this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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SneerClub
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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]
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Failed physicist here: Collapse interpretation always seemed a bit unscientific in general to me. I am quite possibly wrong because it's not my field but I haven't seen any currently testable hypotheses come out of it.
There's not zero merit in this sort of galaxy brain thinking and it's satisfying to have some kind of model rather than just a series of disjointed facts but the polarization of amateurs on this always seemed strange to me. Like sportsball fans thinking the other teams want to kill each rather than the event being mutual play.
I've never met someone who actually does physics that had a very strong opinion one way or the other. A lot of "MWI seems elegant but we can't know yet" or "Collapse is a bit weird and unsatisfying isn't it?". Maybe when you get to the giganerds and their chalkboards the shivs come out but I've seen no evidence.
Besides, we should all be focusing on how time is mathematically hideous and thus clearly not fundamental.
Current physicist here: yeah, most physicists are in the "shut up and calculate" camp, and view the interpretations as fun lunchroom conversation.
I also think that collapse is unsatisfying, and I think yud did an adequate job in relaying the reasons why a lot of physicists are unhappy with it. The problem is that "collapse is unsatisfying" is not sufficient evidence to declare that MWI is true and that MWI nonbelievers are fools. The obvious point being that there a shitload of other interpretations which neither feature many-worlds or "real" collapse. The other point is that MWI is an incomplete theory, as there are no explanation for the Born probabilities. Also, we know we don't have the full picture of quantum physics anyway (as it's incompatible with general relativity), so it's possible that if we figure out a unified theory the problems with interpretations will go away.
Yeah, I think its "science enthusiast" popularity is mostly because it can be misunderstood to imply that a bunch of SciFi pop culture is more plausible than it is. Couple that with the nuances of various interpretations being lost on anyone who hasn't actually done the maths and you have a recipe for Batman vs Superman type disagreements.
I threw electrons at colour centres on nanodiamonds to try make them more nano-er so while quantum shit was involved I never felt particularly compelled to have a high degree of certainty in the (is epistemology the right word?) behind the maths that obviously worked.