Wayfarer

Because the ability to make distinctions is fundamental to being able to argue a case. You've been arguing this up hill and down dale for days already...

According to what I've read, the term 'many worlds' was introduced by Bryce DeWitt when he began to champion Everett's ideas some years later. And you...

Right! So 'many worlds' is ok, but 'parallel universes' is not? Is there a difference?

Thanks! Now I see what you're referring to, and I think you make many valid points. But, consider the context. This was an article that Karen Armstron...

Well, it's pretty useless posting 'why should I be happy' on an internet forum. It's completely up to you. That's all there is to it.

beat me to it.. X-)

Knowledge would be results others could reproduce and confirm. That's what monasteries are for.

I went to a book launch a few weeks back, by an outstanding character called Deng Adut, a Somali refugee who had made his way to Australia, then gradu...

Yes, there are parallel universes and we can find out about them. Well, glad we got to the bottom of that, although it directly contradicts and answer...

Right, they're both books. So how do you justify "there's a wold of difference"? You could just as well say they have different titles, or different c...

In non-technical terminology, what does a 'macroscopically definite state' consist of? Here is an excerpt from the Phillip Ball essay: So, for the ump...

the question still stands - you said 'under Everett you accept multiplicity' - multiplicity of what?

multiplicity of what?

Right, but by that he doesn't mean that it's referring to anything real. He's a positivist, i.e., doesn't matter whether there really are many worlds....

Right - decoherence, I get that. I think I'm more or less in agreement with your post, although I don't have the background to understand all of it. A...

Andrew, 'Worlds' doesn't begin with 'M', does it. The question was, what does "M" stand for? And obviously the answer is 'many' - as in 'many worlds'....

Tell me this, then - what does the "M" stand for in "MW"? says you.

All I'm saying is that mathematics is only perceptible to an intelligence capable of understanding numbers. Like, you can't teach mathematics to your ...

except that it is only intelligible to a mind, so, not mind-independent, but opinion-independent.

There's a world of difference. You're obfuscating a really basic difference in moral philosophy in a way that will inevitably entail relativism. It's ...

please elaborate

From the Aeon article that Orzel says is terrible: All the MWI advocates seem to be ignoring this point.

I agree in part, but not with the italicized passage. Again I think you're blurring the distinction between facts and values, and I think it is a legi...

What I am calling into question is the principle of 'mind-independence' or 'scientific realism'. I notice from the Orzel blog, 'The fundamental proble...

only for 'weak' mwi; for the strong version there really are countless separate or parallel universes. And that is metaphysics. Also metaphysics. Assu...

except for it's not 'a theory', it is a metaphysic.

Adjoining countries are Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. But aside from Turkey, I don't think any are truly democratic (and Turkey is looking shaky);...

Nowadays, 'belief' is shorthand for 'believing an empirical proposition for which there is no evidence'. Whereas, as Armstrong says, what it originall...

https://youtu.be/tFMo3UJ4B4g

I'm reading Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality, Manjit Kumar, on this topic. Kumar quotes Bohr as saying: (p262...

However, it is not possible to observe neural activity as though from a third-person perspective. You can't reach that perspective on it. You might th...

If you can't see how fatuous that comparison is, then really we have nothing to discuss.

Um, I think I'm nearer to an 'objective idealist' (and Pierce comes up under that categorisation.) But I am a pragmatist about science, in that I beli...

Today's NYTimes profile of Breitbart News: Drain the swamp? How about, stock it with crocodiles, jackals, weasels, and flesh-eating bacteria?

Knowing other philosophers who say similar things, would help to understand what you mean. So far, I'm finding that very challenging. And I'm accused ...

I'm going with (3).

Cases of the kind you cite are, for me, cases of cause and effect operating in the empirical world. I haven't denied. or even questioned, those. There...

(Y)

It's not hard to figure out. It's a meaningless term. 'Headache' is not a meaningless term - when you say you have a headache, I know what you mean. W...

I know to what it refers to, but I am arguing that 'brain state' is a meaningless term. You said in another thread: This is a typical statement of mat...

So, if brain states are not the subject of the neuro-sciences, then what are you referring to when you use the term 'brain states'?

What I'm saying is that those terms are meaningless, it's 'neuro-babble' which appears to connote something scientific but in reality says nothing. I ...

Thanks for your very clear analysis, and glad to make your acquaintance. My objections to philosophical materialism are many and various, so I will tr...

I think 'we don't know' is the superior answer. Physics is getting hopelessly entangled in pseudo-metaphysics, Everett's being an egregious example. A...

This seems the exact opposite of what you said yesterday:

Thanks - that's pretty close to what I thought, but I don't understand your first point, 'an observation entangles the observer with objects on a part...

Like 'instrumentalism' in physics? IN any case, to answer your question in the OP, I think factor analysis does try and identify 'real causes' on the ...

The reason it works is because there are real possibilities; there are things that really might happen, and other things that never will. The philosop...

So much for 'draining the swamp'. Trump's just re-stocking it!

All I'm asking is, whether another name for what you have called 'unobservables' is 'possibilities'. Isn't that what factor analysis is trying to dete...