Nornagest comments on What are your contrarian views? - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Metus 15 September 2014 09:17AM

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Comment author: DanielLC 15 September 2014 11:14:10PM 1 point [-]

What's a Copernican explanation?

Comment author: Nornagest 16 September 2014 12:09:08AM *  3 points [-]

I've never heard the term before, but in context I'd guess it means something like "an explanation that implies we're less important than the previous explanation did". Heliocentrism vs. geocentrism, evolution vs. a supernatural creation narrative culminating in people, etc.

Comment author: Aleksander 16 September 2014 05:33:09AM 1 point [-]

Freud's psychoanalysis has been often put in the same category of "Copernican" things as heliocentrism and evolution.

Comment author: DanielLC 16 September 2014 01:00:24AM 1 point [-]

Why is MWI more Copernican than the Copenhagen interpretation?

You do realize that an "observer" doesn't have to be conscious, right? The Copenhagen interpretation doesn't treat humans specially. If anything, I'd say that the Copenhagen interpretation is more Copernican, since it explains the Born probabilities without requiring anthropics.

Comment author: Nornagest 16 September 2014 01:24:04AM 1 point [-]

My comment was not intended to be an endorsement of polymathwannabe's analysis. I'm not a QM expert and am not qualified to comment on the details of either interpretation.