Zack_M_Davis comments on Dennett's "Consciousness Explained": Chpt 2 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: PhilGoetz 10 January 2010 11:38PM

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Comment author: Zack_M_Davis 10 January 2010 11:47:22PM *  7 points [-]

many worlds requires a stupendous, ongoing, exponential violation of conservation laws.

My domain knowledge is weak, I'm still pretty sure it doesn't work that way. "Many worlds" is just a cute name; there aren't really new worlds appearing from nowhere. Rather, reality is fundamentally made out of this wavefunction-thingy, and from our perspective it looks like "worlds" "branching."

(EDIT: quotation truncated for relevance)

Comment author: Alicorn 10 January 2010 11:55:02PM 4 points [-]

from our perspective it looks like "worlds" "branching."

Nothing has ever looked like that to me.

Comment author: Zack_M_Davis 11 January 2010 06:11:21AM 3 points [-]

Try squinting.

(A beat.)

Right, I phrased that poorly. From our perspective it looks like objective probability, and it's pedagogically useful to speak of the different possible outcomes happening in different "worlds."

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 11 January 2010 12:35:34AM *  1 point [-]

Conservation laws are mathematical constraints. If Many Worlds violated any conservation law, it would be possible to show this mathematically. Phil, do you believe that this has been done? If not, why do you think that MW violates conservation laws?

Perhaps you think that MW says that, at each "branching", a distinct universe, made out of distinct material stuff, is created out of nothing. That would be a violation of conservation, but that's not what MW says.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 11 January 2010 01:28:30AM *  5 points [-]

Perhaps you think that MW says that, at each "branching", a distinct universe, made out of distinct material stuff, is created out of nothing. That would be a violation of conservation, but that's not what MW says.

That is what the Wikipedia entry on many-worlds describes it as saying, as I read it.

It further says:

Common objections and misconceptions:

  • Conservation of energy is grossly violated if at every instant near-infinite amounts of new matter are generated to create the new universes.

MWI response: Conservation of energy is not violated since the energy of each branch has to be weighted by its probability, according to the standard formula for the conservation of energy in quantum theory. This results in the total energy of the multiverse being conserved.

Please remember, my larger point is not to argue for or against many worlds. My subsidiary point is that many worlds is considered an acceptable view to hold, and therefore not considered dualism; even though it appears - to most people, even if not to MW experts - to fail the only sensible test I was able to come up with to distinguish good dualism from bad dualism.

  • It does not matter whether experts currently agree that MWI actually does or does not violate the conservation of energy or not. It only matters that many people who would say, if asked, that MW violates conservation of energy, would nonetheless not call it dualism.
  • My conclusion was not that many worlds is wrong; my conclusion was that the concept of "dualism" is bankrupt.

More generally, not to Tyrrell specifically, but to the multitudes aggressively down-voting this post: Relax! I didn't say anything bad about EY! Just follow the chain of reasoning, people; stop hyperfocusing on phrases that upset you, and getting upset because something you like was used in the same context as something you don't like.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 11 January 2010 04:36:37AM 3 points [-]

More generally, not to Tyrrell specifically, but to the multitudes aggressively down-voting this post: Relax! I didn't say anything bad about EY! Just follow the chain of reasoning, people; stop hyperfocusing on phrases that upset you, and getting upset because something you like was used in the same context as something you don't like.

I don't think you're being downvoted just for criticizing MW or EY. Some of Mitchell Porter's posts criticizing the MW orthodoxy here have been highly upvoted.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 11 January 2010 08:39:52AM 2 points [-]

You're not being downvoted for criticizing the dominant paradigm. You're being downvoted for gross misunderstanding of the dominant paradigm followed by unwillingness to accept correction.

Also, I personally simply do not want to see a chapter-by-chapter review of Consciousness Explained on LW, and may veto this even if it's not net-downvoted - keeping in mind that while any reader can upvote, only commenters have downvotes to use, and so the fact that this has gotten a number of downvotes is still quite alarming even if some upvotes canceled them out.

Comment author: ciphergoth 11 January 2010 09:48:51AM 2 points [-]

Yes, I'm also sorry to see a second part of this. CS is a good book but not worthy of this sort of crawl-over. And if it really were worthy of it, I would want to read it from someone who had finished the book before they started posting.

Comment author: Cyan 11 January 2010 02:18:15AM 1 point [-]

More generally, not to Tyrrell specifically, but to the multitudes aggressively down-voting this post: Relax! I didn't say anything bad about EY! Just follow the chain of reasoning, people; stop hyperfocusing on phrases that upset you, and getting upset because something you like was used in the same context as something you don't like.

Voted up just for this.

Comment author: orthonormal 11 January 2010 01:47:29AM 0 points [-]

It does not matter whether experts currently agree that MWI actually does or does not violate the conservation of energy or not. It only matters that many people who would say, if asked, that MW violates conservation of energy, would nonetheless not call it dualism.

If this is your point, please rephrase the controverted paragraph in the post. I think that as currently written, it distracts from your main point by opening up a different argument.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 11 January 2010 04:32:38AM 2 points [-]

Okay. Rephrased.

Comment author: orthonormal 11 January 2010 05:45:23AM *  1 point [-]

Thanks; I find it much improved.

I think the general pattern is that it's counterproductive to baldly state† multiple independent controversial claims in the same place— one winds up in a muddle of all the various arguments. Bracketing off all but one claim at a time, via disclaimers (like the one you added) or other forms of rhetorical modesty, is IMO the most productive way to go.

† (or, of course, to write so that a reader might think you are baldly stating several such claims)

Comment author: PhilGoetz 11 January 2010 12:48:07AM *  1 point [-]

Then I don't know what MW says. I'd be surprised if you can formulate many-worlds in a way so that there are as many worlds in the past as in the future, and still have entropy increase.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 11 January 2010 12:54:30AM *  3 points [-]

I'd be surprised if you can formulate many-worlds in a way so that there are as many worlds in the past as in the future.

The number of worlds isn't necessarily conserved. But the things called "worlds" in MW aren't made out of distinct pieces of material stuff. (ETA: That is, you don't have one collection of atoms constituting one world while a disjoint collection of atoms constitutes another world.)

Comment author: PhilGoetz 11 January 2010 04:24:43AM 3 points [-]

I don't think I'm going to understand many-worlds today.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 11 January 2010 08:17:49PM 1 point [-]

Good and Real explains it pretty well. (Just resumed reading it today, and realized I liked the chapters on physics more than I thought I would.)

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