There are fundamental reasons why there should exist a reformulation of quantum mechanics which does not refer to a classical space–time manifold. It follows that quantum mechanics as we know it is a limiting case of a more general nonlinear quantum theory, with the nonlinearity becoming significant at the Planck mass/energy scale. This nonlinearity is responsible for a dynamically induced collapse of the wave function, during a quantum measurement, and it hence falsifies the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. We illustrate this conclusion using a mathematical model based on a generalized Doebner–Goldin equation. The non-Hermitian part of the Hamiltonian in this norm-preserving, nonlinear, Schrödinger equation dominates during a quantum measurement, and leads to a breakdown of linear superposition.