On Sun, Oct 15, 2006 at 03:21:52AM -0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > Russell Standish wrote: > > I don't quite follow your argument. OMs are not computations. Whatever > > they are under computationalism, they must be defined by a set of > > information, a particular meaning to a particular observer. > > > > Quantum states have this property. For observables that the state is > > an eigenvalue of, the state contains precise information about those > > observables. For observables that the state is not an eigenvalue of, > > there is still information about relative proportions of different > > outcomes of measurement. > > A wavefunction itself does contain information about the 'relative > proportions of different outcomes of measurement' (as you put it) but > extracting this information requires 'extra assumptions' apart from QM. > We don't see half-dead, half-alive cats after all. Why not? Why do > we only 'observe' classical reality (i.e objects in definite states)? > This is what is not fully explained by QM. > > Perhaps I should revise what I said somewhat: I can agree with you that > the 'consistent histories' that you mentioned earlier are equiavlent to > observer histories. But it's the supposed derivation of these > 'consistent histories' from the QM multiverse picture that I'm > doubting. In other words I think that somewhere along the way some > 'extra non-QM assumptions' have slipped in ;) > >
Perhaps you should read my paper "Why Occam's Razor" - available from my website, or an arXiv mirror near you (http://www.arXiv.org). The assumptions I run off are called TIME and PROJECTION, as well as the Kolmogorov probability axioms (and the set theoretic axioms underlying them). From this, I can derive the main QM postulates, aside from the "odd man out" Correspondence principle. The CP itself can be obtained from Stenger's POVI, but needs 3+1 Minkowski spacetime. Probably what you think of as the "extra non-QM assumptions" are the TIME and PROJECTION postulates, but these are relatively minimal models of consciousness. Things like thermostats probably also satisfy TIME and PROJECTION :). Cheers -- *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 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks International prefix +612, Interstate prefix 02 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
