timtyler comments on What Bayesianism taught me - LessWrong

62 Post author: Tyrrell_McAllister 12 August 2013 06:59AM

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Comment author: timtyler 11 August 2013 07:12:18PM *  1 point [-]

One thing it apparently taught Jaynes:

For some sixty years it has appeared to many physicists that probability plays a fundamentally different role in quantum theory than it does in statistical mechanics and analysis of measurement errors. It is a commonly heard statement that probabilities calculated within a pure state have a different character than the probabilities with which different pure states appear in a mixture, or density matrix. As Pauli put it, the former represents "Eine prinzipielle Unbestimmtheit, nicht nur Unbekanntheit". But this viewpoint leads to so many paradoxes and mysteries that we explore the consequences of the unified view, that all probability signifies only incomplete human information.

Comment author: ciphergoth 11 August 2013 09:15:34PM 2 points [-]

Interesting that Jaynes took that position! It seems to mesh with the MWI position on these things, that all quantum uncertainty about the future is really a kind of anticipated indexical uncertainty.

Comment author: timtyler 12 August 2013 10:01:01AM *  0 points [-]

What were all the physicists smoking? <PhysicsEmabarassment>.