Thank you for writing this. I think it serves an important purpose, because like you I think the most likely impression for a physicist to form from the highest-profile EA career advice is that they should take their highly valuable transferable skills and get out of physics (even if it’s not explicitly stated). This may be the correct advice, but it’s worth explicitly considering whether that is true.
I did (computational quantum) physics to PhD level before exiting to policy, initially in climate change, so I effectively followed this advice (although before the EA movement existed in its current form). From my sample of one, I did find the skills/experience highly transferable.
However, I tend to believe that staying in physics can also offer high impact—and you have highlighted lots of reasons why. To be fair, the general potential of research is well profiled by e.g. 80k, it’s just that physics doesn’t get highlighted as a top choice.
Some people make the argument that generally boosting economic growth is so assured of positive results that it offers good impact to focus one’s efforts generically in this direction. I wonder if a similar argument could apply to increasing humanity’s understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe?
(A minor question: You refer to the many worlds interpretation as a possible reason to believe in a multiverse, and to consider the potential ethical implications of that. I am rusty, but my understanding was that all interpretations of quantum mechanics are essentially hypothetical ideas rather than rooted in any empirical evidence? I.e. unlike a “proper” theory, the different interpretations do not result in any changes to the underlying mathematics and are not testable? If I’ve got that right, then for me the interpretations would provide little to no motivation for taking their model of reality into account in decision-making.)
Some interpretations actually do make testable predictions (like the Many Wolds Interpretation), but they tend to be quite hard to test in practice
Some people have argued that some interpretations follow more naturally from the mathematics. It’s pretty clear in my opinion that Bohmian Mechanics is postulating additional structure on top of the mathematics we have now, while many-worlds is not really doing that.
Your comment, and the links, were very helpful and thought-provoking—thanks.
I’ve definitely reached the limit of my expertise—so take this with a pinch of salt—but I think the key thing for me is whether any of the interpretations lead to observable real-world differences.
I didn’t fully understand the link you provided to the many worlds interpretation making testable predictions, but it appeared to be talking only of thought experiments that would require non-existent technology to carry out in practice.
I agree with you that some interpretations would, if “true”*, require additional mathematics to describe the new underlying mechanism they postulate. But, from my limited understanding, that new mathematics would itself not be testable—because it would only result in the same real-world observable behaviour as all the other interpretations.
Thanks again.
*I’m not really sure what this word even means in this context (spot the non-philosopher), when there is no means of using experimental results to distinguish between interpretations.
Thank you for writing this. I think it serves an important purpose, because like you I think the most likely impression for a physicist to form from the highest-profile EA career advice is that they should take their highly valuable transferable skills and get out of physics (even if it’s not explicitly stated). This may be the correct advice, but it’s worth explicitly considering whether that is true.
I did (computational quantum) physics to PhD level before exiting to policy, initially in climate change, so I effectively followed this advice (although before the EA movement existed in its current form). From my sample of one, I did find the skills/experience highly transferable.
However, I tend to believe that staying in physics can also offer high impact—and you have highlighted lots of reasons why. To be fair, the general potential of research is well profiled by e.g. 80k, it’s just that physics doesn’t get highlighted as a top choice.
Some people make the argument that generally boosting economic growth is so assured of positive results that it offers good impact to focus one’s efforts generically in this direction. I wonder if a similar argument could apply to increasing humanity’s understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe?
(A minor question: You refer to the many worlds interpretation as a possible reason to believe in a multiverse, and to consider the potential ethical implications of that. I am rusty, but my understanding was that all interpretations of quantum mechanics are essentially hypothetical ideas rather than rooted in any empirical evidence? I.e. unlike a “proper” theory, the different interpretations do not result in any changes to the underlying mathematics and are not testable? If I’ve got that right, then for me the interpretations would provide little to no motivation for taking their model of reality into account in decision-making.)
Thanks again.
Not an expert on the foundations of QM, but a few points on your question:
For some interpretations the mathematics does change somewhat (e.g. Bohmian Mechanics, Collapse Theories)
Some interpretations actually do make testable predictions (like the Many Wolds Interpretation), but they tend to be quite hard to test in practice
Some people have argued that some interpretations follow more naturally from the mathematics. It’s pretty clear in my opinion that Bohmian Mechanics is postulating additional structure on top of the mathematics we have now, while many-worlds is not really doing that.
Your comment, and the links, were very helpful and thought-provoking—thanks.
I’ve definitely reached the limit of my expertise—so take this with a pinch of salt—but I think the key thing for me is whether any of the interpretations lead to observable real-world differences.
I didn’t fully understand the link you provided to the many worlds interpretation making testable predictions, but it appeared to be talking only of thought experiments that would require non-existent technology to carry out in practice.
I agree with you that some interpretations would, if “true”*, require additional mathematics to describe the new underlying mechanism they postulate. But, from my limited understanding, that new mathematics would itself not be testable—because it would only result in the same real-world observable behaviour as all the other interpretations.
Thanks again.
*I’m not really sure what this word even means in this context (spot the non-philosopher), when there is no means of using experimental results to distinguish between interpretations.