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On the Possibility that the Present Quantum State of the Universe is the Vacuum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

David Z. Albert
David Z. Albert*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

This note will consist of a single rather elementary remark about the overall Quantum state of the world.

Let me say something at the outset about what this remark is supposed to be good for. It will not support and it will also not raise any doubts about any particular cosmological model. The problems which this remark will turn out to have a bearing on are problems which those models aren't intended to address, problems (about which, however, there has lately been a good deal of speculation) connected with the ‘ultimate beginnings’ of the world; and the remark will merely suggest that those problems need not be worried about; that perhaps, after, there simply aren't genuine problems like that.

The remark is that if any linear Quantum-Mechanical equations of motion happen to be the true and universal equations of motion of the world, then it is consistent with everything we observe, and it is consistent with everything we are even likely to observe, to suppose that the present (and past and future) state of the physical world is the vacuum state.

Type
Part IV. Physics
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1988 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1988 , 1988 , pp. 127 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

I am thankful for many helpful conversations with Yakir Aharonov and Aaron Casher.

References

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