From: scerir (scerir@libero.it)
Date: Tue Feb 11 2003 - 07:23:40 MST
From: "Max M"
> Personally I find these parallel universe theories so farfetched that
> they should be preached not told. They need a good trimming by Occam!
The principle of multiple explanations (or principle of indifference),
by Epicurus [Letter to Pythocles], says that if *more than one* theory
is consistent with data, keep them all!
But - he wrote - we must keep them all for this reason. It would be
un-scientific to prefer one explanation to another when both are equally
in agreement with the phenomena.
In sharp contrast to the principle of multiple explanations, William
of Ockham said: "It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer".
But R.J. Solomonoff invented a theory of induction, by using Kolmogorov
complexity, to give a *universal* and *prior* distribution for Bayes'
rule. This distribution is a weighted average over all possible (computable)
probability distributions. Lower weights were assigned to more complex
distributions. In some sense Solomonoff mixed Ockham, Epicurus, Bayes, and
Kolmogorov!
Look, from this point of view, manyworlders and Everettistas are not so
original.
s.
"M. Pauli m'a demandé s'il n'est pas possible de décrire
le processus sans réduction des paquets d'ondes, en
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
recourant à un espace polydimensionnel [...]. Cela est
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
effectivement possible et peut meme etre représenté
d'une maniére fort intuitive par une simplification
convenable, mais cela ne nous conduit pas plus loin
pour ce qui concerne les questions essentielles."
- Max Born, Electrons et Photons, Rapports et Discussions
du Cinquieme Conseil de Physique de l'Institut
International de Physique Solvay, 1927, Gauthier-Villars,
Paris, 1928, page 251
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