Caledonian2 comments on Collapse Postulates - Less Wrong

21 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 May 2008 07:49AM

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

Comments (60)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Caledonian2 10 May 2008 03:09:17AM 1 point [-]

Attaching an empty concept to a thing doesn't differentiate between them. The idea of 'metaphysical reality' is meaningless.

The various interpretations don't just make the same predictions for the phenomena we know about, but they have no known implications that vary between them. They are equivalent. The descriptions of the mathematical processes differ, but the function they implement are the same. They're precisely the same thing with a different superficial appearance. That's all.

Something that looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, and behaves in all ways like a duck, IS A DUCK. It's the function of a thing within the set of interactions with the universe that determine identity. Talking about something that behaves in all ways like a duck, but is somehow metaphysically different, is not only wrong-headed but silly.