TheOtherDave comments on The Dilemma: Science or Bayes? - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 13 May 2008 08:16AM

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

Comments (185)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: aphyer 26 March 2014 01:55:56PM 0 points [-]

This is an old article, and it's possible that this question has already been asked, but I've been looking through the comments and I can't find it anywhere. So, here it is:

Why does it matter? If many-worlds is indistinguishable from the Copenhagen Interpretation by any experiment we can think of to do, how does it matter which model we use? If we ever find ourselves in a scenario where it actually does matter which one we use -- one where using the wrong model will result in us making some kind of mistake -- then we now have an experiment we can do to determine which model is correct. If we never find ourselves in such a position, it doesn't matter which model we decided on.

When phrased this way, Science doesn't seem to have such a serious problem. Saying "Traditional Science can lead to incorrect conclusions, but only about things that have no actual effect on the world" doesn't sound like such a searing criticism.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 26 March 2014 02:35:51PM 0 points [-]

When phrased this way, Science doesn't seem to have such a serious problem.

Leaving phrasing aside, it's worth drawing a distinction between things that have no actual effect on the world and things it's impractical for me to currently observe.

A process that leads more reliably to correct conclusions about the former is perhaps useless.
A process that leads more reliably to correct conclusions about the latter is not.

Comment author: shminux 28 March 2014 05:08:33PM *  -1 points [-]

Unfortunately, this is not what OP argues. There is no hint of suggesting that MWI may be testable some day (which it might be -- when done by physicists, not amateurs). The MWI ontology seems to be slowly propagating through the physics community, even Sean Carroll seems to believe it now. Slide 34 basically repeats Eliezer almost verbatim.