The old argument from personal incredulity! — tom

Yeah, that's the worst possible reason for rejecting some physics or even an interpretation: that it is strange, incredible, etc. - especially for a wannabe philosopher. I mean, if nothing else, the last 400 or so years of discovery should have taught us that the world is stranger than we can even imagine.

Motion does not have to be constantly sustained by a mover? What have you been smoking, Galileo? :-}

Again, definitions are synonyms, or they're not definitions. — Terrapin Station

I am not sure why you are dwelling on this. If I accept a definition, then I henceforth take the definiendum to be synonymous with that definition. But I cannot accept your definition because it is defective, for the obvious reason that I have pointed out. I don't know what else to say.

In my model causality is defined between two sets of states, not between two states. It wouldn't make sense to say that the state A causes the future state B. — Babbeus

On second thought, I am less clear about what you are trying to say. I guess you are trying for what's called type-causation (typical, lawful, repeatable effects result in like causes), but I am not sure. If you are interested, I suggest you read about some already existing attempts to make sense of (or even to dismiss) causality, e.g. here. Perhaps you'll find something similar to your idea.

So they believe in a real, physical infinity, as opposed to a mathematical infinity? I thought infinities in physics meant there was a problem with the theory requiring revision. — Marchesk

Infinite space? Of course. Whether it's "real" and "physical" is down to semantics, I guess*. But the idea that space is infinite is old and, I would think, much less controversial than its opposite. We only got a good grip on the latter concept (of finite space) recently, with the development of topology and modern cosmology. Otherwise it is rather hard to imagine, intuitively.

I forgot which ancient Greek philosopher it was that argued that space must be infinite, because suppose that it rather had a boundary; then on reaching that boundary you could just poke a stick through it.

* But if you think that space is somehow not physical or not real or doesn't count for some other reason, well, once you suppose that space is infinite, it is only natural to suppose that there's an infinite amount of stuff in it - stars, galaxies, etc. - and that's as real and physical as it gets, right? The alternative would violate the Copernican principle, making our finite pocket of the infinite universe very special for no good reason.

The consensus from my fairly recent read of Max Tegmark's Multiverse book among physicists is that the MWI is the correct approach — Question

Not only not the consensus, but apparently not even the majority view.

I find it hard to concieve the MWI due to the rather infinite amount of realities there may be; but, so do many mathematicians have qualms with dealing with real infinities. — Question

Well, the idea that the universe is spatially infinite was commonplace throughout the history of thought, and among today's cosmologists this is probably much closer to a consensus. And that doesn't even require the acceptance of any particular interpretation of quantum mechanics. So I don't think the infinitude of the world - or worlds - is all that controversial.

A quasi deterministic universe always seems more appealing; but, why can't we have determinism within a many worlds interpretation. — Question

MWI is a deterministic theory (in a way).

"Produces" is indeed a synonym for "causes" in this context. Thus we can plug in "causes" in place of "produces" and the problem should then become obvious:

x causes y just in case A, B, C, ..., x causes y, D, E, ...

x exerts forces that produce y — Terrapin Station

"x produces y" is a paraphrase of "x causes y". Your definition is even worse than circular: it appeals to a narrower notion of causation (one that specifically relies on forces) to explain causation simipliciter.

we call every situation where a dynamics inside the set A is always followed (wrt time) by a dynamics in the set B as "A causing B" — Babbeus

In your model universe and by your definition, everything causes everything that follows. That is, any given set of events cause any given events that follow (assuming that your universe is also non-relativistic, so that "follow" is objectively given). A butterfly flapping its wings in China causes a hurricane in the Caribbean, as long as one precedes the other.

Update for the Ignore extension (5/19/2018):

Chrome:

Chrome now allows installing extensions only from its web store, and since I am not a registered and payed-up developer, I cannot publish there. If you really want it and know what you are doing, you can install an unpacked extension as described here: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-install-chrome-extensions-manually/

Zipped Chrome extension

Firefox 45 or later (this update is functionally identical to the old version):

Download the XPI file, double-click and allow the browser to install the extension.

So I guess this is my first post here. I am just an occasional lurker at this point. But I come bearing gifts :)

For myself and those few of you who use Firefox I made add-on that implements an ignore list feature.


https://postimg.org/image/ej2g76sp9/


https://postimg.org/image/8jjah9xal/

Limitations:

• Firefox only (I might try and make a Chrome version at some point, if I have the time).
• The list is stored locally with your bookmarks and other browser data. This means that if you log in at another computer or device, you'll have to install the add-on there and maintain a separate list.
• You can't view, edit or export the list.

Installation:

See message below with an updated version.