Effective dark energy from decoherence

Within the quantum Darwinist framework introduced by W. H. Zurek ({em Nat. Phys.}, 5:181-188, 2009), observers obtain pointer-state information about quantum systems by interacting with a local sample of the surrounding environment, e.g. a local sample of the ambient photon field. Because the environment encodes such pointer state information uniformly and hence redundantly throughout its entire volume, the information is equally available to all observers regardless of their location. This framework is applied to the observation of stellar center-of-mass positions, which are assumed to be encoded by the ambient photon field in a way that is uniformly accessible to all possible observers. Assuming Landauers Principle, constructing such environmental encodings requires $(ln2) kT$ per encoded bit. For the observed 10$^{24}$ stars and a uniform binary encoding of center-of-mass positions into voxels with a linear dimension of 5 km, the free energy required at the current CMB temperature T = 2.7 K is $sim$ 2.5 $cdot$ 10$^{-27}$ kg $cdot$ m$^{-3}$, strikingly close to the observed value of $Omega_{Lambda} rho_{c}$. Decreasing the voxel size to $(l_{P})^{3}$ results in a free energy requirement 10$^{117}$ times larger.

Building the Observer into the System: Toward a Realistic Description of Human Interaction with the World

Human beings do not observe the world from the outside, but rather are fully embedded in it. The sciences, however, often give the observer both a gods eye perspective and substantial a~priori knowledge. Motivated by W. Ross Ashbys statement, the theory of the Black Box is merely the theory of real objects or systems, when close attention is given to the question, relating object and observer, about what information comes from the object, and how it is obtained (Introduction to Cybernetics, 1956, p. 110), I develop here an alternate picture of the world as a black box to which the observer is coupled. Within this framework I prove purely-classical analogs of the no-go theorems of quantum theory. Focussing on the question of identifying macroscopic objects, such as laboratory apparatus or even other observers, I show that the standard quantum formalism of superposition is required to adequately represent the classical information that an observer can obtain. I relate these results to supporting considerations from evolutionary biology, cognitive and developmental psychology, and artificial intelligence.

Decompositional equivalence: A fundamental symmetry underlying quantum theory

Decompositional equivalence is the principle that there is no preferred decomposition of the universe into subsystems. It is shown here, by using simple thought experiments, that quantum theory follows from decompositional equivalence together with Landauers principle. This demonstration raises within physics a question previously left to psychology: how do human - or any - observers agree about what constitutes a system of interest?