this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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What value does such an agreement have? Why is it a problem that there's a plurality of equivalent understandings? Does that plurality add to or subtract from our understanding of reality?
You say the different interpretations give drastically different pictures of physical reality, but not in an empirical sense. But can we really talk of an empirically unavailable physical reality? If pilot waves, multiverses and wave function collapses all lead to the same empirical reality, does it make any difference to physical reality which one you think about?
A lot of people go into physics because they want to learn how the world works, but then are told that is not only not the topic of discussion but it is actively discouraged from asking that question. I think, on a pure pragmatic standpoint, there is no problem with this. As long as the math works it works. As long as the stuff you build with it functions, then you've done a good job. But I think there are some people who get disappointed in that. But I guess that's a personal taste. If you are a pure utilitarian, I guess I cannot construct any argument that would change your mind on such a topic.
I'm not sure I understand your last question. Of course your opinion on physical reality doesn't make any different to reality. The point is that these are different claims and thus cannot all be correct. Either pilot wave people are factually correct that there are pilot waves or they are wrong. Either many worlds people are factually correct that there is a multiverse or they are wrong. Either objective collapse people are factually correct that there is an objective collapse or they are wrong (also objective collapse theories make different predictions, so they are not the same empirically).
If we are not going to be a complete postmodernist, then we would have to admit that only one description of physical reality is actually correct, or, at the very least, if they are all incorrect, some are closer to reality than others. You are basically doing the same thing religious people do when they say there should be no problem believing a God exists as long as they don't use that belief to contradict any of the known scientific laws. While I see where they are coming from, and maybe this is just due to personal taste, at the end of the day, I personally do care whether or not my beliefs are actually correct.
There is also a benefit of having an agreement on how to understand a theory, which is it then becomes more intuitive. You're not just told to "shut up and calculate" whenever someone asks a question. If you take a class in general relativity, you will be given a very intuitive mental picture of what's going on, but if you take a class in quantum mechanics, you will not only not be given one, but be discouraged from even asking the question of what is going on. You just have to work with the maths in a very abstract and utilitarian sense.