So help me out here. Do you think there is a causal basis for the apple on the table appearing as it does from moment to moment? Or do you think that,...
Indeed. But I'm leaving open the possibility of extra postulates. For example, QM would be incomplete if there were demonstrated to be disappearing wo...
I think of abstractions in an Aristotelian sense, not Platonic sense. That is, universals exist when they are instantiated in things. In this sense, a...
Yes, it sounded bizarre when I first encountered it. But having worked through the math, there's really no way around it. The other interpretations ar...
They would be no solution at all. But this would imply the QM formalism being either wrong or incomplete. And QM is a very well tested theory. QM is c...
Yes we do. That's because object persistence is part of the ordinary concept of an apple. That's correct, but the issue here is what is meant by the t...
I think the issue is that if Everettian QM both explains our observations and solves a bunch of problems, as Tom points out, then on what grounds are ...
(Sorry for the delay MU - life interrupting philosophy...) Aristotle doesn't claim that two kinds of substance exist or that two kinds of properties e...
At some point the apple grew on a tree and before that the tree grew from a seed. And in the other direction, at some point the apple will be eaten or...
Asking for justification for the existence of the apple is misplaced here. The thing on the table that we can publicly point to is what we mean when w...
The apple sitting on the table is the same apple that I pick up and take a bite out of a few seconds later. That is what is meant by identity. It does...
It doesn't contradict it. This just comes down to Wittgenstein's private language argument which, as I recall, you reject. The term "existence" has a ...
The point is that a superposition constitutes many states and they are all necessary for the wave function to evolve. Yes it seems strange because we ...
It's not an either-or. MW is just the ordinary language interpretation of QM. That doesn't imply that things will therefore exist in the way that we m...
Some might say that the world-shattering thing was Everett's relative state formulation which was published in 1957 - two years after Einstein's death...
I agree that a theory can be used instrumentally, whether or not it is true, as is done with Newtonian gravity. But a theory provides an explanation o...
OK, but then QM would not be applicable to anything since it only applies to things that exist. While of course there are philosophical issues here, t...
Excellent analogies! Per your comment Wayfarer, the issue is that realism serves us well in the straightforward cases and the alternatives obviously f...
You don't need to know what photons are really like. QM applies to any quantum system whether it be photons, electrons, or more complex systems like 8...
The particles are real before they are measured. But they never have a precise position and momentum at the same time, either before or after measurem...
Yes - see What’s a Photon, and How Do We Know they Exist? But even if you disagree, firing single electrons will also produce an interference pattern....
Yes, the main issue is that the realist wants to keep things separate from our talk about those things. So modal language has an epistemic function an...
If a single photon is fired in the double-slit experiment, the probability that it arrives at any particular position on the back screen is a function...
This is where the realist metaphysics kicks in. What explains the interference pattern in a double-slit experiment? What is actually interfering? What...
Yes. In the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, there are two cats, both of them equally real. One is alive (and wondering why it is in a box) and o...
Sorry I misread and I've edited my earlier comment. People simply use different terminology to refer to the same phenomena. What is being referred to ...
I'm guessing by 'weak' mwi, you mean instrumentalism. An instrumentalist would say that they don't know what summing over paths really means or, more ...
By all means keep an open mind. Nonetheless, Everett's is the only theory that explains why we see quantum interference effects. So it is the theory t...
Yes, it's not merely statistical, it has a causal basis. My main point is that there is nothing mysterious about entangled particles under MW - it jus...
Under MWI, entanglement is just correlation. In terms of the EPR experiment, there will be a pair of correlated opposite-spin particles on one branch ...
Under MWI, observations do have causal consequences. An observation entangles the observer with objects on a particular world branch. The real objecti...
'Many worlds' is a solution for why we observe quantum interference patterns. When a single photon is fired in the double-slit experiment, the probabi...
In ordinary usage, the terms "objective" and "subjective" refer to judgements that we think do or don't meet normative epistemological standards. That...
It just came up as part of a discussion with John where he is arguing (as I understand him) that some things in the world, such as relations between t...
Because we differentiate features of the territory. But differentiating them is a cognitive and conceptual process. The territory has its rivers and h...
No, I wouldn't - I don't see what purpose it would serve. I would just say that dinosaurs existed. I see those definitions as language on holiday. The...
As Willow points out, there wasn't one. I'm just following standard usage here - the OED defines a fact as "a thing that is known or proved to be true...
I think they have a pragmatic origin. We understand other human beings to be intentional creatures and we develop mental language around that. That wo...
Yes. And your definition is the flip side of behaviorism - the idea that it is the body that does things. What I'm trying to suggest is an alternative...
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