gjm avers: ‘When Eliezer says that QM is “non-mysterious’ … He’s arguing against a particular sort of mysterianism”
That may or may not be the case, but there is zero doubt that this assertion provides rhetorical foundations for the essay And the Winner is… Many-Worlds!.
A valuable service of the mathematical literature relating to geometric mechanics is that it instills a prudent humility regarding assertions like “the Winner is… Many-Worlds!” A celebrated meditation of Alexander Grothendieck expresses this humility:
“A different image came to me a few weeks ago. The unknown thing to be known appeared to me as some stretch of earth or hard marl, resisting penetration … the sea advances insensibly in silence, nothing seems to happen, nothing moves, the water is so far off you hardly hear it … yet it finally surrounds the resistant substance.”
Surely in regard quantum mechanics, the water of our understanding is far from covering the rocks of our ignorance!
As for the tone of my posts, the intent is that people who enjoy references and quotations will take no offense, and people who do not enjoy them can simply pass by.
It seems perfectly possible to me—I make no claims about whether it’s actually true—that the following could all be the case. (1) Of the various physical theories in the possession of the human race that are definite enough to be assessed, one of the clear winners is the Standard Model. (2) Of the various ways to understand the quantum mechanics involved in the Standard Model, the clear winner is “many worlds”. (3) The known lacunae in our understanding of physics make it clear that further conceptual advances will be needed before we can claim to understand everything. (4) Those conceptual advances could take just about any form, and everything we currently think we know is potentially up for grabs. (5) “Many worlds” is not uniquely under threat from these future conceptual advances—everything is up for grabs—and the possibility of future conceptual revolutions doesn’t call for any more caution about “many worlds” than it does for caution about, say, the inseparability of space and time.
In other words: The fact that science is hard and not yet finished is indeed reason for epistemic humility—about everything; but pointing to some particular thing alleged to be a discovery of modern science and saying “no, wait, it could turn out to be wrong” is not justifiable by that fact alone, unless you are happy to do the same for all other alleged discoveries of modern science.
My guess is that you have some other reasons for being skeptical about the many-worlds interpretation, besides the very general fact that quantum mechanics might some day be the subject of a great scientific upheaval. But you haven’t said what they are.
My point about your tone is not concerned with the fact that you include references and quotations, and taking offence isn’t the failure mode you might need to worry about. The danger, rather, is that you come across as pushing, with an air of smug superiority, a non-standard view of the present state of science, and that this is liable to pattern-match in people’s brains to a host of outright cranks. If you prefer not to be dismissed as a crank, you might want to adjust your tone.
(If, on the other hand, you don’t care whether you are dismissed as a crank, then the question in some minds will be “Why should I take him seriously when he doesn’t seem to do so himself?”.)
gjm asserts “Of the various ways to understand the quantum mechanics involved in the Standard Model, the clear winner is “many worlds”
LOL … by that lenient standard, the first racehorse out of the gate, or the first sprinter out of the blocks, can reasonably be proclaimed “the clear winner” … before the race is even finished!
That’s a rational announcement only for very short races. Surely there is very little evidence that the course that finishes at comprehensive understanding of Nature’s dynamics … is a short course?
That may or may not be the case, but there is zero doubt that this assertion provides rhetorical foundations for the essay And the Winner is… Many-Worlds!.
A valuable service of the mathematical literature relating to geometric mechanics is that it instills a prudent humility regarding assertions like “the Winner is… Many-Worlds!” A celebrated meditation of Alexander Grothendieck expresses this humility:
Surely in regard quantum mechanics, the water of our understanding is far from covering the rocks of our ignorance!
As for the tone of my posts, the intent is that people who enjoy references and quotations will take no offense, and people who do not enjoy them can simply pass by.
It seems perfectly possible to me—I make no claims about whether it’s actually true—that the following could all be the case. (1) Of the various physical theories in the possession of the human race that are definite enough to be assessed, one of the clear winners is the Standard Model. (2) Of the various ways to understand the quantum mechanics involved in the Standard Model, the clear winner is “many worlds”. (3) The known lacunae in our understanding of physics make it clear that further conceptual advances will be needed before we can claim to understand everything. (4) Those conceptual advances could take just about any form, and everything we currently think we know is potentially up for grabs. (5) “Many worlds” is not uniquely under threat from these future conceptual advances—everything is up for grabs—and the possibility of future conceptual revolutions doesn’t call for any more caution about “many worlds” than it does for caution about, say, the inseparability of space and time.
In other words: The fact that science is hard and not yet finished is indeed reason for epistemic humility—about everything; but pointing to some particular thing alleged to be a discovery of modern science and saying “no, wait, it could turn out to be wrong” is not justifiable by that fact alone, unless you are happy to do the same for all other alleged discoveries of modern science.
My guess is that you have some other reasons for being skeptical about the many-worlds interpretation, besides the very general fact that quantum mechanics might some day be the subject of a great scientific upheaval. But you haven’t said what they are.
My point about your tone is not concerned with the fact that you include references and quotations, and taking offence isn’t the failure mode you might need to worry about. The danger, rather, is that you come across as pushing, with an air of smug superiority, a non-standard view of the present state of science, and that this is liable to pattern-match in people’s brains to a host of outright cranks. If you prefer not to be dismissed as a crank, you might want to adjust your tone.
(If, on the other hand, you don’t care whether you are dismissed as a crank, then the question in some minds will be “Why should I take him seriously when he doesn’t seem to do so himself?”.)
LOL … by that lenient standard, the first racehorse out of the gate, or the first sprinter out of the blocks, can reasonably be proclaimed “the clear winner” … before the race is even finished!
That’s a rational announcement only for very short races. Surely there is very little evidence that the course that finishes at comprehensive understanding of Nature’s dynamics … is a short course?
As for my own opinions in regard to quantum dynamical systems, they are more along the lines of here are some questions that are mathematically well-posed and are interesting to engineers and scientists alike … and definitely not along the lines of “here are the answers to those questions”!
Actually I clearly and explicitly went out of my way to say I wasn’t asserting that.
Bored of being laughed at out loud now. (Twice in one short thread is enough.) Bye.
Goodbye, gjm. The impetus that your posts provided to post thought-provoking mathematical links will be missed. :)