I'm not convinced that the QM no-cloning theorem applies to
consciousness. We have no evidence one way or another that cloning is
possible. So it is reasonable to take it as a working assumption, and
work out the consequences (which is largely what Bruno has done), or
conversely take the opposite assumption and work out the
consequences. If either of these scenarios give different consequence
that could be tested by experiment, we are much better off.
Cheers
On Thu, Jun 02, 2005 at 10:57:24PM -0400, Stephen Paul King wrote:
> Dear Lee and Stathis,
>
> I really do not want to be a stick-in-the-mud here, but what do we base
> the idea that "copies" could exist upon? What if "I", or any one else's 1st
> person aspect, can not be copied? If the operation of copying is
> impossible, what is the status of all of these thought experiments?
> If, and this is a HUGE if, there is some thing irreducibly quantum
> mechanical to this "1st person aspect" then it follows from QM that copying
> is not allowed. Neither a quantum state nor a "qubit" can be copied without
> destroying the "original".
>
> All of these threads so far seem to be assuming that the process that
> gives rise to a 1st person experience and the content of the experience
> itself are purely classical and can be faithfully represented by classical
> systems. It is this assumption, I believe, that underpins the entire
> classical Platonic thesis. Indications are that it has already been
> falsified, by the same experiments that unassailably imply that Nature is,
> at its core, Quantum Mechanical and not Classical and thus one wonders:
> "Why do we persist in this state of denial?"
>
> Stephen
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin.domain.name.hidden>
> To: "EverythingList" <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
> Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 10:32 PM
> Subject: RE: Many Pasts? Not according to QM...
>
> snip
--
*PS: A number of people ask me about the attachment to my email, which
is of type "application/pgp-signature". Don't worry, it is not a
virus. It is an electronic signature, that may be used to verify this
email came from me if you have PGP or GPG installed. Otherwise, you
may safely ignore this attachment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 8308 3119 (mobile)
Mathematics 0425 253119 (")
UNSW SYDNEY 2052 R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- application/pgp-signature attachment: stored
Received on Thu Jun 02 2005 - 23:39:03 PDT