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.

What I am saying is that if one person says "all the worlds have always existed" and another says "the worlds spread out from one world," it's possible that both of them are being consistent, but then they are using two different definitions of "world." I am also saying that there is no basis that is "more real" than the others - only that some are more useful, and it's okay that people use different definitions as long as they're clear about it.

And yes, both pictures can describe the same thing. Have you worked with Bell states at all? Or am I misinterpreting your name and you actually haven't taken a class on quantum mechanics before?

The quantum world is like a diagonal line. One person comes up to it and says "Ah! Here is a diagonal line! It has just as much horizontal as it does vertical, therefore it is a mixture between horizontal and vertical." Another person comes up to it and says "Ah! Here is a diagonal line! It is a perfect rising diagonal, and is not even a little biased towards the falling diagonal." Will these two people argue over whether the line is made of two components or one?

I understand what you are saying, which I think my last post showed quite clearly, but this still does not answer the actual question at hand. What you are saying really amounts to saying that "realism and solipsism are the same", because we cannot really distinguish either through science, all we can do is use logic and metaphysical "reasoning".

Obviously both overlap and non-overlap cannot be true, they are ontologically different, yet you seem to say that "because the equations doesn't decide, reality isn't decided" which is... (read more)