5 ms·

I also prefer the Many Worlds interpretation and I do think that it is gaining popularity in relation to Copenhagen, but I'm not sure what you mean by "today's

by telmo 4y ago

I also prefer the Many Worlds interpretation and I do think that it is gaining popularity in relation to Copenhagen, but I'm not sure what you mean by "today's world view". And who is this "we" that you write about? I prefer Many Worlds because it is a simpler explanation, so I follow Occam's razor. That's it. Consciousness and the existence of qualia remains a fundamental mystery. There is something definitely special about it, in the sense that it currently does not fit any scientific model. It is also a deep philosophical problem that started being considered millennia ago and dates at least all the way back to Plato vs Aristotle. In my experience, people who think that consciousness is somehow a settled matter simply haven't thought about it enough and are perhaps a bit naive on the many ramifications of the issue that have been explored do far.

ben_w 4y ago
What surprises me is not that many people think consciousness is a settled matter; but rather, people who, when faced with the claim that "consciousness" isn't settled, are so often tempted to assert that it is that they rapidly provide another example of how it isn't.
didericis 4y ago
Exactly. A related deep millennia old observation is that no one has actually seen the real world. Everything we’ve ever experienced has been filtered through our minds. Every experiment, every measuring device, every meticulously crafted model of reality… it is all inescapably limited by what we are able to experience. One could and many have argued that the reality we’ve been observing and operating in is consciousness. The “real” world could be entirely different and largely inaccessible. These kinds of thought exercises don’t have much practical utility, apart from one very important feature; they humble you. At the end of the day we don’t fundamentally know anything, and should always recognize that at its most basic root level, everything we do is an educated guess. A fundamentally skeptical and curious outlook that acknowledges our perceptual limitations is how we got all of the sophisticated models of very difficult to observe phenomenon in the first place. If we want to continue to get the best understanding of whatever it is we’re experiencing, I think it’s very important to stay humble and ensure our knowledge is treated as a hard earned set of well reasoned guesses rather than unquestionable dogma. 99.9% of objections to well established ideas and models might be a waste of time entertaining, but you never know what might turn out to be the seeds of a whole new universe of understanding that invalidates huge swaths of our existing corpus of knowledge. Most of what I’m saying here is probably obvious to a lot of readers, and I don’t think anyone in this thread is being particularly arrogant or dogmatic, but I think it’s worth reiterating. If people who understand the limits of knowledge aren’t constantly emphasizing the fact that we don’t know what we don’t know, that creates fertile ground for both dogmatic assertions and unreasonable skepticism, and I think a huge amount of dysfunction in the culture at large is explained by insufficient well calibrated humility amongst otherwise very intelligent people who set an example for others.
MockObject 4y ago
> I prefer Many Worlds because it is a simpler explanation, so I follow Occam's razor. That's it. Zillions of new invisible universes being created every moment is the simplest explanation you found?
tsimionescu 4y ago
MWI is exactly as simple mathematically as CI, so not sure what you mean by "simpler". MWI still postulates the equivalent of wave function collapse, but instead of it happening only for the quantum system being measured, it is happening in the mind of the observer, as each "version" of that mind gets entangled with a single "version" of the outcome. Even if you were to accept that this process is more natural (so not an "assumption") than wave-function collapse in principle, that simplicity completely falls apart when you then need to recover the relationship between the probability of observing a certain outcome and the amplitude of that outcome in the wave-function. CI just says "when a quantum system described by a wave-function interacts with a measurement apparatus that measures in a certain basis, the wave-function gets updated to one of the values of its decomposition in that basis, with a probability equal to the modulus of the square root of its amplitude in that basis". Of course "measurement apparatus prepared in a certain basis" does a lot of work here, as we don't know how to define this in terms of a quantum system. To make a similar quantitative prediction, MWI needs to define something like "the number of worlds", so that it can then say something like "when a quantum system interacts with a measurement apparatus prepared in a certain basis, the measurement apparatus becomes entangled with the quantum system such that for each value of that basis state there is a number of worlds proportional to the square root of the amplitude of each value of the decomposition in which the apparatus sees that particular value; if we were to compute the probability that we happen to live in a world where the apparatus is showing the value X, that probability would naturally be higher the more worlds there are where it shows this value X". So, the MWI has to actually introduce extra elements (the worlds and their number, and the observer wanting to compute a probability) to explain the actual measured results of quantum experiments.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  > you then need to recover the relationship between the probability of observing a certain outcome and the amplitude of that outcome in the wave-function. I have never understood how that is a strong objection. We've experimentally determined that the state you are more likely to find yourself in is based on the squared amplitude. How is this different from CI but with probability of observing given state - which was also determined empirically? > Of course "measurement apparatus prepared in a certain basis" does a lot of work here, as we don't know how to define this in terms of a quantum system. Yes, this is where the Occam's razor bit comes in. > So, the MWI has to actually introduce extra elements (the worlds and their number, and the observer wanting to compute a probability) to explain the actual measured results of quantum experiments. The worlds and their number are equivalent to the states & probability of CI without having to introduce the "measurement apparatus" that is distinct from the quantum system.

by telmo 4y ago

ben_w 4y ago

What surprises me is not that many people think consciousness is a settled matter; but rather, people who, when faced with the claim that "consciousness" isn't settled, are so often tempted to assert that it is that they rapidly provide another example of how it isn't.

didericis 4y ago

Exactly. A related deep millennia old observation is that no one has actually seen the real world. Everything we’ve ever experienced has been filtered through our minds. Every experiment, every measuring device, every meticulously crafted model of reality… it is all inescapably limited by what we are able to experience. One could and many have argued that the reality we’ve been observing and operating in is consciousness. The “real” world could be entirely different and largely inaccessible. These kinds of thought exercises don’t have much practical utility, apart from one very important feature; they humble you. At the end of the day we don’t fundamentally know anything, and should always recognize that at its most basic root level, everything we do is an educated guess. A fundamentally skeptical and curious outlook that acknowledges our perceptual limitations is how we got all of the sophisticated models of very difficult to observe phenomenon in the first place. If we want to continue to get the best understanding of whatever it is we’re experiencing, I think it’s very important to stay humble and ensure our knowledge is treated as a hard earned set of well reasoned guesses rather than unquestionable dogma. 99.9% of objections to well established ideas and models might be a waste of time entertaining, but you never know what might turn out to be the seeds of a whole new universe of understanding that invalidates huge swaths of our existing corpus of knowledge. Most of what I’m saying here is probably obvious to a lot of readers, and I don’t think anyone in this thread is being particularly arrogant or dogmatic, but I think it’s worth reiterating. If people who understand the limits of knowledge aren’t constantly emphasizing the fact that we don’t know what we don’t know, that creates fertile ground for both dogmatic assertions and unreasonable skepticism, and I think a huge amount of dysfunction in the culture at large is explained by insufficient well calibrated humility amongst otherwise very intelligent people who set an example for others.

MockObject 4y ago

> I prefer Many Worlds because it is a simpler explanation, so I follow Occam's razor. That's it. Zillions of new invisible universes being created every moment is the simplest explanation you found?

tsimionescu 4y ago

MWI is exactly as simple mathematically as CI, so not sure what you mean by "simpler". MWI still postulates the equivalent of wave function collapse, but instead of it happening only for the quantum system being measured, it is happening in the mind of the observer, as each "version" of that mind gets entangled with a single "version" of the outcome. Even if you were to accept that this process is more natural (so not an "assumption") than wave-function collapse in principle, that simplicity completely falls apart when you then need to recover the relationship between the probability of observing a certain outcome and the amplitude of that outcome in the wave-function. CI just says "when a quantum system described by a wave-function interacts with a measurement apparatus that measures in a certain basis, the wave-function gets updated to one of the values of its decomposition in that basis, with a probability equal to the modulus of the square root of its amplitude in that basis". Of course "measurement apparatus prepared in a certain basis" does a lot of work here, as we don't know how to define this in terms of a quantum system. To make a similar quantitative prediction, MWI needs to define something like "the number of worlds", so that it can then say something like "when a quantum system interacts with a measurement apparatus prepared in a certain basis, the measurement apparatus becomes entangled with the quantum system such that for each value of that basis state there is a number of worlds proportional to the square root of the amplitude of each value of the decomposition in which the apparatus sees that particular value; if we were to compute the probability that we happen to live in a world where the apparatus is showing the value X, that probability would naturally be higher the more worlds there are where it shows this value X". So, the MWI has to actually introduce extra elements (the worlds and their number, and the observer wanting to compute a probability) to explain the actual measured results of quantum experiments.

whimsicalism 4y ago
> you then need to recover the relationship between the probability of observing a certain outcome and the amplitude of that outcome in the wave-function. I have never understood how that is a strong objection. We've experimentally determined that the state you are more likely to find yourself in is based on the squared amplitude. How is this different from CI but with probability of observing given state - which was also determined empirically? > Of course "measurement apparatus prepared in a certain basis" does a lot of work here, as we don't know how to define this in terms of a quantum system. Yes, this is where the Occam's razor bit comes in. > So, the MWI has to actually introduce extra elements (the worlds and their number, and the observer wanting to compute a probability) to explain the actual measured results of quantum experiments. The worlds and their number are equivalent to the states & probability of CI without having to introduce the "measurement apparatus" that is distinct from the quantum system.