On 24 March 2014 17:48, chris peck <[email protected]> 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
