On 09/03/11 16:53, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 3/9/2011 5:24 AM, Andrew Soltau wrote:
On 08/03/11 16:14, Brent Meeker wrote:
On 3/8/2011 3:14 AM, Andrew Soltau wrote:
What I am driving at here is the same question as in the email
Comp. Granted that all possible states exist, what changes the
point of the present moment from one to another. My referring to
'the thinker' was probably not a helpful metaphor. Given the
universal numbers, what carries out the process whereby one is
transformed into another? What makes the state of the thinker or
the dreamer into the state of that entity at the next moment?
Andrew
I think the idea is analogous to the block universe. In Platonia
all the states of "the thinker" and his relation to the world are
"computed" in a timeless way.
OK. But for any given definition of the thinker, there is a version
of the world to which he corresponds. Whether considered as a
physical entity, or a mind or a record of observations, I am
instantiated in a specific version of the universe. On observation,
this state changes. The observer is now in a new and different state,
and is instantiated in a new and different version of the universe.
If one steps back and looks at all the possible states of the
thinker, existing in all the different corresponding states of the
universe at each moment, the result is the movie film Barbour refers
to. This is a timeless situation.
The impression of time for "the thinker" is recovered by putting the
states into a sequence which is implicitly defined by their content.
So then you have a sequence, but still nothing actually happens. This
is exactly the scenario Deutsch addresses.
/Nothing/ can move from one moment to another. To exist at all at a
particular moment means to exist there for ever. (1997, 263; his italics)
One seems to pass from moment to moment, experiencing change.
Deutsch, however, declares that this can only be an illusion.
We do not experience time flowing, or passing. What we experience are
differences between our present perceptions and our present memories
of past perceptions. We interpret those differences, correctly, as
evidence that the universe changes with time. We also interpret them,
incorrectly, as evidence that our consciousness, or the present, or
something, moves through time. (1997, 263)
Physically, this is unassailable. However, we can explain the
appearance of change very neatly,
The appearance of change is already explained by the fact that there
are different frames that have an implicit sequence and in which the
observers state is different. Further "explanation" is just muddying
the picture - at leas that's what Deutsch et al would say.
by saying that the frame of reference is changed, f
But this is no more than a magic finger pointing to the frames and
saying, "This one. And then this one. And then...."
Which is what one seems to be experiencing.
rom one moment to the next to the next, with no change in anything
physical. The only drawback is that this requires something 'outside'
of the moments, and there is nothing outside the multiverse. The
solution I propose is that phenomenal consciousness is an emergent
property of this unitary system as a whole. In other words, this
process is to the moments the way the computational capability of a
computer is to the frames of a movie in solid state memory.
Based on that, my belief is that, in the collapse dynamics of quantum
mechanics, we have discovered evidence for a property of the unitary
system in action
??? Collapse is not unitary.
By this I simply mean that only something of the logical type of the
system itself can perform the magic finger operation. Just as it takes a
projector, something outside of the frames of the movie, to operate on
the sequence of frames of the movie, to produce a motion picture. Just
as it takes a whole working computer system to actually alter the value
of a pointer from one address in memory to another. All the moments
exist, and as Deutsch points out, as you summarise, 'The appearance of
change is already explained by the fact that there are different frames
that have an implicit sequence and in which the observers state is
different', but for change to actually happen, the magic finger must
move. Otherwise reality would be like a movie film sitting in the can in
storage. Nothing happens. As Weyl states
The world simply is, it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my
consciousness, crawling up the life-line of my body, does the world
fleetingly come to life. (1949, 116)
This applies to the static block universe of spacetime, but it also
applies to the sequence of moments, each one a static block universe
moments, 'snapshots', which Deutsch describes as the quantum concept of
time. That static sequence is an unchanging layout, just like the movie
film.
Everett's formulation describes how one passes from moment to moment,
the making of each observation is the transition from moment to moment.
But there still needs to be something that exercises that process. That
is the point at which something 'outside' the system, or at least
contextual to the moments, is required. The definition of the collapse
dynaimcs can be formulated in terms of the moments, and the change to
the moments, but the exercise of that change can only be carried out
from the perspective of something contextual to the moments. Which is
odd, because that is exactly what one is experiencing. Ergo, at least as
a working hypothesis, the consciousness that encounters this passage
from moment to moment has to be an epiphenomenon of the operation of the
system, moving the magic finger from moment to moment, as each
observation is made.
But ...
, we just haven't recognised it as such. Which is why it gives rise
to all the puzzles it does.
Brent
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