I dispute the premise. Weights of quantum configurations are not probabilities, they just share some superficial similarities. (They’re modeled with complex numbers!) Iirc Eliezer was very clear about this point in the quantum sequence.
Been thinking about your answer here, and still can’t decide if I should view this as solving the conundrum, or just renaming it. If that makes sense?
Do weights of quantum configuration, though they may not be probabilities, similar enough in concept to still imply that physical, irreducible uncertainty exists?
I’ve phrased this badly (part of why it took me so long to actually write it) but maybe you see the question I’m waving at?
The mathematical structure in common is called a “measure.”
I agree that there’s something mysterious-feeling about probability in QM, though I mostly think that feeling is an illusion. There’s a (among physicists) famous fact that the only way to put a ‘measure’ on a wavefunction that has nice properties (e.g. conservation over time) is to take the amplitude squared. So there’s an argument: probability is a measure, and the only measure that makes sense is the amplitude-squared measure, therefore if probability is anything it’s the amplitude squared. And it is! Feels mysterious.
But after getting more used to anthropics and information theory, you start to accumulate more arguments for the same thing that take it from a different angle, and it stops feeling so mysterious.
I don’t think so. According to Many Worlds, all weights exist, so there’s no uncertainty in the territory—and I don’t think there’s a good reason to doubt Many Worlds.
I dispute the premise. Weights of quantum configurations are not probabilities, they just share some superficial similarities. (They’re modeled with complex numbers!) Iirc Eliezer was very clear about this point in the quantum sequence.
Yes, and (for certain mainstream interpretations) nothing in quantum mechanics is probabilistic at all: the only uncertainty is indexical.
Been thinking about your answer here, and still can’t decide if I should view this as solving the conundrum, or just renaming it. If that makes sense?
Do weights of quantum configuration, though they may not be probabilities, similar enough in concept to still imply that physical, irreducible uncertainty exists?
I’ve phrased this badly (part of why it took me so long to actually write it) but maybe you see the question I’m waving at?
The mathematical structure in common is called a “measure.”
I agree that there’s something mysterious-feeling about probability in QM, though I mostly think that feeling is an illusion. There’s a (among physicists) famous fact that the only way to put a ‘measure’ on a wavefunction that has nice properties (e.g. conservation over time) is to take the amplitude squared. So there’s an argument: probability is a measure, and the only measure that makes sense is the amplitude-squared measure, therefore if probability is anything it’s the amplitude squared. And it is! Feels mysterious.
But after getting more used to anthropics and information theory, you start to accumulate more arguments for the same thing that take it from a different angle, and it stops feeling so mysterious.
I don’t think so. According to Many Worlds, all weights exist, so there’s no uncertainty in the territory—and I don’t think there’s a good reason to doubt Many Worlds.
Ahh. One is uncertain which world they’re in. This feels like it could address it neatly. Thanks!