David Deutsch on the multiverse & quantum physics
Deutsch argues that interference experiments show conclusively that even a single photon exists in many copies, and that quantum theory's own equations describe a multiverse, which also explains solid matter and the power of quantum computers. Calling this an 'interpretation', and the rival Copenhagen, collapse and Bohm views, are in his account excuses that grew out of positivism and a small, dogmatic physics community, which delayed quantum computation by decades. He adds that knowing we live in a multiverse should not change our decisions at all.
16 points · 3 appearances · 2024–2025
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2021–2026
“Optimism as I define it has to do with knowledge. It's not a prediction of the future, it's an explanation of failure. If you explain failure as being inevitable, or due to some malevolent force, insuperable malevolent force, or just the way things are, then that's a recipe for stasis, which is a recipe for failure and eventually death. Therefore I think that all failure has to be explained in the form: the reason we didn't succeed is that we didn't know how to, and the knowledge of how to is in principle attainable. We don't have it now, but we could have it in the future if we do the right thing. In fact, it follows from this whole conception of knowledge that we've been talking about all this time that optimism has to be true. Otherwise there would be a limitation, which would mean the supernatural and all that stuff that — the arguments are watertight all the way from the scientific worldview to optimism, in my view.”
2021–2026
“That's right. Knowledge isn't just a matter of belief, and it's not just a matter of human psychology. It is information that has causal power.”
2021–2026
“And my rather heterodox answer to that is that it didn't evolve for the purpose for which we now use it. It evolved for something else, namely for the transmission, or better put, for the reception of cultural knowledge, memes, cultural knowledge. So, many animals have cultural knowledge, but it's very hard to transmit. It involves things like mirror neurons or something where if you do this, then the ape can also do that. But if you do a purposeful thing, then as soon as you get to any kind of complex purpose, apes can't copy it.”
2022–2026
“So when I say any, I'm — what I mean is that we're not limited in the programs we can run apart from by speed and memory capacity. So all limitations on us, hardware limitations on us, boil down to speed and memory capacity. And both those can be augmented to the level of any other entity that is in the universe. Because, you know, if somebody builds a computer that can think faster than the brain, then we can use that very computer or that very technology to make our thinking go just as fast as that.”