Everettian Rationality: defending Deutsch's approach to probability in the Everett interpretation

By David Wallace. 2003

178 citations recorded by the source corpus.

An analysis is made of Deutsch's recent claim to have derived the Born rule from decision-theoretic assumptions. It is argued that Deutsch's proof must be understood in the explicit context of the Everett interpretation, and that in this context, it essentially succeeds. Some comments are made about the criticism of Deutsch's proof by Barnum, Caves, Finkelstein, Fuchs, and Schank; it is argued that the flaw which they point out in the proof does not apply if the Everett interpretation is assumed. A longer version of this paper, entitled "Quantum Probability and Decision Theory, Revisted", is available online. The present paper will appear in Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics; confusingly, when it does it will also bear the title "Quantum Probability and Decision Theory, Revisited".

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, History and Philosophy of Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e9fce707b1a0ac967c1f0efdc49b005f0e9a8072

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

In History and Philosophy of Science

Citations in the corpus

Do We Really Understand Quantum Mechanics? (2012, methodology): “For instance, Deutsch [732] has proposed an information-theoretic derivation of the Born rule by combining the Everett interpretation with game theory; see also the work of Wallace [734] and Saunders [735].”
Quantum Mechanics as a Theory of Probability (2005, background): “For example, in the many worlds interpretation [17], [18].”
Decoherence, the measurement problem, and interpretations of quantum mechanics (2003, background): “However, it was pointed out that these approaches fail due to the use of circular arguments (Barnum et al., 2000; Kent, 1990; Squires, 1990; Stein, 1984); cf. also Wallace (2003b) and Saunders (2002).”
Models of Wave-function Collapse, Underlying Theories, and Experimental Tests (2012, background): “In our opinion, despite extensive investigation, this problem remains unsolved in the many-worlds interpretation (Barrett and Byrne, 2012; Deutsch, 1998; DeWitt and Graham, 1973; Hsu, 2011; Kent, 1990; Putnam, 2005; Saunders et al., 2010; Tegmark, 2007; Vaidman, 2002; Wallace, 2003).”