Since Yud’s understanding of physics is so thouroughly impoverished that he only sees it as a bunch of toy puzzles for Rick And Morty viewers to amuse themselves with, we’d probably be doing the British Prof a service by keeping his name totally decoupled from Big Yud’s.

I think this is just someone jumping to conclusions. For whatever reason, I have noticed that many-worlds proponents often consider their interpretation to be obviously true and superior.

As /u/TheAncientGeek remarks, Eliezer did start out with an idea of quantum mechanics obtained from Penrose, who promotes the interpretation of wavefunction “collapse” driven by objective independent dynamics (rather than wavefunction collapse driven by observation). Then at some point, Eliezer converted to the many worlds interpretation (no collapse at all).

I always thought his co-blogger Robin Hanson was probably instrumental in this, since Hanson developed his own version of many worlds. But there were other many-worlders in the transhumanist milieu (e.g. Mike Price), and of course one could also pick up the idea from reading actual physicists.

Eliezer did eventually state that he does not agree with the specific ideas of the Oxford school of many worlds - associated with Deutsch and with David Wallace. The Oxford school may be the worst version of many worlds (on account of its extreme illogicality, details upon request), so in favoring Hanson’s, Eliezer was at least being genuinely less wrong.

Physics degree, read the sequences, read the book: yes…oh yes,

It also seems like he’s read Penrose’s popular works..that would certainly explain his not-quite-right take on Copenhagen.

David deutsch liked my tweet lol