AIP conference proceedings

Who plays dice? Subjective uncertainty in deterministic quantum world

Brandon Carter

Published Jan 1, 2006• 1 citation

Abstract

Einstein’s 1905 recognition that light consists of discrete “quanta” inaugurated the duality (wave versus particle) paradox that was resolved 20 years later by Born’s introduction of the probability interpretation on which modem quantum theory is based. Einstein’s refusal to abandon the classical notion of deterministic evolution — despite the unqualified success of the new paradigm on a local scale — foreshadowed the restoration of determinism in the attempt to develop a global treatment applicable to cosmology by Everett, who failed however to provide a logically coherent treatment of subjective uncertainty at a local level. This drawback has recently been overcome in an extended formulation allowing deterministic description of a physical universe in which the uncertainty concerns only our own particular local situations, whose probability is prescribed by an appropriate micro‐anthropic principle.

DOI: 10.1063/1.2399568

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