previous events. (if you snapped your fingers to enter a universe where you had already won the lottery, some things would be different depending on how long ago your new universe deviated from your old).

If we're just talking about perception, then perceiving alternate yous would actually break certain elements of causation. You would be making P=nP (and it really probably sorta doesn't).

You could approach any problem solvable by trial and error, and by perceiving the outcome of the infinite alternate yous who try different combinations or solutions, you would instantly know the correct solution.

If you explore one room in a haunted house, you would actually be exploring every room. Spooky action at a distance...

You might also be able to see into the future and the past...

If one of you spends enough time outside the gravitational field of the earth or traveling at high enough speeds the time dilation will cause one to age more quickly and one more slowly. Depending on how the quantum link between all yous works, this would mean that a well aged space-faring you could return to earth at an earth time where you are 20 years younger than him. This means that if well-aged space faring you can perceive of an alternate you of his own age, on earth, then he would be seeing a future earth (and he could then change the timeline with that information). time travel is confusing but this makes it seem like broad awareness of alternate yous would be too game-breaking.

If we consider only the case of a single deviation in wave-function collapse as the candidate alternate universe that you want awareness of, we already have it in the form of interference patterns in the double slit test. But, something about higher forms of matter destroys the phenomenon and makes behavior more stable and singular.

When we ourselves walk through a double slit, we don't interact with our phantom selves on the other side until one of us crashes a third party.

If humans do move in waves we simply don't perceive it. It's a brute empirical limitation.

It appears that reality (yours and mine) is temporally constrained. If you could exist independent of time you would win the lotto and experience all things possible.

You will win the lotto is you wait long enough. If and when you do win, please remember I was rooting for you.

I don't know if getting the right number in a game of chance can be described as ''winning''.

Anyway, lotteries are designed to make everyone, except the one who gets the number right, lose.

I guess what I'm saying is you should be more surprised if you win than if you lose.

'Why haven't I won the lottery yet?'

You are getting too complicated in your thinking.

The reason is probably something simple.

Did you even but the tickets?