On 28 Sep 2012, at 20:30, meekerdb wrote:
On 9/28/2012 10:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 27 Sep 2012, at 19:18, meekerdb wrote:
On 9/27/2012 9:52 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
I object to the idea that consciousness will cause a brain or
other
machine to behave in a way not predictable by purely physical
laws.
But this cannot be entirely correct. Consciousness will make your
brain, at the level below the substitution level, having some
well defined state, with an electron, for example, described with
some precise position. Without consciousness there is no
"material" brain at all.
Why would the state be well defined *below* the substitution
level? The substitution level is classical or near classical and
so already QM implies that there is a lower level where the state
is not well defined.
This is not quite clear and depends on your interpretation or even
formulation of QM. The lower level where the state is not defined,
is relative to your own state, and it is "well defined" relatively
to any finer grained computations, it just doesn't matter for your
computational state.
I *can* know the exact position of an electron in my brain, even if
this will make me totally ignorant on its impulsions. I can know
its exact impulsion too, even if this will make me totally ignorant
of its position.
But that doesn't imply that the electron does not have a definite
position and momentum; only that you cannot prepare an ensemble in
which both values are sharp.
OK. This Fourier relation between complementary observable is quite
mysterious in the comp theory.
In both case, the electron participate two different coherent
computation leading to my computational state.
Of course this is just "in principle", as in continuous classical
QM, we need to use distributions, and reasonable Fourier transforms.
But at the fundamental level of the UD 'the electron' has some
definite representation in each of infinitely many computations.
The uncertainty comes from the many different computations. Right?
Yes, and the fact that we cannot know which one bears us "here and
now". The QM indeterminacy is made into a particular first person comp
indeterminacy.
The state is well defined, as your state belongs to a computation.
It is not well defined below your substitution level, but this is
only due to your ignorance on which computations you belong.
Right. What I would generally refer to as 'my state' is a classical
state (since I don't experience Everett's many worlds).
But I still don't understand, "Consciousness will make your brain,
at the level below the substitution level, having some well defined
state, with an electron, for example, described with some precise
position. Without consciousness there is no "material" brain at all. "
How does consciousness "make a brain" or "make matter"? I thought
your theory was that both at made by computations. My intuition is
that, within your theory of comp, consciousness implies
consciousness of matter and matter is a construct of consciousness;
That's what I was saying.
so you can't have one without the other.
Exactly. Not sure if we disagree on something here.
Bruno
Brent
You can "observe" yourself below the substitution result, but the
detail of such observation are just not relevant for getting your
computational state.
Bruno
Brent
Of course, you will argue that this is what physics already
describes, with QM. In that sense I am OK, but consciousness is
still playing a role, even if it is not necessarily the seemingly
magical role invoked by Craig.
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