As you may be aware, there's a controversy in physics as to whether to treat "wavefunction collapse" as a physically real phenomenon in itself, as opposed to it just being a calculation convenience for the sake of relating to some more obscure process by which the rules of quantum state-evolution push realness around and separate some real classical-universe-perspectives where one thing happened from some other real classical-universe-perspectives where another thing happened, or something like that.
My opinion, as half-presented in the following earlier comment, is that the only reasonable way currently on the table for something like the single-universe picture of wavefunction collapse to be real in itself is if something -- e.g. as represented by Norns, in your imagery -- is using considerations outside of physics to decide that one (or more) timeline(s) should have (more) experiencedness or significantness invested in it(/them) than the others, and if in addition the thing outside physics is also having its "experiencedness criterion" work in a way that's more or less compatible with the regular operations of quantum mechanics. (The alternative would be that the thing-outside-physics was pulling out choices of subjective experience from the quantum-physical states in some other way, that were to "cut against the grain" of how quantum mechanics normally worked.) I'm sorry that comment (and to some extent this one) aren't very well written.
In some ways, the fact that two superposed possibilities on the quantum level resolve during a measurement into two distinguished outcomes on the classical level is no more surprising than the fact that a wave which bounces off a wedge-shaped breakwater separates into two wavefronts. In the analogy, the existence of the apparatus that makes a measurement corresponds to the fact that the initial wave is aimed at the breakwater. The physical structure of the breakwater itself, in the analogy, corresponds to the structure of amounts of required energy associated with the different states passed through during the measurement. The measurement process corresponds to the wave interacting with the breakwater. There is a physical calculation technique that is used to track the quantum process which corresponds to the separation of the wavefronts; the phenomenon which this technique centrally describes is called "decoherence".
Having "wavefunction collapse" be a real thing, in the metaphor, would correspond to having someone pick one of the points in one of the wavefronts, apply some criterion to figure out what other points count as "the same wavefront" as opposed to "a different wavefront", and go in with a huge bucket and scoop up all the water from the crests of the other wavefront and use it to fill in the troughs in the other wavefront, as though it had never existed. Also, whoever was doing this would have to be careful to do so in a way that didn't produce any detectable disturbance in the evolution of the other wavefront. This doesn't really seem possible to do without intelligence: what constitutes "part of the same wavefront" as opposed to "part of a different wavefront" is primarily a question of the subjectivities of the beings encoded by the shape and location of the wavefront, and it would be weird for a blind physical process to be able to make such a distinction reliably. So, in some sense, any physicist who supports the "objective" version of the Copenhagen interpretation, where wavefunction collapse is a physically real phenomenon, is kind of conceding the question of the supernatural from the get-go and just doesn't understand that they're doing so. Even with intelligence, it seems like a little more ham-fisted than one would expect from a being with such power.
I appreciate the way that when you discuss wave-particle duality, you do so in a way where the whole universe would be the particle. That is, in fact, the key to beginning to understand what is going on in the subjective appearance of wave-particle duality seeming to be a thing. If I'd gotten to this comment earlier I would have said more to relate your presentation of Urdh to the Bohmian formulation of quantum mechanics, in which the wavefunction is made of a bunch of universe-particles pushing each other around plus also one of the universe-particles is randomly singled out and labeled "real", even though it can't have the dynamics it does unless all the other universe-particles are also there to push it and each other around.
To correct a confusion about the strictly quantum version of entanglement, as opposed to any supernatural phenomena that might piggyback off some of the same structure: In the many-worlds perspective, entanglement is not a mysterious phenomenon. It's just a relation by which you can control which possible worlds near you end up getting tied off with with which possible worlds near someone else, even though you can't control which possibilities themselves go realized or unrealized. This is why you can use entanglement to share randomly generated secret information but not send messages.
no subject
My opinion, as half-presented in the following earlier comment, is that the only reasonable way currently on the table for something like the single-universe picture of wavefunction collapse to be real in itself is if something -- e.g. as represented by Norns, in your imagery -- is using considerations outside of physics to decide that one (or more) timeline(s) should have (more) experiencedness or significantness invested in it(/them) than the others, and if in addition the thing outside physics is also having its "experiencedness criterion" work in a way that's more or less compatible with the regular operations of quantum mechanics. (The alternative would be that the thing-outside-physics was pulling out choices of subjective experience from the quantum-physical states in some other way, that were to "cut against the grain" of how quantum mechanics normally worked.) I'm sorry that comment (and to some extent this one) aren't very well written.
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/308210.html?thread=52905458
In some ways, the fact that two superposed possibilities on the quantum level resolve during a measurement into two distinguished outcomes on the classical level is no more surprising than the fact that a wave which bounces off a wedge-shaped breakwater separates into two wavefronts. In the analogy, the existence of the apparatus that makes a measurement corresponds to the fact that the initial wave is aimed at the breakwater. The physical structure of the breakwater itself, in the analogy, corresponds to the structure of amounts of required energy associated with the different states passed through during the measurement. The measurement process corresponds to the wave interacting with the breakwater. There is a physical calculation technique that is used to track the quantum process which corresponds to the separation of the wavefronts; the phenomenon which this technique centrally describes is called "decoherence".
Having "wavefunction collapse" be a real thing, in the metaphor, would correspond to having someone pick one of the points in one of the wavefronts, apply some criterion to figure out what other points count as "the same wavefront" as opposed to "a different wavefront", and go in with a huge bucket and scoop up all the water from the crests of the other wavefront and use it to fill in the troughs in the other wavefront, as though it had never existed. Also, whoever was doing this would have to be careful to do so in a way that didn't produce any detectable disturbance in the evolution of the other wavefront. This doesn't really seem possible to do without intelligence: what constitutes "part of the same wavefront" as opposed to "part of a different wavefront" is primarily a question of the subjectivities of the beings encoded by the shape and location of the wavefront, and it would be weird for a blind physical process to be able to make such a distinction reliably. So, in some sense, any physicist who supports the "objective" version of the Copenhagen interpretation, where wavefunction collapse is a physically real phenomenon, is kind of conceding the question of the supernatural from the get-go and just doesn't understand that they're doing so. Even with intelligence, it seems like a little more ham-fisted than one would expect from a being with such power.
I appreciate the way that when you discuss wave-particle duality, you do so in a way where the whole universe would be the particle. That is, in fact, the key to beginning to understand what is going on in the subjective appearance of wave-particle duality seeming to be a thing. If I'd gotten to this comment earlier I would have said more to relate your presentation of Urdh to the Bohmian formulation of quantum mechanics, in which the wavefunction is made of a bunch of universe-particles pushing each other around plus also one of the universe-particles is randomly singled out and labeled "real", even though it can't have the dynamics it does unless all the other universe-particles are also there to push it and each other around.
To correct a confusion about the strictly quantum version of entanglement, as opposed to any supernatural phenomena that might piggyback off some of the same structure: In the many-worlds perspective, entanglement is not a mysterious phenomenon. It's just a relation by which you can control which possible worlds near you end up getting tied off with with which possible worlds near someone else, even though you can't control which possibilities themselves go realized or unrealized. This is why you can use entanglement to share randomly generated secret information but not send messages.