Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory, & Reality

What would it mean to apply quantum theory, without restriction and without involving any notion of measurement and state reduction, to the whole universe? What would realism about the quantum state then imply? This book brings together an illustrious team of philosophers and physicists to debate these questions. The contributors broadly agree on the need, or aspiration, for a realist theory that unites micro- and macro-worlds. But they disagree on what this implies. Some argue that if unitary quantum evolution has unrestricted application, and if the quantum state is taken to be something physically real, then this universe emerges from the quantum state as one of countless others, constantly branching in time, all of which are real. The result, they argue, is many worlds quantum theory, also known as the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. No other realist interpretation of unitary quantum theory has ever been found. Others argue in reply that this picture of many worlds is in no sense inherent to quantum theory, or fails to make physical sense, or is scientifically inadequate. The stuff of these worlds, what they are made of, is never adequately explained, nor are the worlds precisely defined; ordinary ideas about time and identity over time are compromised; no satisfactory role or substitute for probability can be found in many worlds theories; they can't explain experimental data; anyway, there are attractive realist alternatives to many worlds. Twenty original essays, accompanied by commentaries and discussions, examine these claims and counterclaims in depth. They consider questions of ontology - the existence of worlds; probability - whether and how probability can be related to the branching structure of the quantum state; alternatives to many worlds - whether there are one-world realist interpretations of quantum theory that leave quantum dynamics unchanged; and open questions even given many worlds, including the multiverse concept as it has arisen elsewhere in modern cosmology. A comprehensive introduction lays out the main arguments of the book, which provides a state-of-the-art guide to many worlds quantum theory and its problems.

Many Worlds: an Introduction. 1. Why Many Worlds?. 1. Decoherence and Ontology. 2. Quasiclassical Realms. 3. Macroscopic Superpositions, Decoherent Histories, and the Emergence of Hydrodynamical Behaviour. 2. Problems with Ontology. 4. Can the world be only wavefunction?. 5. A metaphysician looks at the Everett interpretation. Commentary. Reply to Hawthorne: Physics Before Metaphysics. Transcript 1: ontology. 3. Probability in the Everett Interpretation. 6. Chance in the Everett interpretation. 7. A Scandal of Probability Theory. 8. How to prove the Born rule. 9. Everett and Evidence. 4. Critical Replies. 10. One World versus Many: the Inadequacy of Everettian Accounts of Evolution, Probability, and Scientific Confirmation. 11. Probability in the Everett picture. 12. Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Can Savage Salvage Everettian Probability?. Transcript 2: Probability. 5. Alternatives to Many Worlds. 13. Decoherence, Einselection, Envariance, and Quantum Darwinism: From Relative States to the Existential Interpretation. 14. Two dogmas about quantum mechanics. Commentary: Rabid Dogma? Comments on Bub and Pitowsky. 15. The Principal Principle and Probability in the Many-Worlds interpretation. 16. Pilot-wave theory: many worlds in denial?. Commentary: Reply to Valentini. 6. Not Only Many Worlds. 17. Everett and Wheeler, the Untold Story. 18. Apart from universes. 19. Many Worlds in Context. 20. Time Symmetry and the Many-Worlds Interpretation. Transcript 3: Not (only) many worlds. Bibliography.

Simon Saunders is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Jonathan Barrett is a Research Fellow in the Physics department at the University of Bristol Adrian Kent is a Reader in Quantum Physics at the University of Cambridge David Wallace is a lecturer in Philosophy of Physics at the University of Oxford