AI and cognitive psychology rant (getting more and more OT - tell me if I should shut up)

[Michele Simionato]

jjl at pobox.com (John J. Lee) wrote in message news:<87znflcy6b.fsf at pobox.com>...
> [...snip most of a huge list of arguments from authority...]

No, no, please don't get me wrong! 
The whole point of my post was an encouragement to DO NOT believe 
authority (including mine, of course). If I wrote something like
"I have a background in Theoretical  Physics with ten years of
research experience ... etc. etc." this has not to be interpreted
as "Ah, I am so much better than you". 

Of course not. You should not believe me because of authority, 
nor you should not take my word for granted. Also, you are perfectly 
free to adhere to Deutsch views, I am not trying to convince you. 
But when I see a statement such as

"It's a bit of an embarrassment to Physics that some physicists 
apparently still believe in the Copenhagen interpretation" 

I simply cannot let it pass.

I do think this statement is strongly misleading and I cannot let
people in this newsgroup to get a false impression abot Physics. False in 
my own view, of course. But here is the reason why I pointed out my 
background in Physics: my background is very relevant in this context 
(how popular is MWI between physicist). For sociological questions like 
this, first hand experience does matter: I do know from the inside what 
physicists really do; and there is a big difference between reading 
books and being a physicist. So, I think I was perfectly right in
stressing my background before presenting my observations. You may
believe me or not, but at least you know that I talk for direct
experience.

> Well, perhaps the sample consisting of "Physicists Michele Simionato
> knows" has *some* merit <wink>

How may physicists do you know, personally? Not offence intented, but
first hand experience does matter, as I said. Not only I know lot of
physicists (I was at conferences with big names such as Mandelbrot, 
Higgs, Seiberg ... etc.) but, more importantly, I do know the 
opinion of the other physicist about those "great names". 
You will be surprised how much irrespectful it is.

> but the single serious survey of
> "great and good" Physicists' opinions I have read about (sorry, can't
> give reference... but I think it must have been either in one of those
> flaky books by Frank Tipler, or in Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality"
> that I read about it) revealed that a large majority believed
> (essentially -- obviously there are subtleties) in the MWI.  Not sure
> when that was carried out either, but it was back when Feynman was
> still alive.

Who is making argument from authority now?

> Precisely, and IMHO (as well as, if you want argument from authority,
> rather cleverer folks, like Deutsch)

Arguments from authority have the problem that you can always choose
your preferred authority, so you are always right. I would not qualify
Deutsch or Tipler as "great" physicists, but this is beside the point.
I would qualify Albert Einstein as a "great" physicist. He didn't believe 
the Copenhagen interpretation either; he believed in the hidden variables theory. 
Such a theory has been proved to be wrong by real world experiments,
so he was wrong. Everybody (unless he is Dutch) can be wrong, so please
let's stop the arguments from authority. The argument from personal 
experience is different in the sense that at least I am not invoking 
somebody else to support my views. 

Finally: notice that I didn't make any specific claim against MWI 
in this posts, I limited myself to few sociological observations 
and a few facts. An objective fact is the number of conferences 
about MWI theory. Please, look at 
http://www.physics.umd.edu/robot/confer/confmenu.html
and compute yourself the percentage of conferences about MWI 
(including or not including the ones mixed with philosophy 
conferences).

Also, please believe that physicist are no stupid, so there must
be some reason why there is relatively little active research about MWI.
BTW, you may interpret this statistical observation as a disguised 
argument from authority and you may be right, but it is so difficult 
to get rid of arguments from authority!  ;)

I write all this for the benefit of c.l.py regulars, anybody has 
the right to follow Deutsch's views, but they should not be presented 
as dominating in the physics community ("some physicists 
apparently still believe in the Copenhagen interpretation").

                       Michele Simionato