nshepperd comments on What I've learned from Less Wrong - Less Wrong

79 Post author: Louie 20 November 2010 12:47PM

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

Comments (232)

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

Comment author: Vaniver 21 November 2010 07:21:10PM *  1 point [-]

Have you read that and considered it convincing?

They use four supports, all of which collapse under examination (I don't number them the way they do, because they seem confused about what are separate supports):

  1. Though it makes the same predictions about our world as de Broglie-Bohm, they have different philosophical implications. Believe in something because of math, not philosophy.

They list three predictions made MWI, all of which are already disproved or nonsense:

  1. If memory is reversible, it's not memory because thermodynamic fluctuations make it unreliable. Beyond that confusion, the crux of this argument is whether or not a spin measurement can be reversed- if so, it should work for any flavor, and not depend on whether or not you also erase what's in memory.

  2. Their discussion of quantum gravity serves to make MWI not more plausible, as it supposedly requires quantum gravity, while other flavors function whether gravity is quantum or classical.

  3. Their discussion of linearity is flat-out bizarre. Paraphrased: 'We're pretty damn sure that QM is linear, but if it weren't and MWI were true, aliens would have teleported to our dimension, and that hasn't happened yet.' Why they think that is evidence for MWI is beyond me- using Bayesian logic, it strictly cannot increase the probability of MWI.

Comment author: nshepperd 22 November 2010 01:50:05AM 0 points [-]

I don't think the intention was to offer these as evidence for MWI. The evidence for MWI is that it has one less postulate (and therefore is "simpler"). They're just showing what MWI rules out. That these predictions are different correctly justifies saying "MWI is not just an interpretation".