2014-02-12 19:54 GMT+01:00 John Clark <[email protected]>: > > On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 7:17 PM, chris peck <[email protected]>wrote: > > > I will say though that I find it astonishing if people work their way >> through Bruno's steps and claim to understand them and then maintain that >> Clark's erudite and ofttimes witty criticisms are in some way obtuse or >> difficult to follow. >> > > Thank you. > > > > There is some fuss about Clark's reluctance to apply his argument to >> MWI. Like some others I think Clark possibly makes a misstep when (if?) he >> defends the notion of 1p in-determinism within an MWI context. > > > In the MWI John Clark doesn't have to worry about who "I" or "you" is > because however many copies of "I" or "you" there may or may not be they > will never meet. >
That changes absolutely nothing... just put the reconstruction of the W guy 200 years later than the M guy, they will never meet... Quentin > But in Bruno's thought experiment that is no longer true, so pronouns like > "you" and "I" cause endless trouble. The MWI is about explaining why > Quantum Mechanics is able to make such good predictions, and it does so > without making use of the concept of a "observer" so it has no need to > explain exactly what that is, and that's why I like MWI. > > But Bruno's "proof" is supposed to do something entirely different, > explain the continuous subjective feeling of self, and yet he talks > constantly about probability and probability implies prediction and > prediction has absolutely positively nothing to do with a sense of self. > If when you pressed the button on the teleportation chamber you were 99% > certain, hell even if you were 100% certain that you would end up in > Washington and there was not the tiniest particle of doubt in your mind and > one second later you found yourself in Moscow your sense of self would not > be diminished one bit, you'd just figure that you made a bad prediction, > and it wouldn't be for the first time. > > Bruno is going about it backward and is trying to push on a string, he's > trying to uniquely establish identity from the present to the future and > that can't be done, you can only go from the past to the present. The fact > that you feel like Chris Peck today has nothing to do with probability or > prediction or if the Many World's Interpretation is correct or not; you > feel like Chris Peck because you remember being Chris Peck yesterday and > for no other reason. > > John K Clark > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >> I can see though that in Comp people are duplicated within worlds whereas >> in MWI they are duplicated between worlds, and there possibly are some >> repercussions vis a vis the proper use of pro-nouns because of that. Im not >> sure it matters much, because Clark could be right about Comp and just >> inconsistent about MWI. So this complaint, loudly pursued by Quentin, has >> always seemed impotent to me and not worth bothering about. >> >> Im reluctant to get involved in the step 3 discussions because, >> mentioning no names Quentin and PGC, people can get very emotional and arm >> wavey about people criticizing Bruno's metaphysics. So for now at least, >> I'll limit myself to recommending the odd sci-fi movie on the film thread. >> The Quiet Earth (1985) is a little known gem, btw. >> >> All the best >> Chris. >> >> ------------------------------ >> Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 12:00:42 +1300 >> Subject: Re: Suicide Words God and Ideas >> From: [email protected] >> To: [email protected] >> >> >> On 12 February 2014 10:55, Richard Ruquist <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 4:10 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On 12 February 2014 08:50, Richard Ruquist <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 1:42 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On 12 February 2014 00:41, Richard Ruquist <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 3:45 AM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On 11 February 2014 18:40, Richard Ruquist <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> String theory based on Maldacena's conjecture predicted the viscosity of >> the quark-gluon plasma before it was measured >> >> >> Correctly, I assume. >> >> >> and more recently explained the mechanism behind EPR based on >> Einstein-Rosen bridges, which is more like a retrodiction. >> >> >> That seems like a sledgehammer to crack a nut, although the initials have >> a nice near-symmetry. Why would one need to have ERBs - that presumably >> have to be kept open by some exotic mechanicsm - to explain EPR when you >> can do it very simply anyway? >> >> >> And how can it be done very simply? >> >> By dropping Bell's assumption that time is fundamentally asymmetric (for >> the particles used in an EPR experiment, which are generally photons). >> >> >> Please explain how dropping asymmetric time explains EPR. >> >> >> It makes it logically possible. I will have to ask a physicist for the >> details, but it is a mechanism whereby the state of the measuring apparatus >> can influence the state of the entire system. If we assume the emitter >> creates a pair of entangled photons and their polarisation is measured at >> two spacelike-separated locations, then the polarisers can act as a >> constraint on the state of the photons and hence of the system, and that >> the setting of one polariser can therefore influence the polarisation >> measured in the other branch of the experiment (without any FTL signals / >> non-locality). >> >> This preserves realism and locality at the expense of dropping an >> assumption that most physicists think is untrue anyway (though the idea of >> time being asymmetric is so deeply ingrained that we automatically >> assume it must be true of systems it doesn't apply to, like single photons). >> >> >> Your explanation is hardly satisfactory for this physicist >> >> >> That's because I'm not a physicist. I'm merely showing that an >> explanation is possible, and hence should be investigated (although it >> isn't *me* showing this - it's been looked into by various people, from >> Wheeler-Feynman >> absorber >> theory<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%E2%80%93Feynman_absorber_theory>onwards). >> >> It has been considered a satisfactory basis for an explanation of Bell's >> Inequality by some physicists, including John Bell. >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. 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