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

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

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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: fezziwig 26 March 2014 02:41:31PM 0 points [-]

If I've understood this sequence correctly, Eliezer would disagree with you: "Traditional Science can lead to incorrect conclusions, but only about things that have no actual effect on the world" is a serious criticism. He calls out the "let me know when you've got a testable prediction" attitude as explicitly wrong.