(December 26, 2018 at 6:59 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:(December 26, 2018 at 2:16 pm)polymath257 Wrote: But in order to do the right things, the interpretation has to have *some* correlation with reality. of course we don't see the entire picture: we don't see radio waves, for example, nor infrared. But what we do see does correspond to at least part of what is 'out there'. If it did not, it would seem quite unlikely that we would be able to do the 'right thing' even for survival.
If it can work in some possible world, then it can work in the actual world. It can work that way in some given possible world, therefore it can work that way in our world. Probability or likelihood is just an intuition that you project onto the brute possibility. The true situation is that you have know way of knowing what the likelihood of this being the case is. You assert that it is unlikely, likely simply because you find the argument that successful behavior necessarily requires correct interpretations of reality, but that argument is flawed, because it isn't necessary that it do so, and so your estimate of the likelihood of the converse is also flawed, and for that reason.
Hmm....I tend to find the notion of possible worlds to be rather incoherent also. How do we know whether a system is consistent or not? It really isn't an issue that is easy to resolve (see Godel's work).
In any case, the simple fact that something consistently works is enough for me to say it is real. The *definition* of the 'real world' is via models made upon observation and testing. That is also the underlying definition of 'existence'. There is no guarantee the conclusions are 'correct' in some philosophical sense. But that isn't a reasonable approach in any case. Alternative, internally consistent, descriptions that predict the same observations are equivalent theories.
So, as a matter of argument, how would a remarkably wrong interpretation lead to results that are consistent enough to allow survival?
