The problem of confirmation in the Everett interpretation

DOI10.1016/J.SHPSB.2014.03.004zbMATH Open1294.81013arXiv1504.01063OpenAlexW3122421721MaRDI QIDQ407328FDOQ407328

Authors: Emily Adlam 

Publication date: 29 August 2014

Published in: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part B. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: I argue that the Oxford school Everett interpretation is internally incoherent, because we cannot claim that in an Everettian universe the kinds of reasoning we have used to arrive at our beliefs about quantum mechanics would lead us to form true beliefs. I show that in an Everettian context, the experimental evidence that we have available could not provide empirical confirmation for quantum mechanics, and moreover that we would not even be able to establish reference to the theoretical entities of quantum mechanics. I then consider a range of existing Everettian approaches to the probability problem and show that they do not succeed in overcoming this incoherence.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.01063

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zbMATH Keywords

decision theoryprobabilityreferenceEverett interpretationconfirmation

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Physics (00A79) General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15) Relativistic cosmology (83F05)

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Cited In (9)

• Whence deep realism for Everettian quantum mechanics?
• Confirmation in a branching world: the Everett interpretation and Sleeping Beauty
• Everettian quantum mechanics and physical probability: against the principle of ``State Supervenience
• Do we have any viable solution to the measurement problem?
• On the Everettian epistemic problem
• Many worlds: decoherent or incoherent?
• Everett and structure
• Watching the clocks: interpreting the Page-Wootters formalism and the internal quantum reference frame programme
• What does `(non)-absoluteness of observed events' mean?

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