On 9/28/2012 10:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 27 Sep 2012, at 19:18, meekerdb wrote:
On 9/27/2012 9:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I object to the idea that consciousness will cause a brain or other
machine to behave in a way not predictable by purely physical laws.
But this cannot be entirely correct. Consciousness will make your brain, at the level
below the substitution level, having some well defined state, with an electron, for
example, described with some precise position. Without consciousness there is no
"material" brain at all.
Why would the state be well defined *below* the substitution level? The substitution
level is classical or near classical and so already QM implies that there is a lower
level where the state is not well defined.
This is not quite clear and depends on your interpretation or even formulation of QM.
The lower level where the state is not defined, is relative to your own state, and it is
"well defined" relatively to any finer grained computations, it just doesn't matter for
your computational state.
I *can* know the exact position of an electron in my brain, even if this will make me
totally ignorant on its impulsions. I can know its exact impulsion too, even if this
will make me totally ignorant of its position.
But that doesn't imply that the electron does not have a definite position and momentum;
only that you cannot prepare an ensemble in which both values are sharp.
In both case, the electron participate two different coherent computation leading to my
computational state.
Of course this is just "in principle", as in continuous classical QM, we need to use
distributions, and reasonable Fourier transforms.
But at the fundamental level of the UD 'the electron' has some definite representation in
each of infinitely many computations. The uncertainty comes from the many different
computations. Right?
The state is well defined, as your state belongs to a computation. It is not well
defined below your substitution level, but this is only due to your ignorance on which
computations you belong.
Right. What I would generally refer to as 'my state' is a classical state (since I don't
experience Everett's many worlds).
But I still don't understand, "Consciousness will make your brain, at the level below the
substitution level, having some well defined state, with an electron, for example,
described with some precise position. Without consciousness there is no "material" brain
at all. "
How does consciousness "make a brain" or "make matter"? I thought your theory was that
both at made by computations. My intuition is that, within your theory of comp,
consciousness implies consciousness of matter and matter is a construct of consciousness;
so you can't have one without the other.
Brent
You can "observe" yourself below the substitution result, but the detail of such
observation are just not relevant for getting your computational state.
Bruno
Brent
Of course, you will argue that this is what physics already describes, with QM. In
that sense I am OK, but consciousness is still playing a role, even if it is not
necessarily the seemingly magical role invoked by Craig.
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