EHeller comments on Privileging the Hypothesis - Less Wrong

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

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (126)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: RobbBB 04 March 2013 09:23:31PM -1 points [-]

Interpretations can't be wrong, otherwise they would not be interpretations. They also can't be right, for the same reason.

Two questions. First, is that true as a matter of how you define 'interpretation', or is it true as a matter of subsequent fact? Second, do you mean to say that interpretations haven't yet passed or failed an experimental test?; or do you mean to say that interpretations can never pass or fail an experimental test?

The 'haven't yet' criterion is weakly true of 'interpretations' in the relevant QM context, though all the interpretations of interest here have been verified relative to empirically false models; they just haven't been verified relative to one another. But the 'can never' criterion is clearly false of some of the 'interpretations' we're talking about, and only contingently and ambiguously true of any of them. Whether these models will ever be empirically testable is itself an empirical question.

Here I define"wrong" in the natural sciences sense, "failed an experimental test". And that's the only definition that matters when talking about QM (which is a natural science)

What are you building into 'right'/'wrong' here? That is, why does your assertion have more semantic content than if you'd skipped the 'right'/'wrong' assertion and just said 'The Bohm interpretation hasn't passed an experimental test yet. Bye now!'? Certainly if you mean to suggest that scientific models cannot have merits or dismerits aside from experimental verification/falsification, then this is wrong. Scientific models can be overly vague, or ambiguous, or internally inconsistent, or overly complex or inelegant, or unexplanatory, or gerrymandered, or ad-hoc, or unverifiable, or unfalsifiable, or historically (as opposed to experimentally) false. All of those are faults in their own right -- and, often, they are Bayesianly relevant faults, faults that should impact our credence in the model.

Comment author: shminux 04 March 2013 09:33:22PM *  -2 points [-]

But the 'can never' criterion is clearly false of some of the 'interpretations' we're talking about, and only contingently and ambiguously true of any of them.

Interpretations are designed to give the same predictions as can be inferred from a no-interpretation math, otherwise they would be called theories.

What are you building into 'right'/'wrong' here?

Experimentally testable new predictions. No more, no less.

Comment author: EHeller 04 March 2013 09:39:12PM *  2 points [-]

Interpretations are designed to give the same predictions as can be inferred from a no-interpretation math, otherwise they would be called theories.

This isn't necessarily true. Consider that the GRW interpretation has been pretty much falsified by Van Harlingen's work at UIUC (macroscopic current superposition in SQUIDs). Most of the interpretations rely on different postulates than traditional Copenhagen quantum so there can be (and generally are) differences. However, to date, most of those differences aren't measurable.

Similarly, we call many-worlds an "interpretation" even though no one has figured out how to actually make predictions with it. The difference between "interpretation" and "theory" is a bit loose.