Sean Carroll

So what is the world?

It is sui generis, as we philosophers like to say, which means it's its own thing.

The world is not something else, but it is represented mathematically as a vector in Hilbert space.

And you don't need to really know or care too much about what that means in terms of what are the implications of living in Hilbert space or whatever.

There are technical requirements for a vector space to be a Hilbert space.

All you need to know is that there's something called the quantum state.

And the quantum state exists independently of how you express it.

Just like a number, like if you have a number that you express in base 10 notation,

It will look very different if you express it in base 2 or in base 16, hexadecimal, right?

Or use Roman numerals or whatever.

But it's the same number.

I'm saying that it's that underlying essence that is independent of representation that really matters.

It doesn't matter whether you're in position space or configuration space or momentum space or whatever.

What matters is the vector, the quantum state that you're representing, okay?

and let me tell you even many committed everettians are reluctant to admit this space as we know it the place we live or the configuration space of many particles moving in space these are super useful quantities right like you can't get through life without talking about them

You know, to relate to another recent podcast, it's kind of like free will.

You know, you can't get through life acting as if human beings don't make choices and don't deserve praise or blame for the choices that they make, right?

But they're nowhere to be found.

Those choices are nowhere to be found in the fundamental laws of physics.

That's OK.