On Mon, Jul 29, 2019 at 6:41 AM Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 29, 2019 at 8:43 PM Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 6:29 PM Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >>> On Sat, Jul 27, 2019 at 8:44 AM Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 2:24 AM Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> MWI is irrelevant to this discussion, since the branches in MWI are >>>>> completely disjoint and form separate coherent worlds. Without overlap, >>>>> common sense notions of personal identity continue unchanged in all >>>>> branches separately. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Can we really ignore the global view? >>>> >>> >>> Yes, we have no evidence that such a view exits or even makes any sense. >>> >> >> Why doesn't it? >> > > Because there is no "view from outside" as it were. > But this is exactly the situation for Wigner's friend, or when we use a quantum computer. It would also be the case for any being in another universe choosing to analyze ours using the power of simulation. Do you not believe in an objective reality? > > >> We speak of a superposition of a wave function whenever we speak of a >> system separated from an external environment. Can we not view the whole >> universe this way? Feynman and Everett thought we could, and Wheeler >> thought so on Tuesdays. >> > > Argument from authority is no argument in this case, because it makes no > sense to view the whole universe in this way. There is no "person" who sees > the global wave function. > Nor is there any person who sees beyond the horizon of a black hole. But we can use our best theories to describe that is happening there. Why can't we do the same for the global view? > According to Everettt, persons and quantum phenomena are relative to > particular branches of the wave function. > Is there a wave function for the universe as a whole? > > > What if we want to consider cases like Wigner's friend? Or cases where we >>>> emulate brains in quantum computers? >>>> >>> >>> What about such cases? Despite David Deutsch, these do not prove the >>> truth of MWI. >>> >> >> No but it casts significant doubt on the single world view, which cannot >> account for them. >> > > The single world view can account for these easily, so such cases provide > no evidence for MWI. > Where do the 10^1000 intermediate computational states occur in the single universe view of a quantum computer factoring a big semiprime number? > > > Superpositions exist in a single world. If we form multiple worlds via >>> decoherence, then the worlds are, by definition, orthogonal, so there is no >>> possibility of their ever recombining. David Deutsch got this wrong many >>> times. Quantum computers work by interference of qbits -- so they must all >>> exist in the same world. A conscious quantum computer does not experience >>> other worlds. >>> >> >> If you fed in as input, qubits prepared to be in a superposition using >> Hadamard gate, then the conscious mind would experience many states, >> simultaneously. >> > > Demonstrate that by actually doing it. > I described the process. We lack the technology to do this today, but it is exactly what our current theories suggest would happen. Scott Aaronson, an expert in quantum computing agreed that if the computer program is conscious, then one so-prepared on a quantum computer would realize multiple conscious states simultaneously. Can you show any flaw in the reasoning? > > >> Now this is in the context of a quantum computer that remains isolated >> from its external environment. >> >> Now what happens when you consider that we too are isolated from our >> external environment? Are we not in the same situation as this >> hypothetical conscious observer simulated on a quantum computer? >> > > No. A quantum computer cannot do anything that is not also doable (albeit > more slowly) on a classical Turing machine. > Correct. > So quantum computers do not put simulated minds into superpositions. > > Quantum computers operate on qubits that are in a state of superposition. Using N such randomly initialized qubits is analogous to running 2^N Turing Machines, each prepared in one of the unique 2^N possible values of an N-bit string. So you are correct that the quantum computer isn't doing anything that Turing machine cannot do more slowly. But I don't see how this is an argument against my point. The observer running on the quantum computer would experience "many worlds". Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUg47B08BpF1szUpAL-mKvYbikrk69yfiFzoYcPZ5BeXGQ%40mail.gmail.com.
