[ExI] against Many Worlds QT

[Jef Allbright]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 11:51 AM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>
wrote:
> http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.0624
>
>
> One world versus many: the inadequacy of Everettian accounts of evolution,
> probability, and scientific confirmation

Among the scientific virtues of this account, as I see it, are its
explicitness about the provisional nature of our
theories, and its undogmatic sidestepping of the problem of giving a
fundamental meaning to probability. It recognizes
the possibility that random-seeming data may turn out to have a simpler
description. It recognizes too that, if we find
consistent regularities that a probabilistic theory says are highly
improbable, then we should and will feel impelled
to produce a better theory. At the same time, it stays silent on the
question of whether random-seeming physical
data are genuinely randomly generated in some fundamental sense, and hence
avoids the need to explain what such
an assertion could really mean and how we could be persuaded of its truth.

How refreshing to see emphasis on good science as increasing coherence over
increasing context rather than the epistemologically untenable "uncovering
of truth."

- Jef
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