On 24 March 2014 17:48, chris peck <chris_peck...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I found Tegmark's presentation very disappointing. > I always find presentations disappointing in terms of information content, at least when compared to papers and articles, but I was more than happy to see Max "in the flesh" (and Richard Feynman for an added bonus). > He was alarmingly apologetic about MWI pleading that its flaws were > mitigated by the fact other interpretations had similar flaws; as if the > fact someone else is ill would make you less ill yourself. I think in the > world of QM interpretations, with bugger all evidence to decide between > them, the game is to even out the playing field in terms of flaws and then > chase parsimony. Ofcourse, whether an infinite set of worlds is more or > less parsimonious than just one + a few hidden variables, or one + a > spooky wave function collapse, depends very much on what definition of > parsimonious you find most fitting. > What flaws were those? He seemed to be saying that you didn't need Everett to get a multiverse - if you have eternal inflation, you get one anyway. I didn't see anything particularly apologetic about that. His definition of parsimony is like Russell's (Standish, not Bertrand) - which can be summed up as "everything possible = zero information". > > We got the classic intuition buster argument. You know, screw intuition > because it evolved in the sub Saharan savannah to help us lob spears. God > forbid that it evolved in sub Saharan society to help spot hogwash. Apart > from the fact that he confuses Tau for intuition, even before QM and > Relativity came along, intuition has never been the arbiter of right and > wrong. There have always been counter intuitive facts, there is nothing new > about the current situation. Theres no more reason to distrust intuition > now that there has been before. Its only ever been a guide and as such > should be trusted as much now as it ever was. And that was never entirely. > I can't offhand see what's wrong with this argument, however. Indeed you seem to be saying it's valid, so what shouldn't Max use it? > > Worst of all though was that I wanted to hear about his level 4 multiverse > but he didn't address it except to comment that it was a little nutty. But > really, in the world of QM interpretation barking mad is where things > start. > > I would have liked to have heard more about that, too (but I'm not sure if he has anything new to say about it that wasn't in the "Scientific American" article...) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
