The point of the quantum mechanics sequence was the contrast between Rationality and Empiricism. By writing at least 2⁄3 of the text about quantum mechanics, Eliezer obscured this point in order to pick an unnecessary fight about the proper interpretation of particular experimental results in physics.
Even now, it is unclear whether he won that fight, and that counts as a failure because MWI vs. Copenhagen was supposed to be a case study of the larger point about the advantages of Rationality over Empiricism, not the main thing to be debated.
The one time he did math (interferometer example) he got phases wrong, probably as result of confusing phase of 180 with i , and who knows what other misunderstandings (wouldn’t bet money he understood phase at all). The worst sort of popularization is where the author doesn’t even know the topic first-hand (i.e. mathematically).
Even worse is this idiot idea above in this thread that you can evaluate someone else’s strength as rationalist or something by seeing if they agree with your opinion on a topic you very, very poorly understand, not even well enough to get any math right. Big chunk of ‘rationalism’ here is plain dilettantism, the worst form of. The belief you don’t need to know any subtleties to make opinions. The belief that those opinions for which you didn’t need to know subtleties do matter (they usually don’t). The EY has excuse with MWI—afaik he had personal loss at the time, and MWI is very comforting. Others here have no such excuse.
edit: i guess 5 people want an explanation what was wrong ? Another link. There’s several others. QM sequence is the very best example of what popularizations shouldn’t be like, or how a rational person shouldn’t think about physics. If you can’t get elementary shit right, shut up on philosophy you are not being rational, simply making mistakes. Purely Bayesian belief updates don’t matter if you update wrong things given evidence.
Why?
The point of the quantum mechanics sequence was the contrast between Rationality and Empiricism. By writing at least 2⁄3 of the text about quantum mechanics, Eliezer obscured this point in order to pick an unnecessary fight about the proper interpretation of particular experimental results in physics.
Even now, it is unclear whether he won that fight, and that counts as a failure because MWI vs. Copenhagen was supposed to be a case study of the larger point about the advantages of Rationality over Empiricism, not the main thing to be debated.
The one time he did math (interferometer example) he got phases wrong, probably as result of confusing phase of 180 with i , and who knows what other misunderstandings (wouldn’t bet money he understood phase at all). The worst sort of popularization is where the author doesn’t even know the topic first-hand (i.e. mathematically).
Even worse is this idiot idea above in this thread that you can evaluate someone else’s strength as rationalist or something by seeing if they agree with your opinion on a topic you very, very poorly understand, not even well enough to get any math right. Big chunk of ‘rationalism’ here is plain dilettantism, the worst form of. The belief you don’t need to know any subtleties to make opinions. The belief that those opinions for which you didn’t need to know subtleties do matter (they usually don’t). The EY has excuse with MWI—afaik he had personal loss at the time, and MWI is very comforting. Others here have no such excuse.
edit: i guess 5 people want an explanation what was wrong ? Another link. There’s several others. QM sequence is the very best example of what popularizations shouldn’t be like, or how a rational person shouldn’t think about physics. If you can’t get elementary shit right, shut up on philosophy you are not being rational, simply making mistakes. Purely Bayesian belief updates don’t matter if you update wrong things given evidence.