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Published 2014 | Submitted
Book Section - Chapter Open

Many Worlds, the Born Rule, and Self-Locating Uncertainty

Abstract

We provide a derivation of the Born Rule in the context of the Everett (Many-Worlds) approach to quantum mechanics. Our argument is based on the idea of self-locating uncertainty: in the period between the wave function branching via decoherence and an observer registering the outcome of the measurement, that observer can know the state of the universe precisely without knowing which branch they are on. We show that there is a uniquely rational way to apportion credence in such cases, which leads directly to the Born Rule. [Editors note: for a video of the talk given by Prof. Carroll at the Aharonov-80 conference in 2012 at Chapman University, see quantum.chapman.edu/talk-14.]

Additional Information

© 2014 Springer-Verlag Italia. A version of this paper appears as a chapter in Quantum Theory: A Two-Time Success Story, Yakir Aharonov Festschrift (2013), D.C. Struppa, J.M. Tollaksen, eds. (Springer-Verlag), p. 157. This work is a summary of a more comprehensive paper [1]. Section 6 did not appear in the original published version. Sean Carroll feels that it has been an honor and a pleasure to take part in the celebration of Yakir Aharonov's 80th birthday and would like to thank Jeff Tollaksen and the organizers of a very stimulating meeting. His work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Charles Sebens's work was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. DGE 0718128.

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