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Originally Posted by zen_tom
Math is great, but as the great mathematician Goedel proved, it is impossible for math to prove itself, or to provide any help in establishing the correctness or falsness of itself.
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Math takes statements and explains their consequences.
It cannot tell you if the statements are consistent, nor can you find a finite set of statements that describe powerful things (like the concept of 'number' with both addition and multiplication) perfectly.
Or at least, that is what Goedel proved.
What I said what "math has turned out to be amazingly mind-bogglingly good at predicting things about the universe". Look at what Newton or Einstien or Hawking did with math, they predicted observations of things that are so far outside the human experience we had to make up words for them.
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Originally Posted by zen_tom
So in my personal choice, I prefer to take non-locality (which in some cases has been shown experimentally to occur) and the idea that there are things beyond our perception that we may yet be able to model mathematically that might provide us with the rest of the answers we are looking for.
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There is no experiement that demonstrates locality. There are experiments that demonstrate that either "non-locality" in the form of a quantum wave collapse subway, or many-universes, or some other explaination occurs.
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Originally Posted by zen_tom
I'll go along with the mathematical many-worlds theory, in respect to getting the answers to my quantum equations, but don't think it's a sensible way to describe the universe (mainly due to the infinate possibilities it opens up)
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Sounds like the old "god does not play dice with the universe" wager.
"Sure, the math and experiments says this is what happens. But, I'll pretend it isn't happening."
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Originally Posted by zen_tom
You can neither prove your own mortality or immortality to yourself. If you end up dead you don't know about it, and if you end up alive, you could just be incredibly lucky - there might be something really nasty around the corner that really could finish you off.
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Are we talking mathematical proof or scientific proof?
Mathematically, you can't prove anything about reality.
Scientifically, you could prove many-worlds to yourself beyond a reasonable doubt.
Sure, you could "just be lucky" and it turns out you are wrong. But we are talking about science -- every observation that has ever been made could have been just lucky, a huge coincidence, that has nothing to do with underlying reality.
That way lies stupidity and uselessness. The standard of scientific proof is lower than that of mathematical proof for a reason.
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Originally Posted by WillyPete
Some parting questions though.
Do these mutli-verses continue to exist or are they simply states until the unknown is resolved.
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That is known as "quantum wave collapse". As far as the mathematics is concerned, the unknown is never fully resolved, it just gets closer to resolved until it looks undistinguishable from it being resolved.
M-U claims that the branches not taken are just as real.
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Example: Whilst the coin is flipped and still in the air, it's neither heads nor tails until I catch it.
Does the m-u split when I flip it and then coalesce into the single state (say, tails) at the time of the catch? Or does it continue on in state heads AND tails?
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More than that. The location of each molecule of air is a quantum wave, and all the possible quantum paths it can take all happen.
The universes never really 'split'. Just certain paths a particle takes can become mutually exclusive with other paths: the two 'ghosts' of the particle are rotated 90 degrees away from each other (in one of many of the infinite dimensions required). The amount two 'ghosts' of a particle can interact with each other is proprtional to the shadow one ghost would project onto the other, if there was a light haning above one of them.
So, two 'ghosts' of one particle at nearly 90 degrees find it very hard to interact with one another. In essence, they are 'in different universes'.
Such actions happen alot. Like a huge number. No huger than that.
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Originally Posted by duck0987
By surviving 1000 button pushes, this just proves you are really lucky. You cannot prove multi universe until you are able to observe both outcomes first hand. If you push the button 1000 times you just might be lucky.
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Mathematically, you are correct. Nothing can be proven.
Scientifically, you aren't that lucky. The only reasonable way you could be that lucky is you are insane, or you live in a Q-M universe in which M-U is true.
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Originally Posted by WillyPete
Then why make any decisions at all? Just leave it to you counterpart in the 'other' world.
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Do you personally want to the the one who made the decisions, or the one who did not make the decisions?
You get to pick which you you are. Sure, other yous will decide to be indecisive. But do you want to be the decisive or indecisive you?
You have to live with your past. Possibly forever. Choose wisely.