Re:The cosmological constant is physics’ most embarrassing p...
by DavidSJ on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @07:43AM
(#26000317)
"One of us in each world" is shorthand for "one of us in the entire system described by the wave function, with different amplitudes in different states".
There is only 1 detector, and it, along with the detected particle, is in a superposition of states.
Again, this is where the language of "worlds" becomes misleading, and why I don't like it.
But still, the problem I was questioning was different: you are saying "there is one of us in each world". In fact, that is not what QM predicts: in QM, there is only one of us in the entire system described by the wave function, with different amplitudes in different states. A system with 1 electron with some amplitude < 1 in state A and some amplitude < 1 in state B is not the same as a system with 2 electrons, one with amplitude 1 in state A and another with amplitude 1 in state B.
So, if we took a detector that could measure state A or state B, we should expect that it detects state A with some amplitude and, simultaneously, state B with some other amplitude. Instead, MWI postulates that there are 2 detectors, one which measures state A with amplitude 1, and the other state B with amplitude 1 (in fact, it postulates an infinity of detectors, out of which some number measure state A and some measure state B, such that the Born rule predictions by "counting" detectors).
This is the part that remains unexplained.