Sean Carroll

The worry was that by turning on the LHC, the Large Hadron Collider, we would destroy the Earth eventually. And I said, look, every time you open a jar of spaghetti sauce, pasta sauce, there is a possibility that some random mutation brought to life a terrible mutated pathogen that you are now releasing into the world and will kill all life on Earth by opening that jar of pasta sauce. Unlikely.

But it's possible, and what you're doing is you're risking all of human existence by opening that jar. Is this an argument to not do it? And I think that the answer is no. It is not an argument to not do it. Lots of things are possible, but we still have to get through the day.

But it's possible, and what you're doing is you're risking all of human existence by opening that jar. Is this an argument to not do it? And I think that the answer is no. It is not an argument to not do it. Lots of things are possible, but we still have to get through the day.

That's not a very well-formulated, rigorous philosophical theory of getting through the day, but getting through the day is actually kind of important. So I think that I would like to actually understand that better. Paul Hess says, in the many worlds interpretation, what happens when I use a quantum computer?

That's not a very well-formulated, rigorous philosophical theory of getting through the day, but getting through the day is actually kind of important. So I think that I would like to actually understand that better. Paul Hess says, in the many worlds interpretation, what happens when I use a quantum computer?

Is there one world where I get the right answer and some other number of worlds where I instead get errors? Is the thickness of the world where I get the right answer a function of how carefully I isolate the qubits? Well, you know, as I said this before, there's not a lot of difference between what happens in a quantum computer in many worlds and any other interpretation.

Is there one world where I get the right answer and some other number of worlds where I instead get errors? Is the thickness of the world where I get the right answer a function of how carefully I isolate the qubits? Well, you know, as I said this before, there's not a lot of difference between what happens in a quantum computer in many worlds and any other interpretation.

The success of quantum computers does—so I think that it's possible in my mind, although I don't know for sure, that there could be a principal argument made that quantum computing is an argument in favor of wave function realism. OK, the idea that the wave function really has a physical reality to it because it's becoming entangled, it's interfering, blah, blah, blah.

The success of quantum computers does—so I think that it's possible in my mind, although I don't know for sure, that there could be a principal argument made that quantum computing is an argument in favor of wave function realism. OK, the idea that the wave function really has a physical reality to it because it's becoming entangled, it's interfering, blah, blah, blah.

All these things are happening. Now, the people who are not wave function realists find this entirely unpersuasive. In fact, many people who are not wave function realists, epistemic people when it comes to the foundations of quantum mechanics, actually are in the field of quantum information. So I don't understand how they reconcile that.

All these things are happening. Now, the people who are not wave function realists find this entirely unpersuasive. In fact, many people who are not wave function realists, epistemic people when it comes to the foundations of quantum mechanics, actually are in the field of quantum information. So I don't understand how they reconcile that.

But putting that aside, if you think that you are a wave function realist, there's nothing in the quantum computer that differentiates Everett from Bohm, from GRW, objective collapse models, Penrose, whatever, right? That's the same kind of predictions you go along the way. The only difference is, and maybe this is what you have in mind, when you do the final measurement,

But putting that aside, if you think that you are a wave function realist, there's nothing in the quantum computer that differentiates Everett from Bohm, from GRW, objective collapse models, Penrose, whatever, right? That's the same kind of predictions you go along the way. The only difference is, and maybe this is what you have in mind, when you do the final measurement,

in a quantum computer because a quantum computation generally starts by putting in some qubits into the algorithm and running it through the algorithm and you get out some qubits and then you measure them, okay? So there's a measurement process and the measurement process is governed by the Born rule. The probability of getting an outcome is the wave function squared.

in a quantum computer because a quantum computation generally starts by putting in some qubits into the algorithm and running it through the algorithm and you get out some qubits and then you measure them, okay? So there's a measurement process and the measurement process is governed by the Born rule. The probability of getting an outcome is the wave function squared.

And it might very well be the case that the kind of calculation you've done tells you that you will, you know, factor a large number with really, really high accuracy, 99% confidence or something like that. And so in the traditional single-world interpretation, you would say there's a chance I get the right answer, there's a chance I get the wrong answer.

And it might very well be the case that the kind of calculation you've done tells you that you will, you know, factor a large number with really, really high accuracy, 99% confidence or something like that. And so in the traditional single-world interpretation, you would say there's a chance I get the right answer, there's a chance I get the wrong answer.

In Everett, you would say there's a world in where I get the right answer and a world in which I get the wrong answer. And of course, to make sense of it, you have to believe that the Born Rule still works. So if most of the amplitude is on the right answer, then you interpret that as saying that the probability of me getting the right answer is given by the amplitude squared.

In Everett, you would say there's a world in where I get the right answer and a world in which I get the wrong answer. And of course, to make sense of it, you have to believe that the Born Rule still works. So if most of the amplitude is on the right answer, then you interpret that as saying that the probability of me getting the right answer is given by the amplitude squared.

So again, I don't think that Everettian attitude towards quantum mechanics says much or is much informed by the success or workings of quantum computers. Nanu says, I recently had the pleasure to read your paper, Reality as a Vector in Hilbert Space, and truly enjoyed it. I read it over and over again.