Brent Meeker writes:
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> > Brent Meeker writes:
> >
> >
> >>>It is consistent with Maudlin's paper to say consciousness supervenes on no
> >>>physical activity - i.e. on computation as Platonic object - but it is also consistent
> >>>to say that it supervenes on a recording, or on any physical activity, and that
> >>>perhaps if there were no physical universe with at least a single quantum state
> >>>there would be no consciousness. Admittedly the latter is inelegant compared to
> >>>the "no physical supervenience" idea, but I can't quite see how to eliminate it
> >>>completely.
> >
> >
> >>But note that Maudlin's argument depends on being in a classical world. The quantum
> >>world in which we live the counterfactuals are always realized with some probability.
> >
> >
> > I assume you are referring to the MWI interpretation, in which the counterfactuals are
> > always realised in some branch with certainty; in a classical world, the counterfactuals
> > are realised with some probability just as in the CI of QM. In any case, I don't see that
> > it makes much difference to the argument. Consider this model of the MWI case. A machine
> > is made up of two parts, a1 and b1, such that a1 is active at a particular time and b1
> > comes into play from an inert state to alter the activity of a1 only if a counterfactual is
> > realised. It seems absurd to say that a1 is conscious when it undergoes some physical
> > activity with b1 hovering over it inertly (because the counterfactual is not realised) but not
> > conscious when it undergoes the same activity without b1 in place. But it seems no less
> > absurd to me to say that a1 or a1b1 is conscious with an identical machine next to it, a2b2,
> > in which the counterfactual is realised, but not if a2b2 is not present. For how would a1/a1b1
> > know or care about a2b2, whether in the next room or in another branch of the multiverse?
>
> It's not a question of whether the "counterfactual" occurs. If it occured it
> wouldn't be counterfactual. The point is that in QM what occurs depends on what
> could have occur but didn't; c.f. quant-ph/9610033, or seach arXiv.org for
> "interaction free measurment".
Doesn't this refer to quantum interference effects? Otherwise what would be the distinction between
a quantum computer and a classical computer in what we know is a quantum world?
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Sat Oct 07 2006 - 20:13:33 PDT