The Emergent Multiverse: Recent Episodes
Oxford University
The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics holds that quantum theory - our best current theory of physics - is correctly understood as claiming that there are many worlds that exist in parallel to our own and which branch constantly off our own. The existence of the other worlds makes it possible to make sense of physics without action-at-a-distance, objective randomness, or any strange role for "observer" or "consciousness". During this weekend school we shall be discussing this interpretation of quantum mechanics and asking what would follow from its being the correct one.
In the fourth lecture, Harvey Brown asks why real-world events always proceed in the direction of increasing entropy, even though the laws of physics don’t require it.
In the third lecture, David Wallace asks how we make sense of probability in the Many-Worlds theory.
In the second lecture, Harvey Brown discusses in more depth the superposition principle of quantum mechanics.
In this first lecture, David Wallace examines the justification for interpreting the superposition states as multiplicities.