Dr. Bee Announces a New Book

Sabine Hossenfelder has posted a new co-authored paper:

What does it take to solve the measurement problem?

We summarise different aspects of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. We argue that it is a real problem which requires a solution, and identify the properties a theory needs to solve the problem. We show that no current interpretation of quantum mechanics solves the problem, and that, being interpretations rather than extensions of quantum mechanics, they cannot solve it. Finally, we speculate what a solution of the measurement problem might be good for.

Okay, this is mostly conventional wisdom of the last 90 years. Quantum mechanics depends on measurements, without precisely defining it.

Does that make the theory inadequate?

If quantum theory is not a valid scientific theory, then maybe we need to redefine theory. We have a trillion dollar semiconductor economy based on the theory. It is the most commercially successful scientific theory of the XX century.

She has also announced a new book, and promises a whole chapter on free will.

EXISTENTIAL PHYSICS

A Scientist's Guide To Life's Biggest Questions

A contrarian scientist wrestles with the big questions that modern physics raises, and what physics says about the human condition

Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely.

According to Sabine Hossenfelder, it is not a coincidence that quantum entanglement and vacuum energy have become the go-to explanations of alternative healers, or that people believe their deceased grandmother is still alive because of quantum mechanics. Science and religion have the same roots, and they still tackle some of the same questions: Where do we come from? Where do we go to? How much can we know? The area of science that is closest to answering these questions is physics. Over the last century, physicists have learned a lot about which spiritual ideas are still compatible with the laws of nature. Not always, though, have they stayed on the scientific side of the debate.

I am glad to see her address these issues, but she believes in superdeterminism, which is as wacky as the simulation hypothesis that she mocks.

Michio Kaku writes:

In physics, the concept of a multiverse is a key element of a leading area of study based on the theory of everything. It’s called string theory, which is the focus of my research.

There are many different notions of the multiverse, and I cannot even tell which he is referring to.

Update: Dr. Bee writes in defense of superdeterminism:

In a superdeterministic model, these quantities de- scribe an ensemble [9] rather than an ontic state (hence rendering the measurement update of the wavefunction purely epistemic), but that doesn’t make superdetermin- istic models classical. This should not be surprising, given the purpose of superdeterminism is not to return to classical mechanics, but merely to return to locality.

This makes no sense to me. Quantum mechanics already has locality. Interest in superdeterminism arose as a loophole in Bell's theorem. If you want a classical theory to replace quantum mechanics, then it must be nonlocal or superdeterministic.

Update: In the current Physics Today, N. David Mermin denies that there is a measurement problem:

Many physicists dismiss this view with the remark that quantum states were collaps- ing in the early universe, long before there were any physicists. I wonder if they also believe that probabilities were updating in the early universe, long before there were any statisticians.

Niels Bohr never mentions a quantum measurement problem. I conclude with a state- ment of his that concisely expresses the above view that there is no such problem, provided both occurrences of “our” are read not as all of us collectively but as each of us individ- ually. “In our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, so far as it is possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience.” I believe that this unacknowledged ambiguity of the first per- son plural lies behind much of the misunderstanding that still afflicts the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

This view is becoming a minority, but it should be regarded as the textbook view.

Aaronson Switches from Qubits to AI Chatbots

Quantum computer complexity theory Scott Aaronson is leaving the field for a year to join OpenAI. He is jumping from one overhyped field to another.

Aaronson endorsed Google's claims to discovering quantum supremacy, and later quietly backed off. Now he is inspired by a couple of Google employees claiming that Google has invented a sentient chatbot.

I am not sure what the thinking is here. Maybe because Aaronson understands how quantum computers can outdo Turing machines, he will underand how AI will outdo humans? Or vice-versa?

Or because Aaronson has credibly resisted overhyping quantum computers, he will be a credible sage to discuss AI hype?

Previously he announced that Google's chatbot is not really sentient. And said that complexity theorists had taken over the Solvay conference. Some sommenters asked about free will, and he says:

As someone who was actually there, I can tell you that I don’t remember the question of free will ever really coming up at all.

Aomw od rhw commenters seem to believe that studying quantum information theory leads to the conclusion that there can be no free will.

Ben Shapiro, a conservative political activist, comments in a recent short video:

Free will is the single most important principle undergirding any civilization.

Aaronson concedes that when physicists discuss poltitics, they speak as if people have free will.

It appears that the quantum information theory experts do not want to talk about it. To them, free will is both necessary and impossible, and they cannot handle the contradiction.

Update: Here is a newly-posted interview of Sean M. Carroll on free will. Hel says he believes in free will, but only as a term for describing human behavior. He says libertarian free will is absurd, and without any scientific evidence. The Schroedinger equation is deterministic, and makes human choice impossible. But people have an illusion of free will, so it still makes sense to hold them responsible for their choices.

He does not mention Many Worlds theory, but that is why he believes the Schroedinger equation to be deterministic. Maybe he thought that mentioning Many Worlds would undermine his credibility. The textbooks says quantum mechanics predicts randomness, but he believes all things happen in all worlds. Randomness is also an illusion because we do not see the parallel worlds.

Carroll doesn't make any sense. There is evidence for free will every time you make a decision. Quantum mechanics is not deterministic. If free will did not exist, it would not be useful to talk about it.

Aaronson writes:

I have tenure. And I don’t see QC [quantum computing] becoming uninteresting anytime soon (and of course, if it turns out to be impossible for some deep reason, then that will be a revolution in physics). I’m doing this because it’s an opportunity to take a break, learn something new, and possibly make a difference.

Kuhn defined a scientific revolution as a change in viewpoint that has no observable consequences, like changing a reference point in cosmology.

More comments:

“are you … willing to claim that Vladimir Putin is no more responsible for his own outcomes than a tennis ball is responsible for its own outcomes?”

You are saying that Vladimir Putin is not genuinely responsible for starting and continuing the war against Ukraine. So, have the courage of your convictions, and go out and tell your friends and neighbours, and tell the war-crimes tribunals.

I feel like we have to accept the idea that “each and every outcome is 100% due to the laws of nature” for living beings if we are to believe there are laws of nature at all. It seems like the hypothesis that humans, or other sentient beings, can violate the laws of nature through an act of will essentially establishes magic. Most of our work in biological sciences begins with the premise that we can use the scientific method to study the physical processes that combine to produce the behaviors we call “life”, without resorting to magic.

It would be useful if more intellectuals explained their views on free will. It helps in understanding their worldview.

Update: Aaronson did write an 85-page paper on free will in 2013.

Einstein's Name is Worth a Fortune

The Manchester Guardian has a long article on how Einstein's estate still makes money:

Einstein had been a well-paid man. His $10,000 salary at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton – roughly $180,000 in today’s money – was set by the institute to exceed that of any American scientist (“Isn’t that too much?” Einstein queried at the time). But his earnings in life were insignificant compared to his earnings in death. From 2006 to 2017, he featured every year in Forbes’ list of the 10 highest-earning historic figures – “dead celebrities” in the publication’s rather diminishing term – bringing in an average of $12.5m a year in licensing fees for the Hebrew University, which is the top-ranking university in Israel. A conservative estimate puts Einstein’s postmortem earnings for the university to date at $250m. ...

Despite Richman’s best efforts, some “seriously offensive” products, as he saw them, reached the market. When Richman discovered that a chain of stores owned by Universal City Studios sold a sweatshirt with the slogan “E=mc2: Shit Happens”, he successfully had the sweatshirt banned, and forced Universal to pay $25,000 in damages.

Here is a newly-posted video interview of an Einstein biographer. While the title is about an Einstein mistake, it has over-the-top praise for his genius.

Science Teachers Adopt more Woke Terms

Evolutionary scientists used to complain a lot about the possibility that some teacher somewhere might suggest intelligent design as an alternative hypothesis about the origins. They won that battle, and such ideas have been purged.

Jonathan Turley writes:

In academia, there have been growing controversies over language guides and usages, including the use of pronouns that some object to as matters of religion or grammar. Now the largest association of science teachers in the world has issued a guide for “anti-oppression” terminology for science teachers. In the guide, titled “Gender-Inclusive Biology: A framework in action,” the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has called for “gender-inclusive biology,” which includes the abandonment of terms like “parent,” “men,” “women,” “mother,” and “father.”

Under the guide, mothers are now referred to as “persons with ovaries” in reference to reproduction cycles while fathers are now “persons with testes.” Additionally, the association declares the move of various states toward “Sex verification in sports” as an example of oppression. ...

Under the new guidelines, teachers are encouraged to drop terms like “male” in favor of “XY individuals.”

The NSTA suggests that this can be a fun exercise like having students come up with an entirely new name for the word “parents,” such as “gene-givers” or “biological life transmitters.”

I did not verify this, so maybe it is a joke. Regardless, this is where we are headed.

I refuse to believe that anyone is really offended by terms like "mother". This is just a step in a Leftist battle.

Qubit Skepticism Endangers National Security

I have been a quantum computing skeptic, but did you know that makes me a threat to national security?

Forbes reports:

Quantum computing will never work. Keeping enough qubits stable long enough to do any significant calculating or processing, is a mathematical impossibility. The whole idea that one day quantum computers will discover new miracle drugs, or crack public encryption systems, is a mirage. Even worse, it’s a hoax.

That’s been the message from so-called quantum skeptics for a decade or more, including physicists like Gil Kalai of Hebrew University and Mikhail Dyakonov of the University of Montpellier — all in spite of the fact that quantum computers have continued to grow in sophistication and qubit power. Most experts now agree it’s not a question if a large-scale quantum will emerge that can break into public encryption systems using Shor’s algorithm, but when.

But earlier this month a group of offshore short sellers appropriately named Scorpion Capital used these dubious claims to attack and drive down the share price of the first quantum computer company to go public, Maryland-based IonQ. The danger is that investors and the public will assume from this vicious and misleading attack that today’s quantum industry runs entirely on hype rather than achievement—an assumption that could ultimately threaten our national security.

Responses from Kalai, who doubles down, and Scott Aaronson, who refuses to update his views on whether quantum computing is a hoax.

Instead Aaronson brags about his eugenic donations to abort poor Texas babies, and complains that he has moved to a state where everyone has guns. It is funny watching him try to be a good liberal, while his more ideologial leftists despise him.

Kalai explains how quantum computing progress of the last ten years has largely consisted of dumbing down the goals.

Neutral with Regard to Jurisdictional Claims

Report:

Back in March of 2017, this strange note first appeared at the end of a paper in the journal Nature: "Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations." I looked over the paper, and it didn't have any maps in it. None of the authors had unusual affiliations, just the normal university departments. Why the disclaimer? Before answering this question, let's dig a bit deeper. This notice first started appearing in mid-March of 2017, when it was attached to every single research paper in that issue. I cannot find any papers prior to that with the "Publisher's note." Ever since then, Nature has put this notice on every paper in all of their journals. For example, the current issue has a paper on mapping sound on the planet Mars, by an international team of astronomers and physicists. It does contain maps, but they don't describe any features on Earth. Nonetheless, it has the disclaimer at the end about "jurisdictional claims in published maps."

Speculation is that this might be driven by dispute between China and Taiwan, or maybe some indigenous claims. No one is talking.

There are lots of other border disputes, such as Israel and Ukraine. But isn't it obvious that a science journal does not have the political authority to set national boundaries?

Soon we may get more disclaimers. Maybe: This journal is neutral with regard to the pronoun preferences of deceased scientists, and whether research tainted by systemic racism should be cited.

A Man is Entitled to his Opinions

Science writer and Skeptic Michael Shermer writes:

Was the Great Scientist E. O. Wilson a Racist? NO! ...

On December 26, 2021, the renowned Harvard University evolutionary biologist, conservationist, and two-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer Edward O. Wilson died at the age of 92. Three days later Scientific American, for which I penned a monthly column for nearly 18 years, opined on “The Complicated Legacy of E. O. Wilson” through the voice of Monica R. McLemore, who with no engagement with any of Wilson’s scientific theories announced that “we must reckon with his and other scientists’ racist ideas if we want an equitable future.” No examples of said racism were provided. She even branded as a racist Gregor Mendel—the 19th century scientist who established the role of genetics in pea plants—although there is absolutely no evidence for this extraordinary claim, unless it is racist to demonstrate that pea color is genetically determined.

Shortly after that hit piece, the publication Science for the People, whose website self-describes as “an organization dedicated to building a social movement around progressive and radical perspectives on science and society,” declared that it has “new evidence of E. O. Wilson’s intimacy with scientific racism.” The charge is not new. In 1975 this same group accused Wilson of promoting race science and eugenics upon the publication of his book Sociobiology, which viewed all creatures—including humans—as biological beings, part of evolved life on Earth. In the final chapter Wilson argued that human capacities for culture and behavior, including aggression and xenophobia, along with altruism and love, are facilitated by biological capacities.

Okay, he makes a good argument that WIlson was not a racist, but this defense is unsatisfying.

Yes, the SciAm attack on Wilson was offensive, but so is Shermer's tacit acceptance of this Leftist doctrine of applying political ideological purity tests to scientists, alive or dead.

Wilson was entitled to his opinions. Lots of great scientists have had goofy opinions. Some are Communists, royalists, fascists, pacifists, etc. Some have odd political beliefs. For example, Einstein belonged to Communist front organizations while Stalin was killing millions.

Future generations might say that today's scholars are morally defective because they eat meat, or pay taxes, or fly in aiplanes, or vote for Joe Biden.

I say they are all entitled to their opinions. If they are wrong, go ahead and say so, but it doesn't have anything to do with their scientific worth.

Wilson's great expertise was in ants. He occasionally made vague generalizations to human beings. I do not know why this was so upsetting to some people. He also believed in group selection and IQ measurements. Again, these are very upsetting to some people. If he is wrong, then prove him wrong. That would not detract from his work on ants.

The New Secular Faith Statements at Colleges

Justin P. McBrayer writes:

In 2008, I was in graduate school and applying for tenure-track jobs in philosophy across the country. My applications fell into two piles: those that required faith statements and those that didn’t. Many religious colleges required applicants to either write their own faith statement or sign on to a standardized one. This bothered me.

It’s not that I didn’t have faith commitments. I did. But as a philosopher, I wasn’t ready to sign just anything. I craved the careful distinctions, nuance and subtlety that faith statements often papered over. As a result, I had to pore over the standardized statements to ensure that I could sign in good conscience or construct my own that hewed closely to my intellectual, moral and religious commitments. Secular institutions were so much easier.

Contrary to what you might think, many secular institutions now require faith statements, too. They go by the name diversity statements, but they function in the same ways as faith statements at religious institutions.

He goes on to give examples of diversity statements, and show how t hey are worse than faith statements.

In sum, both faith and diversity statements artificially limit an applicant pool, ask for commitments that go beyond our evidence, signal our tribal loyalties and close questions. Realizing that they are on a par should give us pause. Religious colleges are private institutions that are typically up front about their religious orientations. In that context, a faith statement makes sense. But requiring a functionally similar statement at a public institution is a bad idea.

Even setting aside questions of whether it’s legal to require diversity statements at public schools (arguably not) and whether doing so helps students (there’s no evidence that it does), doing so likely contributes to the further intellectual polarization of the academy. Faculty are already overwhelmingly progressive, and given our propensity to evaluate politically charged issues in light of our own biases, it’s plausible that requiring job applicants to provide diversity statements further increases the probability that applicants espousing progressive views about the nature of and solutions to diversity-related problems are hired over politically moderate or conservative competitors. That’s something that should worry anyone interested in building communities that are trustworthy, intellectually diverse and vibrant.

It is getting worse than the old Soviet Union.

Explaining Bell's Local Realism

Opinions vary widely on Bell's Theorem.

From a recent Italian paper:

In a lecture held in 1983, Richard Feynman argued that the Bell theorem “is not a theorem that anybody thinks is of any particular importance. We who use quantum mechanics have been using it all the time. It is not an important theorem. It is simply a statement of something that we know is true – a mathematical proof of it.” (quoted in Whitaker 2016b, 493): in Feynman’s view, what ‘we know is true’ is simply that quantum theory is not a classical theory. No matter what is the tenability of the Feynman charge of irrelevance about the Bell theorem, a common view of what it takes for a physical theory to be ‘classical’ is that the physical systems the theory is about can be assumed to have measurement- independent properties or, in other terms, that – in the well-specified situations that are suitable for physical investigation – these physical systems can be assumed to have pre- existing values for all relevant quantities, values that the measurement is supposed just to reveal. In this vein, ‘classicality’ is thus equated more othen than not with a loose notion of ‘realism’.

I agree with this. Bell's theorem is just a way of saying that quantum mechanics is not a classical theory, and that had been everyone's understanding since about 1930.

All of this would be non-controversial except that Bell started convincing people that what he really proved was that quantum mechanics violated local realism, whatever that is. Physicists were willing to give up classicality, not not realism.

It is all verbal trickery. Realism does not mean anything useful. Read the paper for details.

Susskind Tackles Computers Falling into Black Holes

Physicist Leonard Susskind gave a lecture:

Black Holes and the Quantum-Extended Church-Turing Thesis | Quantum Colloquium

A few years ago three computer scientists named Adam Bouland, Bill Fefferman, and Umesh Vazirani, wrote a paper that promises to radically change the way we think about the interiors of black holes. Inspired by their paper I will explain how black holes threaten the QECTT, and how the properties of horizons rescue the thesis, and eventually make predictions for the complexity of extracting information from behind the black hole horizon. I'll try my best to explain enough about black holes to keep the lecture self contained.

Susskind explains that his last great accomplishment was to convince his colleagues that if two entangled particles fall into two black holes, then they will be connected by a wormhole. See EP = EPR for more.

Now he is excited by the physics of quantum complexity theory. It had long been thought that Turing machines are good models for computation, in that computable functions can be performed by Turing machines, and polynomial time computability corresponds to polynomial time Turing machines. He says this is now believed to be false, because a quantum computer might do something in polynomial time that a Turing machine might require longer time.

Susskind's insight is that a computer falling into a black hole might achieve a higher complexity than what would otherwise be possible. The catch is that it could never communicate its result to anyone.

Update: Susskind claimed that EP=EPR has become accepted wisdom, but Peter Shor says:

One of the problems with It from Qubit is that it’s really quite hard to tell the papers that are nonsense from the ones that aren’t. For example, Maldacena and Susskind’s ER=EPR paper is a speculative idea that has no chance of being correct (but listening to his most recent talk, Susskind hasn’t given up on it). And when you actually corner other people in the area they (or at least some of them) will admit that this paper has virtually no chance of being correct, but for some reason they aren’t willing to say this publicly.

There are undoubtedly other papers in this field which are equally improbable. But it seems to me that any field where you have to be in the cogniscenti to know which papers are the ones worth paying attention to is in deep trouble.

That gets this response:

I wonder on what grounds ER=EPR is supposed to have “no chance” of being correct. There is already the curious parallel of non-traversibility of wormholes, and non-transmission of information via entanglement alone; obtaining both of these limitations from a common origin is exactly the kind of beautiful conceptual connection one expects from a deep correct insight.

So there are two theoretical examples of non-communication, and saying they are the same is a deep insight. I say both are the same as the Easter Bunny. Is that deep also?

I wonder if anyone has published a respectable paper saying that EP=EPR is nonsense. Or if everyone is too polite to say so. Or if physicists think that because the EP=EPR paper was written by two great geniuses, failing to understand it must be a deficiency of their own brain power.

Peter Woit's response:

Probably others have the same problem I have with writing anything publicly about this. The literature is huge and complicated, so it would be a full time job to master it to the point of being sure there is no there there. I’ve been through this before with string theory claims and wasted far too much time on that.

It used to be that leading physicists would explain why the theory makes sense or is good for something.

Praising the Great Paradigm Shifters

Peter Woit declares:

If one tried to pick a single most talented and influential figure of the past 100 years in each of the fields of pure mathematics and of theoretical physics, I’d argue that you should pick Alexander Grothendieck in pure math and Edward Witten in theoretical physics.

Several comments give some good reasons for disagreeing with this assessment.

Grothendieck is almost completely unknown outside Mathematics, as his work was in the abstract foundations of algebraic geometry. As for Witten:

And he [Ed Witten] rarely came to our floor, fourth floor, but here he was, coming and knocking at my door, and then saying, “Have you heard about the revolution?”…

I said, “What revolution?” He said, “The SO(32) revolution.”

Witten convinced everyone of these string "revolutions". This one was a minor technical result in 1984. There is still no known relation to the physical world.

This "revolution" terminology stems from philosoher T. Kuhn, who based it on a study of the "Copernican revolution", where the Earth does revolutions about the Sun. He said that Copernican theory was not measurably better than Ptolemaic (Earth-centered), but was great anyway because it became accepted.

The lesson here is that if you call something a revolution and persuade your colleagues, you can be a great genius without showing any measurable advantages.

Woit credits Witten largely because he was-influential in conning everyone into studying string theory, a big dead end. Dirac, Feynman, Weinberg, and all the other theoretical physicists just advanced the state of the art, and did what others might have done later. Maybe no one would have bothered with string theory, if it were not for a few leaders like Witten.

Multiverse in the Movies

I usually like science fiction, but it seems that the movies take the most ridiculous science ideas. A few years ago, everyone was doing time travel. Now they are all doing the multiverse. Here are some current movies.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The plot follows a Chinese-American woman (Yeoh) being audited by the Internal Revenue Service who discovers that she must connect with parallel universe versions of herself to prevent a powerful being from causing the destruction of them all.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

When the spell goes wrong, the multiverse is broken open which allows visitors from alternate realities to enter Parker's universe.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

In the film, Strange and his allies travel into the multiverse to protect a young girl from Wanda Maximoff, who will stop at nothing to take back her own sons at all costs.

Find more at IMDB Multiverse in Movies.

Pinker says AAAS is too Leftist

You know Science is getting too politicized when academic leftist criticize the leading science organizations for being to overtly leftist. See Steve Pinker's criticism of AAAS

For precisely these reasons I cannot in good conscience agree to your request to donate money to the AAAS. The Association is currently making these hazards worse, not better.

First, it is astonishing that an association for the advancement of science does not take a scientific approach to public acceptance of scientific conclusions. ...

I will give three examples of how the AAAS appears to be going out of its way to alienate any politician or citizen who is not a strong leftist. ...

As best I can tell, awareness of the hazards of politicization of science among the officers of AAAS and the editors of Science is zero.

He is right about this. Here is the AAAS response:

Thanks for your note. We’re sorry to lose you as a donor, but I disagree with your analysis. We will continue to cover the evidence for and impact of systemic racism. Thanks for your support of AAAS in the past.

In other words, the leftist shift is accelerating.

Update: Scientific publications are already lining up to attack a court opinion:

A leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion suggests the nation’s highest court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guarantees the right to an abortion. The opinion was first reported by Politico. ....

The study found that women denied the procedure were more likely to experience negative health impacts—including worse mental health—than women who received one. The former were also more likely to face worse financial outcomes, including poor credit, debt and bankruptcy. (The study did not include pregnant people who did not identify as women.)

Note that it has to apologize for citing a study of pregnant women that did not include pregnant men.

The leaked opinion is filled with historical and legal fact-finding. It is interesting that all these academic scholars have not found fault with the facts or reasoning. They just disagree with the law being determined by elected representatives.

Many Worlds is like Superdeterminism

I posted this provocative comment on Scott Aaronson's blog:

MWI fails to resolve the measurement problem, as Fred #14 explains, but the problems are much worse. Scott has explained that superdeterminism is contrary to scientific thinking, and so is MWI, for somewhat different reasons.

Superdeterminism makes randomized controlled experiments impossible, because hidden dependencies control the outputs. MWI also rules out free will, and then makes it impossible to interpret outcomes. If you do an experiment with ten possible outcomes, and see one, you learn nothing because all of the other possibilities occur in parallel universes. MWI might be of some use if it were able to say that some universes were more probable than others, but it cannot do that. So MWI also makes experiments impossible.

MWI does not make any successful predictions, unless you add the Born rule and do Copenhagen in disguise. Just like the superdeterminists, the MWI advocates seems to be willful contrarians who do not actually have a quantitative theory to back up their ideas.

Aaronson says that he is mostly on board with the Many Worlds Interpretation. He says:

I already teach MWI in my undergrad quantum information class, in such a way that according to the poll we give at final exam time, roughly half the students end up as MWI proponents (with the others split among Bohm, Quantum Bayesianism, Penrose-style dynamical collapse theories, agnosticism, and rejection of the whole question as meaningless).

Deutsch is a big believer in quantum computing, and says it would prove many-worlds, as the extra worlds could explain where the magic computation takes place. My view is the contrapositive. I think many-worlds is nonsense, and that makes me skeptical about quantum computing.

I will be interested to see what pushback I get. Surely the MWI believers will say that I am wrong.

Update: Not much response so far. One guy has a link to a paper arguing for the Born rule, but that's all.

A video interview of Deutsch on many-worlds, which he prefers to call the multiverse, was just posted. He claims great importance to the concept, but when asked to quantify the universes, he cannot give a good answer.

Update: Still no serious defense of MWI. Weird. Maybe they only believe in it to the extent that they do not have to defend its inadequacies. Finally, the thread is being hijacked by "Feminist Bitch" who complains that "we get a pseudo-intellectual rationalist-tier rant about whatever’s bumping around Scott’s mind right now." Not enough about her favorite leftist feminist causes. Sigh.

Update: And now Aaronson has been shamed into donating to feminist causes:

I stayed up hours last night reading Alito’s leaked decision in a state of abject terror. I saw how the logic of the decision, consistent and impeccable on its own terms, is one by which the Supreme Court’s five theocrats could now proceed to unravel the whole of modernity.

So the whole of modernity depends on imposing illogical rulings on the people?

Update: Aaronson has closed the thread after detailing how he was bullied as a child. He is annoyed that feminists and others demand special oppression status, while no one has any sympathy for nerds like him.

Maybe a Monkey Threw the Paradigm-Shifting Ashtray

I mentioned how a famous documentary film maker wrote a book trashing the famous paradigm shift professor.

The professor is now dead, and his archivist published a defense. The filmmaker got the professor's brand of cigarettes wrong. And maybe a monkey threw the ashtray, not the professor. And reports that the professor had multiple monkeys in his office were exaggerated.

I post this to help complete the record.

The real problem with Professor Paradigm Shift is not his ashtray, or even his philosophy, but how his famous book convinced much of academia that science is just a system of following faddish beliefs, with no theory being objectively better than any other.