Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory, & Reality

by Saunders, Simon; Barrett, Jonathan; Kent, Adrian; Wallace, David

• ISBN13: 9780199560561
• ISBN10: 0199560560
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-08-20
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

What would it mean to apply quantum theory without restriction to the whole universe? What then does realism about the quantum state imply? This book brings together an illustrious team of philosophers and physicists to debate this question. All the contributors agree on realism and on the need, or the aspiration, for a theory that unites micro- and macroworlds. But they disagree on what this implies. Some argue that if the Schrödinger equation has unrestricted application and if the quantum state is taken to be something physically real then this universe emerges from the quantum state are compromised; the concept of probability itself is in question. There are realist alternatives to many worlds theory, among them theories that leave the Schrödinger equation unchanged. Twenty original essays, accompanied by commentaries and discussions, examine these claims and counterclaims in depth. They are organized according to questions of ontology alternatives to many worlds

Author Biography

Simon Saunders is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
Jon Barrett is a Research Fellow in the Physics department at the University of Bristol
Adrian Kent is a Reader in Quantum Physics at the University of Cambridge
David Wallace is a lecturer in Philosophy of Physics at the University of Oxford

Table of Contents

Many Worlds: an Introduction

Why Many Worlds?

Decoherence and Ontology

Quasiclassical Realms

Macroscopic Superpositions, Decoherent Histories, and the Emergence of Hydrodynamical Behaviour

Problems with Ontology

Can the world be only wavefunction?

A metaphysician looks at the Everett interpretation

Commentary. Reply to Hawthorne: Physics Before Metaphysics

ontology

Probability in the Everett Interpretation

Chance in the Everett interpretation

A Scandal of Probability Theory

How to prove the Born rule

Everett and Evidence

Critical Replies

One World versus Many: the Inadequacy of Everettian Accounts of Evolution, Probability, and Scientific Confirmation

Probability in the Everett picture

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Can Savage Salvage Everettian Probability?

Probability

Alternatives to Many Worlds

Decoherence, Einselection, Envariance, and Quantum Darwinism: From Relative States to the Existential Interpretation

Two dogmas about quantum mechanics

Commentary: Rabid Dogma? Comments on Bub and Pitowsky

The Principal Principle and Probability in the Many-Worlds interpretation

Pilot-wave theory: many worlds in denial?

Commentary: Reply to Valentini

Not Only Many Worlds

Everett and Wheeler, the Untold Story

Apart from universes

Many Worlds in Context

Time Symmetry and the Many-Worlds Interpretation

Not (only) many worlds

Bibliography

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