On 4 August 2011 18:44, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't see how life (including us) could exist except at a quasi-classical > level. Evolution needs reliable replication to work with. Given that we > evolved as quasi-classical beings, it follows that our perception, > psychology, and interaction with the world must be quasi-classical.
Neither do I. Indeed, the lecturer was insistent on the lack of "objective" criteria on the basis of which decoherent "worlds" must obviously differentiate to yield the looked-for quasi-classical environments. Rather - as your comment implies - he spoke of the process as inescapably "top-down" and "emergent", in the course of which "we see what works" and "we spot (patterns)", etc. IOW it seems that the prior emergence of a point-of-view and its corresponding "environment" are prerequisites for what is by then a quasi-classically-informed functional or structural analysis of the (conjecturally) basic micro-physical situation. That is to say, the role of the "observer" continues to be indispensable to the decoherent account. David > On 8/4/2011 9:41 AM, David Nyman wrote: >> >> Hi Stephen >> >> Thanks for the link - very enjoyable talk. As far as I could follow >> it, he seemed to be saying that the differentiation of decoherent >> "worlds" is in the final analysis a "psychological" matter - i.e. that >> quasi-classical "reality", as ordinarily experienced, is consequent on >> the selection of particular "best-fit" or "most fruitful" >> interpretations of functional or structural features of the underlying >> micro-physical state-of-affairs. > > I don't see how life (including us) could exist except at a quasi-classical > level. Evolution needs reliable replication to work with. Given that we > evolved as quasi-classical beings, it follows that our perception, > psychology, and interaction with the world must be quasi-classical. > > Brent > >> Whereas I did take to heart his >> admonitions as to the differing explanatory priorities of physics and >> philosophy, and particularly the centrality of functional explanations >> to science in general, I was a bit troubled by the seeming assumption >> that the requirement for such interpretation and selection just >> "bottoms out", as it were, at the level of micro-physics (although he >> did speculate at one point on the subject of "deeper" ontological >> bases below this "substitution level"). I couldn't quite decide >> whether he was actually "sweeping the 1st-person under the rug", in >> Bruno's terms. He didn't address this aspect directly, but perhaps >> this signals an implicit belief that micro-physical-functional, or >> ontological/epistemological, elements must always play a dual role in >> any intelligible account of our situation. >> >> I wonder what you thought. >> >> David >> > > -- > 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.
