Scott Aaronson's cautious optimism for the MWI

calef

http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1103

Eliezer's gung-ho attitude about the realism of the Many Worlds Interpretation always rubbed me the wrong way, especially in the podcast between both him and Scott (around 8:43 in http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/2220). I've seen a similar sentiment expressed before about the MWI sequences. And I say that still believing it to be the most seemingly correct of the available interpretations.

I feel Scott's post does an excellent job grounding it as a possibly correct, and in-principle falsifiable interpretation.

http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1103

I feel Scott's post does an excellent job grounding it as a possibly correct, and in-principle falsifiable interpretation.

There are certain observables for which MWI and Copenhagen predict different expectation values, provided decoherence is contained.

That doesn't sound right. Famously, matrix mechanics is "equivalent to the Schrödinger wave formulation", and matrix mechanics doesn't have multiple interpretations.

I view this whole subject as a colossal waste of time.

As you say, matrix mechanics (or the Heisenberg formulation) is equivalent to the Schrodinger formulation, so it has exactly the same range of interpretations as the Schrodinger formulation.

If you want a concrete example of an experiment that would distinguish between MWI and Copenhagen, here it is:

Prepare an electron so that its z-spin state is the superposition |up> + |down> (I'm dropping the coefficients for ease of typing). Have a research assistant enter an appropriately isolated chamber with the electron and measure its z spin. If Copenhagen is... (read more)