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Locality and Mentality in Everett Interpretations: Albert and Loewer’s Many Minds

Laura Felline, Guido Bacciagaluppi

Published Jan 1, 2013• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

This paper, together with a planned companion treating contemporary decoherence-based approaches, reviews and analyses the approaches to locality and to mind-body dualism proposed in Everett interpretations of quantum mechanics. Here we treat the explicitly mentalistic many-minds interpretation proposed by David Albert and Barry Loewer (1988). In particular, we investigate what kind of supervenience of the mind on the body is implied by Albert and Loewer's many-minds interpretation, and how the interpretation of the related "mindless hulks" problem affects the issue of locality within this interpretation. © 2013 Imprint Academic.

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Dualistic interpretations attempt to solve the measurement problem of quantum mechanics by postulating the existence of non-physical minds, and by giving a suitable dynamical equation for how these minds evolve. I consider the relative merits of three extant dualistic interpretations (Albert and Loewer’s single-mind and many-minds interpretations, and Squires’ interpretation), and I defend Squires’ interpretation as preferable to the Albert/Loewer interpretations. I also argue that, for all three of these interpretations, the minds evolve independently of the physical universe, and hence render the physical universe otiose; the interpretations are better viewed as supporting not dualism, but mental monism.

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Making sense of Born's rule $p_\alpha=\lVert\Psi_\alpha\rVert^2$ with the many-worlds interpretation

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This work is an attempt to justify Born's rule within the framework of the many-worlds interpretation proposed by Everett. Here, we develop a unitary model of many-minds based on the work of Albert and Loewer (Synthese 77, 195 (1988)). At the difference of the model of Albert and Loewer ours is not genuinely stochastic and dualistic and also involves some classical-like randomness based on ignorance about initial conditions of the Universe. We also compare the present method for recovering Born's rule with previous works based on Decision theory a la Deutsch Wallace and envariance \emph{a la} Zurek and found that all these approaches are strongly related to each other.

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Introduction

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The aim of this volume is to develop and evaluate the suggestion that if one adopts the interpretation of quantum mechanics initially proposed by Hugh Everett, today frequently referred to as the “many-worlds interpretation,” then one can avoid the kind of nonlocality that is often thought to be a consequence of quantum entanglement according to other approaches, and thus permit the compatibility of these two pillars of modern physics: quantum mechanics and special relativity. Although this is an idea that seems to have been recognized by Everett and is sometimes touted as a reason to prefer his approach to interpreting quantum mechanics over others, the precise way in which Everett’s interpretation achieves this locality, indeed whether it even does achieve locality, has been debated, including among the interpretation’s proponents. The aim of this introductory chapter is to provide readers with a background of this debate concerning the locality of Everettian quantum mechanics. We begin with a brief historical introduction to Everett’s proposed interpretation of quantum mechanics and its later development into the many-worlds interpretation. The following section discusses how the by now well-established phenomenon of quantum entanglement seems to imply what Albert Einstein, in a 1947 letter to Max Born, called “spooky action at a distance,” and a tension with special relativity. We then discuss why one might think that the many-worlds interpretation allows one to avoid nonlocality in this sense. The next sections bring the reader up to date with how the locality of Everettian quantum mechanics has been debated both by critics and proponents of the interpretation. As we will see, the desire to understand Everettian quantum mechanics as an interpretation that avoids nonlocality has opened up some interesting debates concerning both what it means to say an interpretation of quantum mechanics is local and over the metaphysical and mathematical interpretation of Everettian quantum mechanics itself. This introductory chapter concludes with a summary of the contributions to the present volume in the context of this ongoing debate.

•Aug 26, 2026•0 citations
This paper, together with a planned companion treating contemporary decoherence-based approaches, reviews and analyses the approaches to locality and to mind-body dualism proposed in Everett interpretations of quantum mechanics. Here we treat the explicitly mentalistic many-minds interpretation proposed by David Albert and Barry Loewer (1988). In particular, we investigate what kind of supervenience of the mind on the body is implied by Albert and Loewer's many-minds interpretation, and how the interpretation of the related "mindless hulks" problem affects the issue of locality within this interpretation. © 2013 Imprint Academic.
Dualistic interpretations attempt to solve the measurement problem of quantum mechanics by postulating the existence of non-physical minds, and by giving a suitable dynamical equation for how these minds evolve. I consider the relative merits of three extant dualistic interpretations (Albert and Loewer’s single-mind and many-minds interpretations, and Squires’ interpretation), and I defend Squires’ interpretation as preferable to the Albert/Loewer interpretations. I also argue that, for all three of these interpretations, the minds evolve independently of the physical universe, and hence render the physical universe otiose; the interpretations are better viewed as supporting not dualism, but mental monism.
In this work we investigate the problem of locality in theories inspired by Everett’s Relative State Theory. Specifically we address the Many Worlds by Deutsch, the Many Minds Theory by David Albert and Barry Loewer and the Relational Theory by Simon Saunders, and we carry out our inquiry in view of recent work by Meir Hemmo and Itamar Pitowsky. Our aim is, on the one hand, to clarify the remarkably important points which have been put forward within Hemmo and Pitowsky work on the issue of the interpretation of probability in Many Minds, on the other hand to argue against a remark on the Relational theory, stating that the analysis carried out on the Many Minds interpretation could be applied, mutatis mutandis, to Saunders’ theory.
Abstract This chapter evaluates another way of interpreting Everett's branches as describing the states of different minds in which an observer's determinate experiences and beliefs are explained by the fact that he always has a determinate mental state. In this sense, such theories might be said to predict appearances directly. It describes the efforts of Albert and Loewer in explaining how such a theory might work. This chapter also discusses Lockwood's many-minds theory and its relationship to Albert and Loewer's. Lastly, it explains the relative-fact theory and the correlations-without-correlata view.
We argue that certain types of many minds (and many worlds) interpretations of quantum mechanics, e.g. Lockwood ([1996a]), Deutsch ([1985]) do not provide a coherent interpretation of the quantum mechanical probabilistic algorithm. By contrast, in Albert and Loewer's ([1988]) version of the many minds interpretation, there is a coherent interpretation of the quantum mechanical probabilities. We consider Albert and Loewer's probability interpretation in the context of Bell‐type and GHZ‐type states and argue that it implies a certain (weak) form of nonlocality.1Introduction2Albert and Loewer's interpretation3Probabilities in Lockwood's interpretation4Sets of minds and their correlations5Many minds and GHZ
Making sense of Born's rule pα=∥Ψα∥2p_\alpha=\lVert\Psi_\alpha\rVert^2pα​=∥Ψα​∥2 with the many-worlds interpretation
This work is an attempt to justify Born's rule within the framework of the many-worlds interpretation proposed by Everett. Here, we develop a unitary model of many-minds based on the work of Albert and Loewer (Synthese 77, 195 (1988)). At the difference of the model of Albert and Loewer ours is not genuinely stochastic and dualistic and also involves some classical-like randomness based on ignorance about initial conditions of the Universe. We also compare the present method for recovering Born's rule with previous works based on Decision theory a la Deutsch Wallace and envariance \emph{a la} Zurek and found that all these approaches are strongly related to each other.
The aim of this volume is to develop and evaluate the suggestion that if one adopts the interpretation of quantum mechanics initially proposed by Hugh Everett, today frequently referred to as the “many-worlds interpretation,” then one can avoid the kind of nonlocality that is often thought to be a consequence of quantum entanglement according to other approaches, and thus permit the compatibility of these two pillars of modern physics: quantum mechanics and special relativity. Although this is an idea that seems to have been recognized by Everett and is sometimes touted as a reason to prefer his approach to interpreting quantum mechanics over others, the precise way in which Everett’s interpretation achieves this locality, indeed whether it even does achieve locality, has been debated, including among the interpretation’s proponents. The aim of this introductory chapter is to provide readers with a background of this debate concerning the locality of Everettian quantum mechanics. We begin with a brief historical introduction to Everett’s proposed interpretation of quantum mechanics and its later development into the many-worlds interpretation. The following section discusses how the by now well-established phenomenon of quantum entanglement seems to imply what Albert Einstein, in a 1947 letter to Max Born, called “spooky action at a distance,” and a tension with special relativity. We then discuss why one might think that the many-worlds interpretation allows one to avoid nonlocality in this sense. The next sections bring the reader up to date with how the locality of Everettian quantum mechanics has been debated both by critics and proponents of the interpretation. As we will see, the desire to understand Everettian quantum mechanics as an interpretation that avoids nonlocality has opened up some interesting debates concerning both what it means to say an interpretation of quantum mechanics is local and over the metaphysical and mathematical interpretation of Everettian quantum mechanics itself. This introductory chapter concludes with a summary of the contributions to the present volume in the context of this ongoing debate.