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Luke_A_Somers comments on Scott Aaronson's cautious optimism for the MWI - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (70)
MWI says: apply Born's rule to get anything useful.
If that's what you call Copenhagen, then sure they're the same thing - but then why was Everett so scandalous and ridiculed? Something had to be different.
No idea, I don't find MWI ridiculous, just not instrumentally useful, given that you still have to combine unitary evolution with the Born rule to get anything done. This is a philosophical difference with EY, who believes that territory is in the territory, not in the map.
... territory is in the territory.
Umm. That sounds... non-controversial. Did I read that wrong somehow?
No, you read it right. However, instrumentally, the map-territory relation is just a model, like any other, though somewhat more general. It postulates existence of some immutable objective reality with fixed laws, something to be studied ("mapped"). While this may appear self-evident to a realist, one ought to agree that it is still an assumption, however useful it might be. And it is indeed very useful: it explains why carefully set up experiments are repeatable, and assures you that they will continue to be. Thus it is easy to forget that it is impossible to verify that "territory exists independently of our models of it", and go on arguing which of many experimentally indistinguishable territories is the real one. And once you do, behold the great "MWI vs Copehagen" LW debate. If you remember that territory is in the map, not in the territory, the debate is exposed as useless, until different models of the territory can be distinguished experimentally. Which will hopefully happen in the cantilever experiment.
The territory is not in the map, because that is nonsense.
That does not beg the question against instrumentalism and jn favour.of realism, because the territory does not have to exist at all.
Realists and anti realists are arguing about whether the territory exists, not where.
That's the standard reaction here, yes. However "that is nonsense" is not a rational argument. You can present evidence to the contrary or point out a contradiction in reasoning. If you have either, feel free.
I don't understand what you are saying here.
Maybe so, then I am neither.
I'll point out a contradiction: territory is defined as not-map.
"I am neither"
... in the sense that you are using the word territory in a way that no one else does.
One can postulate that there is an and to a long stack of maps of maps which ends somewhere with a perfect absolute "correct" something. We call that the territory. I don't postulate that.
This is one of those times it really is useful to pull out definitions... and for any reasonable definition of 'territory' and 'map', that's self-evidently true. Our models, even if correct, are underdetermined to the point that they cannot completely explain everything. Therefore, there's something else. That's what we call the 'territory'.
Whether the territory is vastly different from our models or simply more detailed, they do not coincide. And on the word 'independent' - well, the territory contains the map, so there's no short-circuit if the territory has map dependence.
Again, that's the realist approach. The minimum one can state is much less certain than that: all we know for certain is that carefully repeated experiments produce expected results. Period. Full stop. Why they produce expected results (e.g. because there is "something else" that you want to call the territory) is already a model. It's a better model than, say, Boltzmann brains, but it is still a model. The instrumental approach is to consider all models giving the same predictions isomorphic, and, in particular, all experimentally indistinguishable territories isomorphic.
It's on par with cogito, ergo sum. I don't know everything, therefore something else exists. I don't feel obliged to cater to people who are unwilling to go along with this.
No obligation on your part was implied. I only suggested tabooing the word "exist" and replacing it with what you mean by it. I bet that you will end up either with an equivalent term, or with something perception-related. So your choice is limited to postulating existence, including the existence of something that isn't your thoughts (the definition of realism), or using it as as a synonym for territory in the map-territory model created by those thoughts. There are fewer assumptions in the latter, and nothing of interest is lost.
If not from Everett, I would expect from David Deutch to say: "You and I have a completely different sets of parallel worlds, for the Relativity sake. Every slightly different observer comes with his own Multiverse collection of parallel worlds."
Those people should update to the GR, it's about time.