Re: YD is the driving motor of the Everett "interpretation" of QM?

From: Stephen Paul King <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 01:35:16 -0400

Hi Bruno,

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruno Marchal" <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
To: "Stephen Paul King" <stephenk1.domain.name.hidden>
Cc: <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 11:06 AM
Subject: Re: YD is the driving motor of the Everett "interpretation" of QM?


>
> On 23 Aug 2005, at 18:08, Stephen Paul King wrote:
>
>> Hi Bruno,
>>
>> How is this the case? YD requires that the mind, or some token of
>> subjective awareness, can be faithfully represented in terms of TM,
>
>
> I could agree, despite some ambiguity. (In particular no first person can
> *construct* such an association, it is why YD asks for a bet).

[SPK]

    Why does this "bet" remind me of Pascal's Wager? This is the main source
of my irritation with your thesis, it ask me to believe some postulate
without even a hope that it can be proven. (This is not about your *proof*
that a machine is unable to *know* what it's program is. That is easy to
derive from the idea that a map can not be created of a dynamic territory
that includes a copy of the map... I accept your idea here without
trepidation.)
    Being raised by Fundamentalist parents has something to do with this
"allergy" of mine. Please do not take this personally, but you must admit
that there is a lot at stake in this bet!


>> or some other equivalent that can be implemented in a finite number of
>> steps in a physically realizable machine.
>
>
> No. YD does not presuppose the existence of any "physically realizable
> machine".

[SPK]

    Ok, then what connects the idea of YD to the real world possibility of
uploading my subjective sense of self into a blinking and whirring cube of
silicon?


>> It is my belief that such TM are equivalent to Boolean algebras which
>> have been proven to not be able to faithfully represent any QM system
>> having more than 2 dimensions.
>
>
> OK, but YD asks only that the mind can be implemented in some (classical
> or quantum) digital machine. And we know that all digital machine
> (classical or quantum) can be runned on a classical (and immaterial)
> Turing machine.

[SPK]

    That tears it! I can accept a computational system that does not have a
"where" or "there" assosiated with it, but I am being asked to accept an
"immaterial" one? Ok, I will let that slide, but I really need to understand
your insistence that the "Machina sans corpus" be a "classical machine"?
    A quantum machine can do far more exponentially faster, so why the
insistence? Can we safely assume that we all agree that the Multiverse is
Quantum Mechanical at its primal core? All the computation you might want
can be found in its Unitary evolution, but wait, that idea requres a notion
of time. Oh no! ;-)

>> A QM system, or more to the point here, its logical equivalent can
>> embed at least one Complete Boolean Algebra. The converse is not
>> possible exept for the trivial case.
>
>
> That is true for embedding which preserves truth values and some
> algebraic structure, but not for more general form of embedding. In any
> case it is not relevant for the discussion given that YD asks only for
> your (classical or quantum) state to be implemented in some turing
> machine.

[SPK]

    Your point is well taken so long as one assumes that no aspect of
consciousness requires QM aspects, such as entanglement and quantum
statistics (Bose, Fermi, etc.). I am still waiting patiently for something
that looks like a derivation of QM's wierdness from Classical logics.

>> Unless the Multiverse is restricted to 2 dimensions, how does your claim
>> *not* fall apart?
>
>
> I really don't see why. Are you saying here that, unlike Godfrey, you
> think YD is incompatible with even QM without collapse?

[SPK]

    "Incompatible"? Wrong choice of word. Whether or not collapse occurs is
contriversial but we can hope for empirical evidence to deside one way or
another. YD takes that hope away and gives me "evidence of things not seen"
instead. No thanks. ;-)

    Bruno, you can do better than this! Please understand that I would very
much like your theory to be true (it is beautiful!), but will not let my
desire over come my need for falsifiabilty. (back off, Chris Peck!)

 Onward!

Stephen
Received on Sat Aug 27 2005 - 01:36:06 PDT