Funnily enough, the first half of that interview was successful in killing my last bit of curiosity about arguing over interpretations of QM. He talked about young physics students eager to learn about the fundamental nature of the universe and wondered that senior physicists weren't eager to engage with these issues. I was interested to hear from someone dedicating themself to this field but the resulting conversation was so boring.

Copenhagen was messy because it introduced measurement as a separate process which is inelegant. The Everett interpretation preserves linear evolution but is messy because Schrodinger's cat experiment ends up with two cats (which seems like a mischaracterisation of MWI but whatever). Bohmian mechanics is good because it doesn't have the measurement problem and that Everettian weirdness. The conceit of having both particle and wave was brushed over because he didn't feel like it was too strange.

I listened with increasing apathy to a discussion on vibes about untestable and mathematically equivalent theories and when I got home I read Scott Aaronson's post 'The Zen Anti-Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics' and knew it for the first time.

No way. BM is like the last vestige of physics as the study of nature in the way ancient Greeks/Aristotle (grandad of much of science, father of biology and all) understood it. To go a-interpretational about physics is a two-millennia long paradigm shift. To me that’s why BM is so interesting. Non-local Hidden variables keep that tradition alive in a recognizable way.

The Greeks set us up for 2500 years of scientific progress in this vein. If probability becomes subjective (MWI) or we detach science from nature by going interpretation-less we have no concise foundation to propel science for years and years.

I’m not saying this is a reason to believe BM, but it’s by far the most conservative and in line with how we made progress before.

QM really really did a number on most physicists. Like Nima-Arkani Hamed says, radical conservatism is the best approach in physics. Anything but BM is just radical when we have the history of science we do.

I don’t think BM is necessarily right like I said, but its role is fascinating in this respect.

Past ways can be over encumbering, as a mitigating factor to BM. But I think physics has yet to require complete paradigm shift that I see in other/non interpretations.

> Schrodinger's cat experiment ends up with two cats

Why is this messy? Double slit experiment demonstrates '2 electrons'. Why is left electron right electron any different than dead cat alive cat?

All of those statements were Maudlin's opinions. I personally don't see why it's objectionable for two branches of the wavefunction to exist simultaneously past entanglement with an outside system, but most of all I just don't care anymore.

I heard this interview as well, and found it quite fascinating, especially that there's now an idea for an experimental test of pilot waves vs. other interpretations.

I didn't consider pilot wave theory a serious contender, he kinda changed my mind. Though I did think he kinda glossed over the objection that it's not a properly relativistic theory.