Comment by Peter_Mexbacher on Decoherence as Projection · 2008-05-02T17:33:13.000Z · LW · GW

I asked this question in the Born Probabilites post but it didn't get answered so I try again because I think it is important, and it concerns decoherence so it fits here:

A major problem with Robin's theory is that it seems to predict things like, We should find ourselves in a universe in which lots of decoherence events have already taken place," which tendency does not seem especially apparent. Actually the theory suggests we should find ourselves in a state with near the least feasible number of past decoherence events

I don't understand this - doesn't decoherence occur all the time, in every quantum interaction between all amplitudes all the time? So, like for every amptlitude separate enough to be a "particle" (bad talk, I know ;-) in the universe (=factor) every planck time it will decohere with other factors?

So: all possible factorizations (=decoherence) occur, and not only when one prepares a quantum experiment.

Or did I misunderstand something big time here?

Cheers, Peter

Comment by Peter_Mexbacher on The Born Probabilities · 2008-05-01T22:16:53.000Z · LW · GW

A major problem with Robin's theory is that it seems to predict things like, We should find ourselves in a universe in which lots of decoherence events have already taken place," which tendency does not seem especially apparent.

Actually the theory suggests we should find ourselves in a state with near the least feasible number of past decoherence events

I don't understand this - doesn't decoherence occur all the time, in every quantum interaction between all amplitudes all the time? So, like for every amptlitude separate enough to be a "particle" in the universe (=factor) every planck time it will decohere with other factors?

Or did I misunderstand something big time here?

Cheers, Peter