You say, ”...we care a lot about which interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct because it does make predictions about the thing we care about.” I agree that if different interpretations make different predictions about things we care about (or any things), then we should care a lot about the interpretation.
However, I am writing explicitly about cases where different interpretations strictly do not make different predictions. In the section you quote, I say, “This is assuming that they [the different perspectives] truly are empirically indistinguishable.”
A reasonable objection might be that different theories can never truly be empirically indistinguishable. If so, then my arguments would apply only to cases where theories seem indistinguishable for the moment.
You also say that our purpose may be “to understand what’s going on beyond what can be predicted”; the issue is that observations are the only tool we have to understand what is going on. If two theories both fit all available and predict the same potential observations, those theories seem to be perfectly equal.
You say, ”...we care a lot about which interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct because it does make predictions about the thing we care about.” I agree that if different interpretations make different predictions about things we care about (or any things), then we should care a lot about the interpretation.
However, I am writing explicitly about cases where different interpretations strictly do not make different predictions. In the section you quote, I say, “This is assuming that they [the different perspectives] truly are empirically indistinguishable.”
A reasonable objection might be that different theories can never truly be empirically indistinguishable. If so, then my arguments would apply only to cases where theories seem indistinguishable for the moment.
You also say that our purpose may be “to understand what’s going on beyond what can be predicted”; the issue is that observations are the only tool we have to understand what is going on. If two theories both fit all available and predict the same potential observations, those theories seem to be perfectly equal.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/f4txACqDWithRi7hs/occam-s-razor
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3XMwPNMSbaPm2suGz/belief-in-the-implied-invisible
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Atu4teGvob5vKvEAF/decoherence-is-simple