I have also found Eliezer’s series of posts worthwhile, and would like to thank him for writing them. They have improved my thinking on certain topics. I also do not object to his writing on quantum mechanics. First, I don’t believe he has been wrong about any major point, and that fact trumps any considerations of his qualifications. Second, to a large extent his QM posts are about thought processes by which one can reach certain conclusions about quantum mechanics. Such cognitive science stuff is squarely within Eliezer’s claimed area of expertise. The conclusions themselves are fairly mainstream. (As far as I can tell, among the physicists who have bothered to think about it, very few these days would claim that measurements are somehow special processes that collapse wavefunctions, in contrast to ordinary processes that do not. Whether they describe their beliefs using the term “many worlds” is another matter.)
I have also found Eliezer’s series of posts worthwhile, and would like to thank him for writing them. They have improved my thinking on certain topics. I also do not object to his writing on quantum mechanics. First, I don’t believe he has been wrong about any major point, and that fact trumps any considerations of his qualifications. Second, to a large extent his QM posts are about thought processes by which one can reach certain conclusions about quantum mechanics. Such cognitive science stuff is squarely within Eliezer’s claimed area of expertise. The conclusions themselves are fairly mainstream. (As far as I can tell, among the physicists who have bothered to think about it, very few these days would claim that measurements are somehow special processes that collapse wavefunctions, in contrast to ordinary processes that do not. Whether they describe their beliefs using the term “many worlds” is another matter.)