When I read descriptions of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics,

Question

When I read descriptions of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, they say things like "every possible outcome of every event defines or exists in its own history or world", but is this really accurate? This seems to imply that the universe only split at particular moments when "events" happen. This also seems to imply that the universe only splits into a finite number of "every possible outcome".

I imagine things differently. Rather than splitting into a finite number of universes at discrete times, I imagine that at every moment the universe splits into an uncountably infinite number of universes, perhaps as described by the Schr

Explanation / Answer

Many worlders won't tell you this dirty little secret but how often splitting happens, and how many worlds there are, depends upon the choice of coarse graining, and the coarse graining resolution. No, it's not possible to ramp up the coarse graining all the way to the finest levels because a decoherence/coherence threshold would be crossed. And no, there is no canonical coarse graining either.

The preferred basis depends upon the environment. Always. What is the preferred basis for a closed self-contained universe?

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