Yes, but how does that make a difference? Energy is the capacity to do work, therefore a potential. Kinetic energy is actually having that potential by virtue of being active, and potential energy is potentially having that potential. So potential energy is a double layer of potential. — Metaphysician Undercover
This emphasizes the fact that what's commonly thought of as objective is a psychic construction which happens to be mostly wrong.
Taking QM into account means we have to change which 3rd person statements we consider to be true. So the OP is really just a matter of semantics. — frank
Redefining "objective reality" so that contradiction is acceptable in an objective reality is not what I would consider as an acceptable solution. — Metaphysician Undercover
As far as I understand "fields", they are always modeled as potentials, and this includes "the more fundamental fields" of QFT. If you understand them as a model of something actual, then I think you misunderstand the ontology of QFT. But perhaps I'm wrong, and you can show me how a field is modeled as something actual. — Metaphysician Undercover
So Wigner's friend measured a definite value while Wigner measured a value in superposition? I am trying to decide if it is worthwhile to read this paper. — i aM
↪boundless Thanks for linking that. The comments from Demystifier and other members whose opinion I respect, align with my impression that this paper doesn't reveal anything new of significance. It effectively just affirms that if you insist on locality then you have to give up on CFD, which is in many ways the same thing as 'objective reality'. Bell told us that in the early sixties. — andrewk
Energy is both the capacity to do work and the force that gets work done. The first is potential energy and the second is kinetic energy. I'm not sure if all forms of energy that get work done qualify, according to any conventional definition, as kinetic energy, but in any case we can generalize and call all forms of energy that get work done actual energy as opposed to potential energy. — Janus
There isn't a contradiction. Do you accept the relativity of simultaneity in special relativity? If so, then you already accept that a correct account of events can be reference-frame dependent and not absolute. — Andrew M
Sean Carroll gave a lecture a few years ago entitled, Particles, Fields and The Future of Particle Physics. I recommend listening to his discussion of one of the slides (between 28:00 - 30:40) that includes the line, "Particles are what we see. Fields are what reality is made of." Do you disagree with Carroll's characterization of QFT? — Andrew M
Well, I was presuming their possibility. It's just a horse-like thing with an evolutionary feature currently found on a narwhal and arguably a rhino (both mammals). It can happen, no? The being a sucker for human female virgins is implausible if there are no humans around, but I think its still a unicorn without that feature (or the blowing of rainbows out it's arse). Pick a different example if you find them impossible.Sounds like what I have in mind as well. For me, unicorns don't exist. For the unicorn, I don't exist. You seem to indicate that what I've described is something else.
— noAxioms
[Also, IMHO unicorns here are not a good example. For me, they are simply impossible (but as you say, better not to be too dogmatic about this :wink: ).] — boundless
Radioactive decay is a wonderful example of a lot more than two possibilities since it could decay any time, thus infinite possibilities. Alice detecting it after one second is different than the Alice that measures it after two, but there is one Alice that doesn't measure it at all yet. This isn't to say that the one Alice is less probable. That depends on the half-life of the sample.Thanks for the clarification but I still do not understand how you say that we can avoid some sort of 'selection' here.
To make it simpler, consider a radioactive decay experiment. There are two possibilities: Alice either observes the occurrence of the decay or not.
I knew where you were going with this. It seems solved by MWI by exactly what you quoted from Tegmark: There isn't actually any metaphysical split. There is but the one wave function with different solutions, and thus one Alice in two unequally weighted states. There are not two separate worlds, one metaphysically weighted more than the other. But the weight never changes from the '1' that it always was.Let's call these two possibilities, 'decay' and 'no decay' respectively. Let's also say that the probability of 'decay' is much less than the one of 'no decay'. Alice performs the measurement. And, say, she observes 'decay'.
If we do not accept the selection, we should accept that there is 'another Alice' that observes, instead, 'no decay'. And - besides the existence of 'another Alice' that observers 'no decay' - we have the different weights problem that occurs in MWI.
I thought we were discussing MWI there. Looking back at the exchange, maybe you mean RQM here. Under RQM, the Alice that measured no-decay does not exist in relation to the one that measured decay, so there is no weight problem. There is no selection since there is but the one world in relation to any particular state. The Alice that had measured the decay is not the same event as the pre-measurement Alice, so no selecting took place for either of them. That's at least how I've been wording it.In fact, this scenario is not very different from MWI. The only difference is that here we do not have a 'universal wave-function'.
On the other hand, if a selection is accepted, there is only one outcome.
I noticed that. It seems not to matter. In relation to me (or to anything else), what has happened is what has happened (fixed, in the past), and what will happen is meaningless since none of it can happen to me. Multiple future possibilities will be able to claim me as prior state, but that fact doesn't change if the list of those future possibilities is determined or not. Hence agnostic: it works either way.BTW, the table on the Wiki article on the interpretations of QM, says that RQM is 'agnostic' about determinism. So, maybe RQM is simply silent about the selection.
Well, I was presuming their possibility. It's just a horse-like thing with an evolutionary feature currently found on a narwhal and arguably a rhino (both mammals). It can happen, no? The being a sucker for human female virgins is implausible if there are no humans around, but I think its still a unicorn without that feature (or the blowing of rainbows out it's arse). Pick a different example if you find them impossible. — noAxioms
Radioactive decay is a wonderful example of a lot more than two possibilities since it could decay any time, thus infinite possibilities. Alice detecting it after one second is different than the Alice that measures it after two, but there is one Alice that doesn't measure it at all yet. This isn't to say that the one Alice is less probable. That depends on the half-life of the sample.
For the sake of your example, the device measures the decay destroys the 'when' part of it, so all Alice gets is a yes/no from the device when she makes her single query as to if it's happen already or not. Cat dead or alive so to speak, which as I recall was done in this manner. — noAxioms
I knew where you were going with this. It seems solved by MWI by exactly what you quoted from Tegmark: There isn't actually any metaphysical split. There is but the one wave function with different solutions, and thus one Alice in two unequally weighted states. There are not two separate worlds, one metaphysically weighted more than the other. But the weight never changes from the '1' that it always was.
This argument is a great one against the whole metaphysical split interpretation of MWI. — noAxioms
I thought we were discussing MWI there. Looking back at the exchange, maybe you mean RQM here. — noAxioms
Under RQM, the Alice that measured no-decay does not exist in relation to the one that measured decay, so there is no weight problem. There is no selection since there is but the one world in relation to any particular state. The Alice that had measured the decay is not the same event as the pre-measurement Alice, so no selecting took place for either of them. That's at least how I've been wording it. — noAxioms
I noticed that. It seems not to matter. In relation to me (or to anything else), what has happened is what has happened (fixed, in the past), and what will happen is meaningless since none of it can happen to me. Multiple future possibilities will be able to claim me as prior state, but that fact doesn't change if the list of those future possibilities is determined or not. Hence agnostic: it works either way. — noAxioms
We are starting to agree more and more, making these posts a bit shorter. — noAxioms
For all those Alices (Alici? :confused:) to exist, you need to change the definition of 'exist' from the RQM one to the MWI one. The change of definition is what distinguishes the two, not that there's all these Alices.But note that if you, instead, accept the 'existence' of all those Alice-s, how RQM is really different from MWI (except for the universal wave-function)? I believe that Tegmark pointed this out to Rovelli. — boundless
Yes, I was forcing a (still imbalanced) binary event from a non-binary situation.Or maybe it becomes a binary event if the measurement tells only if the decay happened during a certain time interval (I am not sure if you were saying this in the second paragraph).
Sounds pretty similar to me. There is one universal wave function, some solutions including an Alice in one state or another.I partly disagree. In Tegmark's view, there is no metaphysical split at the level of the universal wave-function. So, in that case there are indeed different 'Alice-s' there. It is not a 'real split' because what is truly real is the universal wave-function.
Yes, the other Alices don't exist, per definition. We can still, just like the MWI person does, say that the decay measurement doesn't exist relative to the no-decay Alice. She was a real (and even more probable) outcome of the quite real pre-measurement Alice. The unicorn is more difficult due to the vast improbability of one from a 100 million year ago wave function of Earth. Of course humans are near equally as (if not more) unlikely per that same wave function.In MWI, the 'Alice that observed decay' would know that, indeed, 'Alice that observed no-decay' exists. In RQM, however, the answer is, you say, negative. Why? The meaning of 'existence' is different in RQM: it is relational.
Note that above I did treat the pre-measurement Alice as being real to either post-measurement Alice. Both have memory of that state and thus have taken a measurement.So, we cannot treat the 'pre-measurement Alice' as the 'Alice that observed decay'. So, a negative answer is perfectly fine.
It is not valid to state "the other event did occur" in a relational framework. The statement is an objective one, and has no meaning in a relational framework. It seems to constitute a counterfactual statement just like "The decay occurred". It didn't. It occurred relative to me, but it didn't just 'occur'. Thus just say that the other event occurred to the measurer of the other outcome. I tried to do what with the no-decay Alice above. I carefully avoided a wording like 'she exists' or 'the decay was not measured'. I tried to be careful to always include the relations.I know that it is problematic within a relational framework, but it appears that there is no reason to believe that the other event did not occur.
Non-mind idealism of a sort, but not solipsism. If existence hinges on an interactive relation with a subject, then that subject defines its own existence, which is interaction-idealism. But there is symmetry. Everything does it, so it isn't solipsism. The table lamp does it, so it isn't mind-idealism.It seems a bit 'solipsistic' for 'Alice that observed decay' to declare that 'her' counterpart that observed no-decay is simply real, in this case.
If you get right down to the details, an observer is an event, and a system is not. No pen is in a consistent state with itself since at any given moment, parts of it are separated by about a nanosecond of speed-of-light space, and thus the ball of the pen is in superposition relative to the clicker at the other end. So in that sense, I do not exist as a system with a state. Right now I am completely undefined since no point of me has had time to measure any other part. In hindsight (say a microsecond later), that state is mostly defined and immutable. I mean, suppose that my retina has just measured the decay result from the first photon from the device giving answer to my query. OK, several other parts of the front of me also measured that, but not yet the innards (brain in particular), which are still in superposition of decay happened or not. Relative to different parts of me, the measurement was taken or not. It isn't entirely correct to say that the measurement has been taken relative to me since 'me' is not an event.Furthermore, as I said before, I find RQM somewhat vague in the definition of 'perspectives'. According to RQM, every physical system is an 'observer'. Fine, but if we consider, for instance a pen, it can be argued that its parts can be considered a 'physical system'.
As legitimate, yes, but I find neither argument to have any teeth. Yes, it is an obscenely large number. Physics is full of those. One measurement such as a decay has seemingly infinite possibilities (not a discreet list), so even a trivial system already has infinite worlds. If one is to worry about how such a list can be instantiated (where do we find room to put them all?), then you're applying classic wording to a Hilbert-space problem. It is a good argument against the universe as computer simulation hypothesis since the implementation really would need to find room to put it all.So, it seems that there is actually a very, very huge number of 'physical systems' (and, consequently, 'perspectives'). I believe that this is a legitimate criticism to RQM (as legitimate as the criticism to MWI to have too many 'branches').
Still, the wave function is a pure function just like it is in MWI. Without interference from outside tweaking the terms, how can it not be deterministic? Sure, RQM doesn't care either way, but the same reasoning that MWI uses also works with RQM.I noticed that. It seems not to matter. In relation to me (or to anything else), what has happened is what has happened (fixed, in the past), and what will happen is meaningless since none of it can happen to me. Multiple future possibilities will be able to claim me as prior state, but that fact doesn't change if the list of those future possibilities is determined or not. Hence agnostic: it works either way.
— noAxioms
Ok, it seems so from a RQM point.
For all those Alices (Alici? :confused:) to exist, you need to change the definition of 'exist' from the RQM one to the MWI one. The change of definition is what distinguishes the two, not that there's all these Alices. — noAxioms
Or maybe it becomes a binary event if the measurement tells only if the decay happened during a certain time interval (I am not sure if you were saying this in the second paragraph). — boundless
Yes, I was forcing a (still imbalanced) binary event from a non-binary situation. — noAxioms
I partly disagree. In Tegmark's view, there is no metaphysical split at the level of the universal wave-function. So, in that case there are indeed different 'Alice-s' there. It is not a 'real split' because what is truly real is the universal wave-function. — boundless
Sounds pretty similar to me. There is one universal wave function, some solutions including an Alice in one state or another. — noAxioms
In MWI, the 'Alice that observed decay' would know that, indeed, 'Alice that observed no-decay' exists. In RQM, however, the answer is, you say, negative. Why? The meaning of 'existence' is different in RQM: it is relational. — boundless
Yes, the other Alices don't exist, per definition. We can still, just like the MWI person does, say that the decay measurement doesn't exist relative to the no-decay Alice. She was a real (and even more probable) outcome of the quite real pre-measurement Alice. The unicorn is more difficult due to the vast improbability of one from a 100 million year ago wave function of Earth. Of course humans are near equally as (if not more) unlikely per that same wave function. — noAxioms
Pop quiz: At what distance in the past does the wave function of Earth have the highest probability of there ever being a unicorn today? — noAxioms
So, we cannot treat the 'pre-measurement Alice' as the 'Alice that observed decay'. So, a negative answer is perfectly fine. — boundless
Note that above I did treat the pre-measurement Alice as being real to either post-measurement Alice. Both have memory of that state and thus have taken a measurement. — noAxioms
I know that it is problematic within a relational framework, but it appears that there is no reason to believe that the other event did not occur. — boundless
It is not valid to state "the other event did occur" in a relational framework. The statement is an objective one, and has no meaning in a relational framework. It seems to constitute a counterfactual statement just like "The decay occurred". It didn't. It occurred relative to me, but it didn't just 'occur'. Thus just say that the other event occurred to the measurer of the other outcome. I tried to do what with the no-decay Alice above. I carefully avoided a wording like 'she exists' or 'the decay was not measured'. I tried to be careful to always include the relations. — noAxioms
It seems a bit 'solipsistic' for 'Alice that observed decay' to declare that 'her' counterpart that observed no-decay is simply real, in this case. — boundless
Non-mind idealism of a sort, but not solipsism. If existence hinges on an interactive relation with a subject, then that subject defines its own existence, which is interaction-idealism. But there is symmetry. Everything does it, so it isn't solipsism. The table lamp does it, so it isn't mind-idealism. — noAxioms
A table lamp might measure a different version of me and thus I cease to exist in relation to it, but I always exist relative to myself, so I'm here. Under solipsism, I would not exist because only the table lamp (or whatever the one privileged thing is) counts. — noAxioms
Furthermore, as I said before, I find RQM somewhat vague in the definition of 'perspectives'. According to RQM, every physical system is an 'observer'. Fine, but if we consider, for instance a pen, it can be argued that its parts can be considered a 'physical system'. — boundless
If you get right down to the details, an observer is an event, and a system is not. No pen is in a consistent state with itself since at any given moment, parts of it are separated by about a nanosecond of speed-of-light space, and thus the ball of the pen is in superposition relative to the clicker at the other end. So in that sense, I do not exist as a system with a state. Right now I am completely undefined since no point of me has had time to measure any other part. In hindsight (say a microsecond later), that state is mostly defined and immutable. I mean, suppose that my retina has just measured the decay result from the first photon from the device giving answer to my query. OK, several other parts of the front of me also measured that, but not yet the innards (brain in particular), which are still in superposition of decay happened or not. Relative to different parts of me, the measurement was taken or not. It isn't entirely correct to say that the measurement has been taken relative to me since 'me' is not an event. — noAxioms
So, it seems that there is actually a very, very huge number of 'physical systems' (and, consequently, 'perspectives'). I believe that this is a legitimate criticism to RQM (as legitimate as the criticism to MWI to have too many 'branches'). — boundless
As legitimate, yes, but I find neither argument to have any teeth. Yes, it is an obscenely large number. Physics is full of those. One measurement such as a decay has seemingly infinite possibilities (not a discreet list), so even a trivial system already has infinite worlds. If one is to worry about how such a list can be instantiated (where do we find room to put them all?), then you're applying classic wording to a Hilbert-space problem. It is a good argument against the universe as computer simulation hypothesis since the implementation really would need to find room to put it all. — noAxioms
I noticed that. It seems not to matter. In relation to me (or to anything else), what has happened is what has happened (fixed, in the past), and what will happen is meaningless since none of it can happen to me. Multiple future possibilities will be able to claim me as prior state, but that fact doesn't change if the list of those future possibilities is determined or not. Hence agnostic: it works either way.
— noAxioms
Ok, it seems so from a RQM point. — boundless
Still, the wave function is a pure function just like it is in MWI. Without interference from outside tweaking the terms, how can it not be deterministic? Sure, RQM doesn't care either way, but the same reasoning that MWI uses also works with RQM.
I'm now arguing against what I said above. I also do not know the meaning of the 'agnostic' designation on the wiki list for RQM. — noAxioms
What about “objective reality” and “Wigner’s friend” and what-not? Well, the non-local theories that we have—pilot wave theories such as Bohm’s theory, objective collapse theories such as the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber theory, and the Many Worlds theory of Hugh Everett—all postulate a single objective reality. — Tim Maudlin
although in the Many Worlds theory observers have experimental access only to a small part of the objective reality
My own preferred version of quantum mechanics is the Everett, or Many-Worlds formulation. It is a thoroughly realist theory, and is completely compatible with the experimental results obtained here. Thus, we have a proof by construction that this result cannot possibly imply that there is no objective reality.
Each is known by the observers in that world, and not by the observers in any other world.How does a 'many worlds interpretation' posit a 'single objective reality'? Because if there are indeed infinite numbers of 'other worlds' or parallel dimensions, or if the universe 'splits' into different universes as is implicit in this 'meta-theory', then each of these universes are inaccessible from any other one. So how could they be considered ‘objective' when they can't even be known? — Wayfarer
Each is known by the observers in that world, and not by the observers in any other world. — andrewk
In a sense, the many-worlds hypothesis is a reductio ad absurdum of the notion of objective reality, because everything possible happens in at least one world, so there is no objective fact of the matter about whether any given event happens. What is objective is the god's eye view of all the worlds. But only gods can have that view. — andrewk
Energy is the potential to get work done. — Metaphysician Undercover
Potential energy is the potential to get work done, actual energy is the getting of work done; in any actual doing of work some of the energy is "wasted" and discharged as heat (heat energy which of course itself does other "work"). — Janus
Everett’s scientific journey began one night in 1954, he recounted two decades later, “after a slosh or two of sherry.” He and his Princeton classmate Charles Misner and a visitor named Aage Petersen (then an assistant to Niels Bohr) were thinking up “ridiculous things about the implications of quantum mechanics.” ...
...He described the macroscopic world quantum mechanically and thought of large objects as existing in quantum superpositions as well. Breaking with Bohr and Heisenberg, he dispensed with the need for the discontinuity of a wave-function collapse. ...
...Everett saw that under those assumptions, the wave function of an observer would, in effect, bifurcate [i.e. 'split'] at each interaction of the observer with a superposed object. The universal wave function would contain branches for every alternative making up the object’s superposition. Each branch has its own copy of the observer, a copy that perceived one of those alternatives as the outcome. According to a fundamental mathematical property of the Schrödinger equation, once formed, the branches do not influence one another. Thus, each branch embarks on a different future, independently of the others.
They met several times during a six-week period but to little effect: Bohr did not shift his position, and Everett did not reenter quantum physics research.
“Once we have granted that any physical theory is essentially only a model for the world of experience, we must renounce all hope of finding anything like the correct theory ... simply because the totality of experience is never accessible to us.”
Personally, I wouldn't say that, because I think the useful everyday word 'objective' loses its meaning when it is deployed in a philosophical context. But it seems to me that the statement is at least as reasonable as most other statements in which I can recall people using 'objective' in a philosophical context.So it's an objective fact that everything possible is actually happening, at every moment of time, in the many-worlds hypothesis? — Metaphysician Undercover
I still don't understand why you think the "endless series of parallel universes" should not be considered objectively real even if it would be different versions of ourselves who have access to them. — Janus
Surely you can see it's problematic to reconcile what we understand as 'objectivity' with the notion that reality comprises an endless series of parallel (but ever so slightly different) universes, only one of which we can ever be aware of. I'm sure I'm not the only person who this strikes as preposterous. — Wayfarer
Maybe try reading up on it. — Janus
I should reword. Yes, the odds are almost a certainty from the beginning that the unicorn will occur in some world, but I meant given a single measurement giving one random collapse. You only get one try. From the beginning of the universe, there's not even a planet on which a single measurement might hope to collapse a unicorn. I would presume an existing Earth with life already on it would raise the odds of a unicorn considerably from the odds from a blank slate.Pop quiz: At what distance in the past does the wave function of Earth have the highest probability of there ever being a unicorn today?
— noAxioms
I would say at the beginning of the history of the Universe (unless one believes to ancient mythologies that actual unicorns wandered on the Earth). — boundless
Such statements are why I balk at A-series wordings like that. Under RQM, both post-measurement Alici (the plural is so stupid I am compelled to use it) consider the pre-measurement Alice to be part of their history. To pre-measurement Alice, the other two do not exist. The future is unmeasurable and thus doesn't exist to that instance of Alice. So there's no 'will-exist' except to indicate that certain future events (post-measurement Alici) consider certain past events to exist and others (like the one where Alice didn't measure it at all) to not exist.To summarize, in RQM, according to the pre-measurement 'Alice' both 'Alice-s' (or 'Alici' :wink: ) will exist.
I agree about the lack of contradiction. I know what you're saying and agree with it, but I don't like the A-series wording of it. 'Will exist' makes it sound like existence is something objective that occurs, and not the relation to something. The future Alici cannot exist ever to the pre-measurement one because there is no 'ever' to that version. She's an event, and events don't move into the future.But both post-measurement 'Alice-s' regard the other one as 'non-existent' and the 'pre-measurement' as having existed in the past. There is no contradiction here because the states are perspective dependent.
SR is also quite consistent for the same reason: different orderings of events are not contradictory if they're from different perspectives. Meta for instance commits this fallacy by deliberately omitting the perspective references:It seems a bit 'solipsistic' for 'Alice that observed decay' to declare that 'her' counterpart that observed no-decay is simply real, in this case.
— boundless
Non-mind idealism of a sort, but not solipsism. If existence hinges on an interactive relation with a subject, then that subject defines its own existence, which is interaction-idealism. But there is symmetry. Everything does it, so it isn't solipsism. The table lamp does it, so it isn't mind-idealism.
— noAxioms
Ok, I see what you mean. But since yesterday, I am doubting that RQM is really consistent. But maybe the situation is the same as in the case of SR if one does not accept the 'block universe'.
The law of non-contradiction says there is only a contradiction if the thing is both true and false in the same way, but it is not the same way here. That part always gets omitted. Nowhere does SR say that that two events are simultaneous, and also not simultaneous. There is in fact no assessment of simultaneity at all between two space-like separated events without a frame reference.I think that the relativity of simultaneity allows for the same type of contradiction. It allows that it is true that two events are simultaneous, and also true that two events are not simultaneous. That is contradiction, plain and simple. — Metaphysician Undercover
One need not accept a block model of the universe (spacetime) for SR to work. It is more complicated, but it works fine in a space-with-flowing-time model. We digress.(well, to be honest, I am not completely sure that even SR without the 'block universe' is really consistent...)
I think that works as well, yes. I seem to have a pretty weak grasp on the panpsychism idea. It doesn't seem to have a consistent interpretation from one person to the next.[But if one accepts some sort of panpsychism it is a mind-idealism :lol: Well, I believe that RQM and Process Philosophy can be good together.]
Well, 'I', from an RQM standpoint, am an event, despite my whole me being an abstract worldline. So in that event sense, I don't exist to myself, I only have memory of some past consistent state. From a pure event perspective, any two events (the table lamp and I at two specific moments) cannot exist in relation to each other. Neither exists to the other if the two events are space-like separated, and only one might exist to the other if not. It isn't paradoxical since no such mutual existence relation is ever posited.A table lamp might measure a different version of me and thus I cease to exist in relation to it, but I always exist relative to myself, so I'm here. Under solipsism, I would not exist because only the table lamp (or whatever the one privileged thing is) counts.
— noAxioms
Here we see one paradoxical side of RQM. 'You' according to yourself and 'you' according to the table lamp are different. The table lamp according to itself is different from the table lamp according to you.
All different events, so not comparing the same thing. There is no 'the lamp' any more than there is a 'me' making that decision. We're both a series of events, any of which can relate to other events. The fact that a certain event in the past is considered 'also me, yesterday' is an abstract designation I make. There is nothing physical that connects my current state to that past state as opposed to any other random arrangement of matter. Identity is abstract, not real. There are plenty of philosophical arguments that demonstrate this.At a certain point you decide to turn on the table lamp. Now, the turned on table lamp according to you is different from the turned on table lamp according to itself.
I'm sorry, but what was the problem? I thought the lack of duration was exactly what solved the problem.I think I see what you are getting at*. But I do not believe that this really solves the problem that I have in mind. Unless you specify a duration for the events.
Not even familiar with the term Process Philosophy, but perhaps I am discussing it anyway. I'm a poet and don't even know it.[Interestingly, this sounds again very similar to Process Philosophy - I know you are not a panpsychist of sorts but I find it interesting...]
OK, I can buy that.From the perspective of the 'pre-measurement observer' if no 'selection' is made, then I'd agree it is deterministic. But if you consider the perspective of each 'post-measurement observer', the situation changes. For the 'Alice that observed decay' attributing the status of either 'existence' or 'non-existence' to the 'Alice that observed no decay' is meaningless (and vice versa). So, in this sense maybe we should understand the term 'agnostic'.
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