Desrtopa comments on Our Phyg Is Not Exclusive Enough - Less Wrong

25 [deleted] 14 April 2012 09:08PM

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Comment author: David_Gerard 14 April 2012 10:55:55PM 11 points [-]

As far as I can tell (low votes, some in the negative, few comments), the QM sequence is the least read of the sequences, and yet makes a lot of EY's key points used later on identity and decision theory. So most LW readers seem not to have read it.

Suggestion: a straw poll on who's read which sequences.

Comment author: Desrtopa 15 April 2012 12:18:20AM *  5 points [-]

I've read it, but I took away less from it than any of the other sequences. Reading any of the other sequences, I can agree or disagree with the conclusion and articulate why. With the QM sequence, my response is more along the lines of "I can't treat this as very strong evidence of anything because I don't think I'm qualified to tell whether it's correct or not." Eliezer's not a physicist either, although his level of fluency is above mine, and while I consider him a very formidable rationalist as humans go, I'm not sure he really knows enough to draw the conclusions he does with such confidence.

I've seen the QM sequence endorsed by at least one person who is a theoretical physicist, but on the other hand, I've read Mitchell Porter's criticisms of Eliezer's interpretation and they sound comparably plausible given my level of knowledge, so I'm not left thinking I have much more grounds to favor any particular quantum interpretation than when I started.