On 31 Oct 2011, at 23:56, meekerdb wrote:
On 10/31/2011 11:02 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Why? Everett shows convincingly that, being a memory machine, when
we measure a superposition state, we just entangle ourself with the
superposition state, but this differentiate the consciousness/
memory of the machine, and she can feel the split.
I don't feel the split. Do you? I just experience one outcome.
Sorry, for my style, and spelling mistakes, and other mistake as well.
I meant "she can't feel the split". So we agree.
The theory of consciousness used in Everett QM is simple mechanism.
It is the major interest of Everett.
I don't think it is so simple because, like decoherence, it assumes
that there is something that picks out the classical view of the
world and that's what consciousness supervenes on, rather than
supervening on linear combinations of classical states. If you have
some reason that the pointer-states are canonical, then Everett
explains why "you" split in such a way that you don't experience a
mixture. But within QM there doesn't seem to be any good
explanation for why the classical world, the pointer states, are
picked out.
Zeh and Zurek made an interesting proposal. Once position is favorized
by one type of organism, it becomes the main observation basis. It is
just "natural selection" of measuring apparatus. There is no
conceptually more important basis, but once one is selected, there is
no change for the next generation. And Zurek explains why position can
be naturally selected.
The only good proposals I've heard are that it is only by limiting
perception to particular bases that life and intelligence can arise.
Yes. And this is made obligatory by quantum mechanics. You cannot
develop without choosing some measuring apparatus on your environment.
Personally I consider MW to be just QM with a literal interpretation
done by the creatures inside. It is exactly the same idea that we can
exploit in arithmetic through digital mechanism.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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