On 9/21/2011 9:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:


On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 10:59 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net <mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:

    On 9/21/2011 6:01 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

        When you aren't thinking about what your mother looks like, she could 
look like
        anyone, because your moment of awareness at that point in time is 
consistent
        with existence in all those possible universes where she is a different 
person.
         When the memory makes it into your awareness, it then limits / selects 
the
        universes you belong to.


    Why is it that even though Tegmark wrote a paper showing it, nobody wants 
to admit
    that the brain is a classical system.


The Brain is classical, I agree.

     Unless you are taking Craig's dualist view that thought and memory are 
independent
    of your brain, your memory as instantiated in your brain already 
corresponded to who
    your mother is and to most of the rest of your history


Yes, but which brain are you right now? Are you the Brent in universe X whose mother had green eyes, or the Brent in universe Y whose mother had brown eyes. By the time you remember, you will have resolved which Brent you are (and correspondingly which universe you are in) but then you've opened up new uncertainties, and new universes compatible with your existence: Are you in the universe where Brent's tooth brush is yellow, or the universe where it is red, or some other color? Until you stop and think, and this information enters your awareness (not your brain it is already in each of your brains in each of those universes), your conscious moment is compatible with Brents in various universes where your brush has varying colors. Of course when you make the determination you find a fully coherent and consistent history. Receipts for the tooth brush you bought, a picture of your mom on the wall, etc.

But that assumes a dualism so that in the universe where my tooth brush is yellow (and that is encoded in my brain in that universe), my mind is not associated with that brain - it is some uncertain state. But then when the yellowness or redness of my toothbrush enters my consciousness my mind splits into different universes (the many-minds interpretation of QM?). In that case there are many classical beings who call themselves Brent and have some memories in common. Why not distinguish them by their bodies/brains? Why think if the mind(s) as being indeterminate and flitting about just because they are not instantiating awareness of all that is in the brain?


    - excepting those instances where some quantum event was amplified 
sufficiently to
    create a superposition  in your experience.


I am not sure if this qualifies as a super position, or just comp indeterminacy.

You're right - decoherence or similar would have to collapse the superposition.

Brent


Jason

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