Meinard Kuhlmann (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz): Is there a mechanism that produces many parallel worlds?

My question is whether the emergence of many parallel worlds in the (contemporary) Everettian solution to the quantum measurement problem can be understood in a mechanistic fashion. I will conclude with a clear “Yes!”. One crucial element in my argument will be quantum decoherence, a process that partly explains why our world appears so very classical, and which rescues the original many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics from a fatal objection. However, while my positive answer may first sound like good news for the mechanistically inclined lover of parallel worlds, it comes with a big grain of salt: It is a proper physical mechanism that produces parallel worlds, but due to the nature of this mechanism, these worlds are not quite what one may hope for.

Literature:
Kuhlmann, M., and S. Glennan (2014): “On the compatibility of quantum mechanical and neo- mechanistic ontologies and explanatory strategies,” European Journal for the Philosophy of Science 4: 337-359.
Kuhlmann, M. (2017): “Mechanisms in physics”, in Glennan, S., und P. Illari (ed.): Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Mechanisms, London, New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, p. 283-295.
Maudlin, T. (1995): Three measurement problems, Topoi 14: 7-15.