[hugh]

My point is that there are other many-worlds interpretations apart from Deutsch's, which differ somewhat on philosophical issues like whether words really "split", as described above.

The main problem with them is that they're all a bit vague and handwavey -- the world is still waiting for somebody to come up with a truly rigorous treatment of many-worlds and its consequences, and how it works in non-toy systems (i.e. systems which don't just consist of a single observer observing a single observable).

The other problem is that most people writing on MWIs don't really acknowledge the existence of other MWIs, with the effect that everybody winds up talking past each other. Finally, it doesn't help that Everett's writings are so vague that we can't even figure out what he himself was saying.

Personally, I suspect that MWI is likely to be true, and that other interpretations have insurmountable flaws, but I'd be very careful about going around saying everything else is "ridiculous".

[curi]

You're right that I should be careful with what I call ridiculous. I am.

(Will now explain more details in response to the other guy's comment where he proposes bohm and grw theories as non-ridiculous)