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pragmatist comments on Open Thread, January 16-31, 2013 - Less Wrong
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Link to an article polling attendants to a quantum foundations conference:
A Snapshot of Foundational Attitudes Toward Quantum Mechanics.
Those who chose Everett as their favorite interpretation were 18% (that is 6 respondents out of 33). Copenhagen (however interpreted) is still dominant, and only 9% believe in objective collapse.
Some weird results in that poll... 42% believe Copenhagen is the correct interpretation, but only 30% believe that Bohr's view of QM is correct or will ultimately turn out to be correct. So at least 12% don't think Copenhagen is Bohr's view, which leaves me wondering what they think it is. The natural assumption would be that they think of Copenhagen as an objective collapse theory (in contrast to Bohr's instrumentalism), but that can't be right because "objective collapse" was a separate and much less popular answer. I do notice, though, that the percentages on the interpretation question add up to more than 100, so perhaps some (or all) of the people who chose "objective collapse" also chose "Copenhagen".
Also surprised that while 18% of respondents chose Everett, only 9% believe that the randomness in quantum mechanics is neither fundamental nor irreducible. What the what?
Because most determinists aren't everettians? Quite simple
No, look at the stats again. There are fewer determinists than there are Everettians. That's what I found puzzling. Some of the Everettians in that poll evidently believe in fundamental or irreducible quantum randomness, which suggests they don't really know what Everettianism is.
(Or, conceivably, that they are using 'randomness' differently and/or wrongly).