On Mon, Nov 18, 2024 at 12:16 PM Russell Standish <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 18, 2024 at 11:48:28AM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 18, 2024 at 11:35 AM Russell Standish <[email protected] > > > > wrote: > > > > On Mon, Nov 18, 2024 at 11:14:16AM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote: > > > > > > But there are no branches to be "equally real". You are fond of > calling > > sound > > > arguments "non sequitur". > > > > If the arguments were sound, I would not call them non-sequitur. > There > > is the possibility I missed something you consider obvious, but in > > that case, I just ask you to dig deeper to join the dots. > > > > > > The epistemic interpretation says that the wave function is merely a > summary of > > our knowledge of the physical situation. And it gives the probabilities > for > > various future outcomes. There are no "branches", so there is nothing to > be > > "equally real". > > > > There is observational evidence for at least one branch. To say an > epistemic interpretion implies there are no branches is a > misinterpretation of epistemic interpretation, if not a complete > strawman. > Possibly the trouble here is that your argument really has nothing to do with quantum mechanics. So arguments about interpretations of quantum mechanics, and the difference between Everett and the epistemic interpretation, are beside the point as far as you are concerned. > > Your claim that all branches are equally real is > > > indeed a non sequitur, in that it does not follow from anything at > all. > > > > Indeed. As is that there is only a single reality. But one is > simpler than > > the other. A lot of people get Occam's razor wrong here. > > > > > > There is only one reality, and a set of probabilities for future > outcomes. The > > simplest solution is that the so-called "other worlds" do not exist. > They are > > just a figment of your imagination. I know that your starting point is > that > > "everything exists" is simpler than any other proposition. But if you do > not > > start from there, you can see that this position is indeed otiose. > > > > But I do start from there. Because it is a consequence of Solomonoff-Levi > induction, sometimes known as Occam's razor theorem. > Any so-called theorem depends on its assumptions. And Solomonoff induction may not amount to a hill of beans. I know that your position stems from many years of discussions on the "everything" list, but I have never bought into the idea that everything is simpler than the scientific approach based on the phenomenology of the world around us. Science trumps speculative philosophy every time, and this thread started as a discussion of interpretations of quantum mechanics. So arguments from quantum mechanics are relevant, and not "non sequiturs" as you so frequently claim. Bruce In order to get to your "There is only one reality", you _have_ to add > a mysterious something, call it what you will. My assertion is that > that "something" is probably a figment of imagination. Nobody in 20 > odd years of arguing about this has been able to point their finger at > anything that will do the job. The closest I've seen is an appeal to > Goedel incompleteness, that (if believed) would privilege the integers > as something more real than anything else, but that seems to lead to > an even deeper multiverse than the MWI. > -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLTCnj3p7-Tc3_A0d5xyehL_FOQE%2BRan52EsRr2f%3DcnTLQ%40mail.gmail.com.
