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Mitchell_Porter comments on Open Thread: November 2009 - Less Wrong
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What exactly is it that you claim to know here? It's not a particular quantitative many-worlds theory that makes predictions, or you wouldn't be asking where the Born probabilities come from. It's not a particular qualitative model of many worlds, or else you wouldn't talk about Robin's mangled worlds in one post, and Barbour's timeless physics in another. What does it boil down to? "I know that quantum mechanics has something to do with parallel worlds"?
I think it comes down to:
(1) The wavefunction is what there is; and
(2) it doesn't collapse.
Well said, this has seemed to be what Eliezer has tried to argue for in his posts. He even went out of his way to avoid putting the "MWI" label on it a lot the time.
Every genius is entitled to some eccentricity, and the MWI is EY's. It might be important to remind the regulars why MWI is not required for rationality, but it is pointless to argue about it with EY.
For all the dilettantes out there who learned about quantum physics from Eliezer's posts and think that they understand it, despite the clear evidence that understanding a serious scientific topic in depth requires years of study, you know where the karma sink is.
EY's level of support for cryonics (to the point of saying that people who don't sign their children up for cryo are lousy parents) sound waaaay more eccentric to me than acceptance of the MWI.
Cryonics is a last-ditch long-shot attempt to cheat death, so I can relate quite easily.
-- Woody Allen
Is that just because it has human-level consequences?
Belief in MWI doesn't tell you what to do.
No, it's because MWI has broad support among physicists as at least being a very plausible candidate interpretation. Support for cryonics among biologists and neuroscientists is much more limited.
Well.... It does not have a broad support among physicists for being a VERY plausible. A tiny fraction consider it very plausible. The vast majority consider it very unlikely and downright wrong due to it's many problems.
You're overstating the extent of the opposition.
No. If you even just go to the discussion page you will see that the reception part is one of the most erronous and most objected to in that wiki article. The entire article in itself is a disaster and most Many Worldian proponents does not endorse it at all.
You have to understand that there are literally THOUSANDS of physicists who hold a opinion on the matter, a few polls conducted by proponents do no matter at all. Do you really think that a talk held by Max Tegmark will not attract people who share his views?
If someone where to do a global poll, you would see...
You're making an assertion with zero evidence...
I pointed you towards the evidence. One of the guys in the talksection did a survey of his own of 30 or so leading physicists.
But just the fact that David Deutsch himself says less than 10% believe in any kind of MWI speaks volumes. He has been in the community where these matters are discussed for decades
Actually, this is not true. Having been in academia for some time, I can vouch that a celebrity talk like that would attract many faculty members regardless of their views on the matter.
I believe that is an improper phrasing on Quantumental's part. No one thought, ever, (to my knowledge and immediately visible evidence) including someone like me who is completely unrelated to the discussion and has no idea who Max Tegmark is, that such a talk would not attract [any] people who share his views. This is not mutually-exclusive with "people of all distributions will be attracted in a population-representative sample", however.
To me, it just seems like an accidental (possibly caused by some bias its writer is insufficiently aware of) breach of the no-ninja-connotation rule.
Well the one I watched had like 15 guys in it, 9 pro-MWI. Indicating that this talk definitely attracted more MWI'ers than what is regular
No. Jack apparently read my mind.
No, merely by.