MWI distinguishes itself from Copenhagen by making testable predictions. We simply don’t have the technology yet to test them to a sufficient level of precisions as to distinguish which meta-theory models reality.
In the mean time, there are strong metaphysical reasons (Occam’s razor) to trust MWI over Copenhagen.
Indeed there are, but this is not the same as strong metaphysical reasons to trust MWI over all alternative explanations. In particular, EY argued quite forcefully (and rightly so) that collapse postulates are absurd as they would be the only “nonlinear, non CPT-symmetric, acausal, FTL, discontinuous...” part of all physics. He then argued that since all single-world QM interpretations are absurd (a non-sequitur on his part, as not all single-world QM interpretations involve a collapse), many-worlds wins as the only multi-world interpretation (which is also slightly inaccurate, not that many-minds is taken that seriously around here). Ultimately, I feel that LW assigns too high a prior to MW (and too low a prior to bohmian mechanics).
It’s not just about collapse—every single-world QM interpretation either involves extra postulates, non-locality or other surprising alterations of physical law, or yields falsified predictions. The FAQ I linked to addresses these points in great detail.
MWI is simple in the Occam’s razor sense—it is what falls out of the equations of QM if you take them to represent reality at face value. Single-world meta-theories require adding additional restrictions which are at this time completely unjustified from the data.
MWI distinguishes itself from Copenhagen by making testable predictions. We simply don’t have the technology yet to test them to a sufficient level of precisions as to distinguish which meta-theory models reality.
See: http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm#unique
In the mean time, there are strong metaphysical reasons (Occam’s razor) to trust MWI over Copenhagen.
Indeed there are, but this is not the same as strong metaphysical reasons to trust MWI over all alternative explanations. In particular, EY argued quite forcefully (and rightly so) that collapse postulates are absurd as they would be the only “nonlinear, non CPT-symmetric, acausal, FTL, discontinuous...” part of all physics. He then argued that since all single-world QM interpretations are absurd (a non-sequitur on his part, as not all single-world QM interpretations involve a collapse), many-worlds wins as the only multi-world interpretation (which is also slightly inaccurate, not that many-minds is taken that seriously around here). Ultimately, I feel that LW assigns too high a prior to MW (and too low a prior to bohmian mechanics).
It’s not just about collapse—every single-world QM interpretation either involves extra postulates, non-locality or other surprising alterations of physical law, or yields falsified predictions. The FAQ I linked to addresses these points in great detail.
MWI is simple in the Occam’s razor sense—it is what falls out of the equations of QM if you take them to represent reality at face value. Single-world meta-theories require adding additional restrictions which are at this time completely unjustified from the data.