PhilGoetz comments on Privileging the Hypothesis - Less Wrong

57 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 29 September 2009 12:40AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 September 2009 12:37:57AM 11 points [-]

Also, AFAIK there's just these 2 competing hypotheses: One-world, many-world.

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.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 01 October 2009 11:37:24PM *  3 points [-]

I think you are demonstrating a dramatic failure to update by saying that a hypothesis held by 99.99+% of humanity, and even by most people who have thought about the issues, is not worth considering.

I'd like to know what the distribution of opinions of quantum physicists and cosmologists is.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 02 October 2009 03:03:54AM *  5 points [-]

There have been polls, with a dramatic range of support. Wikipedia leads me to the most MWI-friendly poll. I think the low-water mark is about 10% of some other group of quantum theorists. I suspect that the variation is due to wording issues and local social pressure (by "local" I mean the conference), but the page suggests different communities:

The findings of this poll are in accord with other polls, that many- worlds is most popular amongst scientists who may rather loosely be described as string theorists or quantum gravitists/cosmologists. It is less popular amongst the wider scientific community who mostly remain in ignorance of it.

Antia Lamas saw MWI win a poll for least favorite interpretation. On that page, Michael Nielsen mentions a poll where MWI came 3rd, after Copenhagen and decoherence...but if decoherence is an interpretation, it sure sounds like MWI to me.