[ExI] Criticisms of Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI)

[efc at swisscows.email]

Hello Jason,

On Sat, 16 Sep 2023, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 10:11 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat 
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>       Many worlds has the same problem that "are we living in a simulation?" 
> has.
>
>       From the inside, there is no way to tell.
> 
> This can be said of any theory: that because the only thing we can access is 
> our own subjectivity, and that could be in error, or
> designed to have no correspondence to reality, then we cannot know anything. 
> This predicament is general, and no more specific to
> quantum mechanics than it is to gravity.
> 
> However, if we relax this supreme Cartesian doubt, and assume we aren't in a 
> fever dream or under control of an evil demon, then we
> can make observations about reality and propose theories to account for them. 
> When we find these theories make accurate predictions
> we accept them.

But the problem is that predictions about things outside our reach can
never be verified, so we can never know how accurate they are.

We could be wrong about our starting point (qm), or
in our interpretation (maybe our human language is not up to the task of
translating the equation into something we understand).

But I do agree about the supreme cartesian doubt and the need to relax
it in order to get anywhere.

Then it also depends on the criterion of truth. If you have a pragmatic
view, "truth is what works":ish, then the extrapolation will never reach
the status of truth.

But I think we've already touched upon these thoughts, but I just wanted
to try a different set of words to see if perhaps it would become more
clear what I'm trying to say or if anything else interesting comes up.

Hm, on the other hand, maybe we should fold this into the other thread?
I know you wrote about some of what I'm saying above in the other
thread, so I think we'll get back to this subject.

Best regards, Daniel