[nessus42]

> Reality may be deceptive, but I certainly prefer to start with theories in which our experience is explained in a pretty simple and straightforward way: it looks like stuff is over there because there is stuff over there. We have singular experiences because a single experience is what actually happens.

This assertion does not make sense to me. The Everett Interpretation and the Bohm Interpretation are experimentally indistinguishable from each other, as I understand things. Consequently, there is no mystery at all with the Everett Interpretation as to why things appear to us the way that they do.

Since the Everett Interpretation is a significantly simpler theory than Bohm's, we should prefer it due to Occam's Razor. On the other hand, since they are experimentally indistinguishable from each other, we can never scientifically assert which of the two is correct, no matter how much evidence we have.

[jostylr]

Everett's theory categorically tells us that the results of experiments differ from the results in Bohmian mechanics. In Bohmian mechanics, a typical experiment will have one result. In Everett, experiments have all possible outcomes happening. These are not the same.

The "indistinguishable" part happens because, according to Everett, there is some version of the experimenter that will have the same experience as the single experimenter in the Bohmian world.

This is not simpler. I have no reason to believe that there are infinitely many copies of me out there. Everett's theory says that there are. Fine. I can't disprove it. I also can't disprove that every instant of my experience is being carefully orchestrated by a thousand angels. It is experimentally indistinguishable from any theory you care to posit.

But I prefer theories where my actual experience is supposed to be a reasonable reflection of reality. I experience a single me and therefore I would prefer a theory in which there is a single me. Bohmian mechanics provides that and in a completely natural and reasonable way.

Everett categorically disputes my experience as being reflective of reality. There are infinitely many copies of me and my experience of being singular is an illusion. I can't dissuade people from embracing that, but it certainly strikes me as peculiar.

Also, in terms of experiments, Everett has infinitely many copies of the universe where all of the statistics of the experiments come out wrong. There are infinitely many that come out right. Is that experimentally indistinguishable? I don't know. Kind of a strange question in the context of "most everything happens".

[int_19h]

This all hinges on a bunch of essentially random metaphysical choices that you have made. For example, what does it even mean for there to be a "single me"? I would argue that in the many worlds interpretation, once a fork happens, the other observers are not "me" anymore. So there's no contradiction between the experience of a "single me", and multiple copies - each copy has its own "single me" experience.

[jostylr]

I never said that there was a contradiction. I simply said that theory is suggesting a reality at odds with my experience. That does not mean it is a contradiction. It means that my experience is not a faithful representation of reality.

And that's fine, but the idea that this is simpler than a theory which says my experience is a reasonable reflection of reality, is not. Occam's razor is not about number of equations, it is about what is simplest. I experience a single "me". A theory which supports that experience directly and obviously is simpler than a theory which does not.

This is particularly true when the "extra" equations are simple and obviously a part of the other equations.

[int_19h]

But it's not at odds with your experience. It's an odds with "your" experience, where you arbitrarily redefined "your" (not that the conventional definition is any more rigorously defined, mind you...).

The reason why this all gets so convoluted is simply because it exposes how much we rely on terms and concepts that are defined very fuzzily, and often aren't even defined at all, but just accepted for granted as if everyone means the same by them. And then it turns out that we don't, which should really come as no surprise.