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MichaelVassar comments on Privileging the Hypothesis - Less Wrong
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Comments (126)
I agree that privileging a hypothesis is a common error. I don't agree that it applies in the example used, though.
If you have a tradition thousands of years old saying that a particular spot was the site of Nazareth in 4BC, or of Troy in 1200BC, it isn't irrational to privilege the hypothesis that that spot was indeed the site of Nazareth, or of Troy.
Similarly, when the entire world has used the single-world hypothesis almost exclusively until the recent past, it isn't unfairly privileging it to still consider it a major contender.
You might think this is more like evolution vs. creationism. I don't mean that we should keep teaching creationism in school as an alternative today. But we haven't got as strong an argument for many-worlds as we do for evolution.
Also, AFAIK there's just these 2 competing hypotheses: One-world, many-world. We don't have the 7-worlds hypothesis and the 23-worlds hypothesis and the pi-worlds hypothesis. We could have the countable-worlds hypothesis and the uncountable-worlds hypothesis, but AFAIK we don't even have those. How can you say it's irrational to consider 1 of the only 2 hypotheses available?
Reminiscent of the guy who was asked what were the odds he would win the lottery, and replied, "Fifty-fifty, either I win or I don't." The corresponding heuristic-and-bias is I think known as "packing and unpacking" or something along those lines.
1 vs. many is a very natural divide, not at all a good example of the packing and unpacking fallacy.
Once you accept that there exists something isomorphic to a wave function, it's more like:
many worlds vs. many worlds and an orang-utan vs. many worlds and an apple tree vs. many worlds and a television vs. many worlds and a blue castle vs. (...) vs. many worlds and a character-of-natural-law-violating process that constantly kills all the worlds except one.
All cases except the last case contain many worlds, but Phil packed them together. I think that's the intuition Eliezer was getting at.
We shouldn't be afraid here to sound Orwellian. Copenhagen people believe in the many worldeaters interpretation. We believe in the no worldeaters interpretation.
So true - My "8 worlds and an orang-utan" hypothesis never got the respect it deserved.
--Stan Kelly-Bootle
Proper consideration.
Props for the perseverance, man. Props ;-)
That is exactly and perfectly right and I should use this example henceforth.