On 8/2/2011 5:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 4:44 PM, Stephen P. King <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
No, my thought is that quantum coherence accounts for, among
other things, the way that sense data is continuously integrated
into a whole. This leads to a situation that Daniel C. Dennett
calls the "Cartesian Theater". Dennett's proof that it cannot
exist because it generates infinite regress of homunculi inside
humonculi is flawed because such infinities can only occur if each
of the humonculi has access to sufficient computational resources
to generate the rest of them. When we understand that computations
require the utilization of resources and do not occur 'for free'
we see that the entire case against situations that imply the
possibility of infinite regress fails.
Quantum phenomena is NOT all about randomness. Frankly I would
really like to understand how that rubbish of an idea still is
held in seriously thinking people! There is not randomness in QM,
there in only the physical inability to predict exactly when some
quantum event will occur in advance. It is because QM system
cannot be copied that makes it impossible to predict their
behavior in advance, not because of some inherent randomness! Take
the infamous radioactive atom in the Schrodinger Cat box. Is its
decay strictly a "random" phenomena? Not really! QM says not one
word about randomness, it only allows us to calculate the
half-life of said atom and that calculation is as good as is
possible given the fact that we cannot generate a simulation of
that atom and its environment and all of the interactions thereof
in a way that we can get predictions about its behavior in advance.
What is the distinction between random and unpredictable?
That's a fraught question. I'd say there are some processes that are
deterministic but unpredictable because they a classically chaotic (e.g.
the weather). Random refers to variables that take values from a
probability distribution (as define by Kolmogorov for example). They
may be inherently random or they may be just unpredictable.
Brent
A consciousness can no more be copied than the state of a QM
system.
That's the point in question. If Tegmark is right, it can.
Tegmark is wrong.
Stephen, do you doubt that consciousness can be implemented by a
digital machine or process?
Jason
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