The Many Computations Interpretation (MCI) of Quantum Mechanics
Jacques Mallah
arXiv Preprint Archive September 4, 2007 preprint
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Quant-ph |
| Key points | Proposes that a computationalist framework, with criteria for implementation and independence, yields a Many Computations Interpretation of quantum mechanics, an explicit form of the Many Worlds Interpretation, and that deriving the Born Rule is central to supporting or refuting this interpretation. |
Abstract
Computationalism provides a framework for understanding how a mathematically describable physical world could give rise to conscious observations without the need for dualism. A criterion is proposed for the implementation of computations by physical systems, which has been a problem for computationalism. Together with an independence criterion for implementations this would allow, in principle, prediction of probabilities for various observations based on counting implementations. Applied to quantum mechanics, this results in a Many Computations Interpretation (MCI), which is an explicit form of the Everett style Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI). Derivation of the Born Rule emerges as the central problem for most realist interpretations of quantum mechanics. If the Born Rule is derived based on computationalism and the wavefunction it would provide strong support for the MWI; but if the Born Rule is shown not to follow from these to an experimentally falsified extent, it would indicate the necessity for either new physics or (more radically) new philosophy of mind.