I am honestly surprised by the reaction of people to this link.
Why is my comment being downvoted for presenting a simple source of information? You may agree or disagree with it but downvoting such a comment just shows that you don’t want to see any counter-opinions to your beliefs. You have comments to express your opinion. (Or I am totally misunderstanding karma and it actually means the level of confirmation bias participation.)
[Danger! Un-LW-orthodox opinion follows!] I am baffled by (Pusey et al, 2012) being taken seriously contrary to Lubos Motl. If the opinion of shminux, thomblake and paper-machine is representative of LW position on quantum foundations, then it seems to diverge very substantially from the general scientific consensus. But I don’t seem to find any published scientifically relevant material, only hand-waving. Prove me wrong and show me some contributions that have scientific merit.
1) Receiving a single downvote is usually not worth making another comment asking “why the downvote??” It is just one person’s opinion and you should not pay much attention to it, not the community’s. People who ask this question are often seen as whiners and downvoted more for it.
2) People saying things like “Danger! Un-LW-orthodox opinion follows!” are also at risk of downvotes, because they come of as passive-aggressive. Substantive, reasoned criticisms of LW-orthodox opinions are welcome.
(Note that I am not calling you a whiner or passive-agressive—I’m taking a guess as to how certain kinds of comments are perceived by the community.)
3) The comments on this thread by shminux, tomblake and paper-machine do not express any definite position of their own on QM foundations. They are trying to clarify what the issues at stake are, what is this new paper really saying and how relevant it is, criticizing what they see as errors of interpretation in Motl’s reading of the paper, and criticizing Motl’s general tone as overheated and unhelpful.
4) I’m not sure about the other two, but I’m certain that shminux’s position on quantum foundations is not at all representative of LW. Shminux is an instrumentalist, who adopts to QM and to science in general a shut-up-and-calculate/”reality”-is-meaningless approach. The more common LW position is realism in philosophy of science and Many Worlds in QM foundations, though there are spirited dissenters and no enforced orthodoxy.
5) I would add that contrary to your pronouncement, there is no general scientific consensus on quantum foundations questions. There is general agreement on some things, e.g. that there is no physical, objective collapse, or that there are no local hidden variables, but no consensus on more philosophical questions like MW realism vs instrumentalism.
downvoting such a comment just shows that you don’t want to see any counter-opinions to your beliefs.
Alternatively, downvoting such a comment shows that you would rather see fewer similar comments in the future, for any number of possible reasons. (I have downvoted the parent, but not the grandparent.)
Why is my comment being downvoted for presenting a simple source of information? You may agree or disagree with it but downvoting such a comment just shows that you don’t want to see any counter-opinions to your beliefs.
Do you truly believe that no post containing a link to a counter-opinion should be downvoted?
I am honestly surprised by the reaction of people to this link.
Why is my comment being downvoted for presenting a simple source of information? You may agree or disagree with it but downvoting such a comment just shows that you don’t want to see any counter-opinions to your beliefs. You have comments to express your opinion. (Or I am totally misunderstanding karma and it actually means the level of confirmation bias participation.)
[Danger! Un-LW-orthodox opinion follows!] I am baffled by (Pusey et al, 2012) being taken seriously contrary to Lubos Motl. If the opinion of shminux, thomblake and paper-machine is representative of LW position on quantum foundations, then it seems to diverge very substantially from the general scientific consensus. But I don’t seem to find any published scientifically relevant material, only hand-waving. Prove me wrong and show me some contributions that have scientific merit.
Several points here:
1) Receiving a single downvote is usually not worth making another comment asking “why the downvote??” It is just one person’s opinion and you should not pay much attention to it, not the community’s. People who ask this question are often seen as whiners and downvoted more for it.
2) People saying things like “Danger! Un-LW-orthodox opinion follows!” are also at risk of downvotes, because they come of as passive-aggressive. Substantive, reasoned criticisms of LW-orthodox opinions are welcome.
(Note that I am not calling you a whiner or passive-agressive—I’m taking a guess as to how certain kinds of comments are perceived by the community.)
3) The comments on this thread by shminux, tomblake and paper-machine do not express any definite position of their own on QM foundations. They are trying to clarify what the issues at stake are, what is this new paper really saying and how relevant it is, criticizing what they see as errors of interpretation in Motl’s reading of the paper, and criticizing Motl’s general tone as overheated and unhelpful.
4) I’m not sure about the other two, but I’m certain that shminux’s position on quantum foundations is not at all representative of LW. Shminux is an instrumentalist, who adopts to QM and to science in general a shut-up-and-calculate/”reality”-is-meaningless approach. The more common LW position is realism in philosophy of science and Many Worlds in QM foundations, though there are spirited dissenters and no enforced orthodoxy.
5) I would add that contrary to your pronouncement, there is no general scientific consensus on quantum foundations questions. There is general agreement on some things, e.g. that there is no physical, objective collapse, or that there are no local hidden variables, but no consensus on more philosophical questions like MW realism vs instrumentalism.
Very nice points, all 5 of them!
More like a recovering realist, slowly drifting toward anti-realism, but your description will do, too.
Alternatively, downvoting such a comment shows that you would rather see fewer similar comments in the future, for any number of possible reasons. (I have downvoted the parent, but not the grandparent.)
Didn’t vote on either of these, but:
Do you truly believe that no post containing a link to a counter-opinion should be downvoted?