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DanielLC comments on What are your contrarian views? - Less Wrong Discussion
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What's a Copernican explanation?
I've never heard the term before, but in context I'd guess it means something like "an explanation that implies we're less important than the previous explanation did". Heliocentrism vs. geocentrism, evolution vs. a supernatural creation narrative culminating in people, etc.
Freud's psychoanalysis has been often put in the same category of "Copernican" things as heliocentrism and evolution.
Why is MWI more Copernican than the Copenhagen interpretation?
You do realize that an "observer" doesn't have to be conscious, right? The Copenhagen interpretation doesn't treat humans specially. If anything, I'd say that the Copenhagen interpretation is more Copernican, since it explains the Born probabilities without requiring anthropics.
My comment was not intended to be an endorsement of polymathwannabe's analysis. I'm not a QM expert and am not qualified to comment on the details of either interpretation.
The Copernican principle states that there's nothing special or unique or privileged about our local frame of reference: we're not at the center of the solar system, we're not at the center of the galaxy, this is not the only galaxy, and the next logical step would be to posit that this is not the only universe.
I do not believe in reincarnation of any sort. I believe this is my only life.
It has been believed that the Earth was flat. I'm sure at least someone had considered the implication that the Earth goes on forever. This has turned out to be false. The Earth has positive curvature, and thus only finite surface area.
Quite a few people have considered the idea that atoms are little solar systems, which could have their own life. It turns out that electrons are almost certainly fundamental particles. And even if they're not, the way physics works on a small scale is such that life would be impossible.
Similarly, galaxies do not make up molecules. Even if there are other forces as would be necessary, the light speed limit combined with the expansion of the universe creates a cosmological event horizon. Beyond a certain scale, it is physically impossible for anything to interact.
There are a variety of physical theories that predict other universes. They work in different ways, and tend not to be contradictory. It would be unwise to reject them out of hand, but it would be equally unwise to automatically accept them.