[ExI] QT and SR

[Lee Corbin]

Mike writes

> [Lee wrote]
> 
>> if one merely adopts the theory which every year gains more
>> adherents, namely the 1957 Relative State formulation of Hugh
>> Everett, commonly called MWI.
> 
> So why did the Copenhagen interpretation stand in the way for so long?

I think that the main reason is that people cannot tolerate
the thought of being in two places at the same time. And
how else to explain why "you" only see one outcome of
an experiment known (on MWI) to have produced two
equally viable branches?

So it is a psychological hurdle (which, IMNSHO also arises
merely from not having played around enough with duplication 
experiments or from not having complete faith in physics as
the completely right description of our universe and human
intuition as the completely wrong one).

Almost as prominent evidently, is the supposed factor of parsimony
over universes. Why be allured to an explanation that posits a
literally and mathematically uncountable number of universes in
preference to a theory that posits only one? The answer is that
we require one less *principle* in MWI, and can get rid of the
ghostly, nearly incoherent "collapse of the wave function" which
leads to so many absurdities such as faster than light information 
transfer, action at a distance, and other extremely problematic
difficulties.

> It interesting to me that you should state this so emphatically; my
> initial reaction was that to push MWI aside was the wrong choice.  I

Look on the bright side! So did most physicists who read about
it in 1957 or 1970. Therefore your intuition may be argued to be
at just as high a level as theirs!  (FWIW, I too was a doubter until
1986, when a truly knockout little article authored by David Deutsch
in the Davies book "The Ghost and the Atom" convinced me.

> learned of this decision when I was still in the "knows everything"
> age.  Then I went through periods of "knows nothing" and "doesn't
> really care either way" - and now feel confident to say I know some
> things, but doubt anybody else cares to hear about them.  :)

Oh, nonsense. I'll bet that I have a higher ratio of ignored posts 
to this list than you do, but I make up for it in volume!  :-)
For what it's worth, to me the quality of your stuff seems to me
to be about halfway between Stathis's and one of those... one
of those... those people whose names I won't mention,  :-) to pick
the extremes. And the average post on this list is IMO quite
worth the while to read, as is apparently the consensus, not 
surprisingly, here. :-)

Lee