On 03-12-2019 03:18, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On Tue, Dec 3, 2019 at 12:39 PM smitra <smi...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
On 02-12-2019 09:39, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On Mon, Dec 2, 2019 at 7:19 PM Philip Thrift
<cloudver...@gmail.com>
wrote:
"even in many-worlds you end up on only one branch
(stochastically)"
Sean Carroll himself has said (in a tweet) that if you let
probabilities (stochasticity) in - like the camel's nose under the
tent - you might as well have a one world - not many worlds -
theory.
We do have only one world. Do you know of anyone who lives in more
than one branch of the multiverse?
Bruce
Your subjective state (everything that you're aware at some
instant),
doesn't fully specify the exact physical state of your brain. The
number
of distinct physical brain states is so astronomically large that
your
mindset and how you are feeling about everything isn't going to be
consistent with only one physical brain state. This means that given
your subjective state, the physical state of your MWI sector should
be
described as a very complex superposition involving a large number
of
brain states that are entangled with the environment.
My brain currently has only one state. Other states may be consistent
with my current conscious state, but these do not exist. The idea that
I am a superposition of all brain states consistent with my
consciousness is just idle speculation. How would you ever prove such
a thing?
Using the argument below
If we assume that we can bypass this problem and that we can locate
ourselves in one single branch, then this leads to the following
paradox. Consider simulating such a conscious entity on a computer.
At
all moments in time, the physical state of the computer is just
transitioning from one particular state to another state. Since
consciousness is related to the actual physical state of the
computer,
replacing the computer by a dumb device that doesn't compute
anything,
which simply cycles through physical states that the computer would
move
through given some particular set of inputs, will render exactly the
same consciousness.
Yes, and so what? If my consciousness is a sequence of brain states,
anything that produces that same sequence of brain states will produce
my consciousness. Substrate independence, after all.
It cannot be due to a sequence of events given that you are conscious at
every instant.
This absurd conclusion depends only on the single world assumption,
It is not absurd in the least. Argument ad absurdum is not a logical
argument. What is absurd to you may be perfectly reasonable to someone
else.
Substrate independence implies that you can map any sequence of states
to those of any other system, for example a clock.
it's a consequence of the non-existence of counterfactuals.
How can a counterfactual exist? By definition, it is counter to the
facts, hence, non-existent.
It requires a multiverse.
Clearly actions
as a response to counterfactual inputs must be relevant for
consciousness,
But there cannot be any such thing as a counterfactual input. You
might consider "What if...." scenarios. But they are not relevant for
my current brain state. It will do what it will do, whatever the
input.
If your brain is executing an algorithm and the execution of that
algorithm is causing consciousness, then your brain doing something else
if the input where different is relevant.
but there is no room to do that within classical single
World physics. But as I pointed out above the generic state of a
conscious involves being located not in a single branch, but being
distributed over an astronomically large number of different
branches.
Different branches are, by definition, non-interacting, so different
branches correspond to different persons. Anyway, I choose not to
accept this load of speculative rubbish.
A set of "close" branches can define both the approximate output
resulting from the input and also the algorithm that defines the
relationship between the two. A strict single world picture falls prey
to the movie graph argument. At any moment in time your neurons are
processing information in some way, but because consciousness depends
only on the physical state, a fake brain that would always do whatever
your brain is doing regardless of the input would render your
consciousness of that moment.
Bruce
Saibal
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