Dear Jonathan, Brent and Stathis,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brent Meeker" <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2009 2:02 AM
Subject: Re: Copying?
>
> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>>
>> But the brain changes from moment to moment due to chemical reactions
>> and thermal motion and we still remain the same person. If tolerances
>> were so tight that the no-cloning theorem is relevant then the brain
>> couldn't possibly function.
>>
[SPK]
It seems as if we need to flesh out exactly what we mean by "still
remain the same person". My own ideas follow the work of V. Pratt and his
work on Chu spaces and their logics. In
http://chu.stanford.edu/guide.html#ratmech wherer he points out that
Decartes' dictum properly stated is "Cognito, ergo eram" I think, therefore
I was. The suggestion by Jonathan is helpful in understanding this, I
believe:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Johnathan Corgan" <jcorgan.domain.name.hidden>
To: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2009 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: Copying?
> It is possible (I think likely) that there is a many-to-one relationship
> between exact quantum states and one "conscious state", or observer
> moment. To put into Bruno's terminology, the your digital substitution
> level would then be at a higher level than the exact quantum state.
[SPK]
Ok, that might also help us deal with the "binding problem" where we try
to sort out the issue of the "unity of consciousness".
> If this is the case, then the method X of copying only needs to ensure
> that the resultant quantum state stays within the common higher level
> state to ensure continuity.
[SPK]
Would this help us explain the "flow" aspect of consciousness, where we
have something like a window in time of a duration of about .25 sec where in
memories can be updated upon the reseit of new data? Think of how while
driving we see what appears to be an animal darting across the road only to
realize a split secont later that it is just a wind blown leaf.
> To use a thermodynamic analogy, which I find increasingly useful to
> visualize these sorts of things, if the above many-to-one hypothesis
> holds true, then multiple "microstates" map to a single "macrostate".
> Continuity of personal identity would allow a change in microstates
> (i.e., quantum states) during copying, as long as the resultant
> microstate still belonged to the same macrostate (observer moment).
[SPK]
Has any one seen any references to the idea of smearing macrostates over
finite time intervals?
> Of course, what the defining function of membership of quantum states
> within an observer moment that would preserve personal identity is
> unknown. Still, as long as there is a many-to-one relationship, then
> the no-cloning theorem does not rule out transfer of identity through
> your method X.
>
> Johnathan Corgan
[SPK]
We still do not have any data on the lower limit of the membership is
needed for this, but can we gloss over it and just jump to a conclusion?
> "Brent Meeker"
> Exactly. Anything that is going to produce useful information
> processing must ultimately be classical. Even quantum computers must
> have their results projected out classically. Tegmark and others have
> shown that brain processes involve actions many orders above Planck's
> constant - so a most quantum effects would produce small random effects.
[SPK]
That outputs of computations reduce to classical binary I understand and
agree with, but it has been shown that one can not start off with a
classical system and arrive at the results that we have. Feynmann and Svozil
et all have written about how QM system of sufficient size can generate
simulations of classical systems with arbitrary accurasy while the converse,
classical systems generating simulations of QM systems, is restricted to
2bit systems.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1018862730956
http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~svozil/publ/1999-embed.pdf
As to the Tegmark papers, they use a model of the brain that is very
different form the real thing! They completely neglect small scale
structures for one thing...
http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v65/i6/e061901
> Of course if you reject the idea that thinking is information
> processing, then you could attribute it some other aspect of quantum
> state evolution and ride off on Depak Chopra's horse.
>
> Brent
[SPK]
No, I do not reject that thinking is information processing per say, I
just reject the notion that that is "all" it is. We should not ignore quatum
aspects. Resent research has shown that photosynthesis in plants has a
desitedly quantum aspect
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7006/full/431256a.html ; are we
helping ourselves by ruling such out summarily in our thinking about
consciousness?
Onward!
Stephen
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Received on Mon Feb 23 2009 - 13:11:12 PST