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p4wnc6 comments on [Link] New paper: "The quantum state cannot be interpreted statistically" - Less Wrong Discussion
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This is a good point. I should say, "One possible interpretation is...", but in either case I don't think my reliance on direct quotes to try to illustrate this stronger interpretation that I advocate should qualify as failure to understand on my part. As I read the second paragraph, it seems to straightforwardly apply to Many Worlds in an important way, but I am totally willing to accept the point of view that the implications are less salient. It was just that your original comment:
seemed unproductive to me. In what sense is it unnecessary? Unnecessary for understanding the original result? Sure... but I didn't bring up the original result for its own sake, only to discuss implications for wave collapse.
Although there is no direct effect on the state of the evidence, I guess you're right that there can be an indirect effect. For example, 'collapse' could look better than 'no-collapse' given wavefunction non-realism, but 'no-collapse' could look better than 'collapse' given wavefunction realism. In this case, changing our position on wavefunction realism would change the opinion on collapse vs. no-collapse.
But this effect only occurs to the extent that people already believe in the things disproved (or called into question). People who took this "statistical sort-of-nonrealism" model seriously, rather than as merely an interesting idea, are pretty rare even in the physics world*. And here on LW? Fuggedaboutit.
* I've never run into one, and they never came up when I talked to someone who's working on this kind of stuff - mostly focused on the neo-Copenhagenists, to use Leifer's term, and testing some specific sorts of collapse.