Quentin,
good question. My agnostic thinking asks first: can you define death? I
think it is something like "the opposite of life" - begging the question:
how would you define LIFE? \
Our terms are subsets for the figment "physical world" and I would not go
along with the medical definition of death without an adequate term of
'life' pointing to the *end* of which.
I 'think' life is much more than a biologic process - especially restricted
to carbon-based physical constructs (molecules?) and borderlines as e.g.
'cell-membranes' etc.
The closest I came up" death calls for a disintegration of "complexity" (at
least its functional(?) substantial parts) in relations we can characterize
in our biosphere as *LIFE*, notable as exercising Metabolism and Repair
('M&R' after: Robert Rosen).
If life is not a noun, rather a process, the discontinuation of it also may
be a process with different parameters.
John MOn Sat, May 21, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Quentin Anciaux <[email protected]> wrote: > Isn't all of this a denial of death ? Is it possible to ascribe a meaning > to the end of consciousness ? > > Quentin > > 2011/5/21 John Mikes <[email protected]> > >> Brent: I mostly agree (if it is of any value...). >> >> I am FOR an idea of MWI (maybe not as the 'classic' goes: in my view ALL >> of them may be potentially different) but appreciate the power of hearsay >> (absorbed as FACT) - you may include other sensory/mental domains as well. >> What I take exception to is the *world building role* of an "assumption >> of a deterministic evolution of THE(?) wave function. - >> Of what??? >> >> John >> >> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 8:39 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On 5/19/2011 4:31 PM, Stephen Paul King wrote: >>> >>> Hi Scerir and Friends, >>> >>> Thank you for posting this link to N. Gisin’s paper. In it Gisin >>> makes a very eloquent and forceful argument against MWI based on the >>> experience of free will. >>> >>> >>> Doesn't seem very forceful to me. There's a contradiction between the >>> MWI and free will because the MWI assumes deterministic evolution of the >>> wave function. But that doesn't show that there is a contradiction between >>> MWI and the *experience* of free-will. You could as well say that the >>> feeling to time passage is a forceful argument for physical time. >>> >>> Brent >>> >>> >>> >>> You can find a talk that he gave on the subject here: >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WnV7zUR9UA >>> >>> >>> I think that Gisin's argument is stunted by the fact that he does not >>> consider the effects of multiple entities having free will and instead only >>> considers a single entity having free will in the MWI picture. His point in >>> the paper that "if a specific interaction with one possible state of affair >>> produce a desired effect, this very same specific interaction with most of >>> the other - equally real according to many-worlds - state of affairs would >>> produce uncontrolled random effects. Hence, it seems that there is no way to >>> maintain a possible window for free will in the many-worlds view" is correct >>> but the "uncontrolled randomness" is only random because we can only resort >>> to an equiprobable ensemble to do calculations of the effects of the >>> interaction in that context. >>> If we consider multiple observers within the MWI, it seems to me that >>> in order for some measure of coherent communications to obtain between them >>> there must be something like a super-selection rule on the branches of the >>> superpositions such that only those mutually compatible observables are able >>> to form a set of mutually true (in the bivalent Boolean sense) in the sense >>> of relative commutativity of observables on each time-like (not just >>> space-like) hypersurface of a foliation of space-time for those observers. I >>> think that this is something that decoherence is pointing toward. >>> >>> Free will follows from the lack of a priori determinateness of the >>> members of that set of observables. Just as we cannot demonstrate a >>> computation that can compute whether or not a given computation will halt, >>> we can similarly not demonstrate a finite Cauchy hypersurface of initial >>> conditions that can uniquely determine both the order of measurements nor >>> the mutual results of those measurements. Free Will is the freedom to chose >>> the basis of a measurement. >>> >>> Onward! >>> >>> Stephen >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: scerir >>> Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 2:15 AM >>> To: [email protected] >>> Subject: Re: FREE WILL--is it really free? >>> >>> Are There Quantum Effects Coming from Outside Space-time? >>> Nonlocality, free will and "no many-worlds" >>> -Nicolas Gisin >>> http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3440 >>> Abstract: Observing the violation of Bell's inequality tells us something >>> about all >>> possible future theories: they must all predict nonlocal correlations. >>> Hence Nature is >>> nonlocal. After an elementary introduction to nonlocality and a brief >>> review of some >>> recent experiments, I argue that Nature's nonlocality together with the >>> existence of free >>> will is incompatible with the many-worlds view of quantum physics. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> 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?hl=en. >>> -- >>> 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?hl=en. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> 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?hl=en. >>> >> >> -- >> 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?hl=en. >> > > > > -- > All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. > > -- > 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?hl=en. > -- 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?hl=en.

