Will_Pearson comments on Collapse Postulates - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: Will_Pearson 10 May 2008 08:04:25AM 0 points [-]

"Theories make predictions, interpretations of theories do not. In any case, suppose we grant you your little maxim. Then, if we can't tell the difference between an interpretation which claims that wavefunctions and their collapses are real and one which explicitly claims that they are not real by experiment, they're equivalent. Your maxim has just given us that wavefunctions are metaphysically real if and only if they are not."

I'm sympathetic to caledonians position at least for non-theoretical physicists (one position might be better than the other for trying to find better theories). My way out is that, "real" is not a predicate that can be attached to "collapse".