On 07 May 2015, at 14:45, Bruce Kellett wrote:
We can use an original biological brain, or an equivalent digital replacement -- it does not make any significant difference to the argument. The first point is that in some conscious experience, be it a dream or anything else, there might be a portion of the 'brain' (in quotes because it can be biological or digital) that is not activated, so this can be removed without affecting the conscious experience.
This idea of removing unused parts of brain so only "active" elements remain, seems problematic to me and not just because of counterfactual correctness. The ability to do this is implicit in the assumption that the physics of the brain is classical. If the brain is quantum then you can't remove parts and maintain the same states, quantum states include the counterfactuals. Tegmark and others have shown that the neural signaling in the brain is essentially classical. But the Na and K ions moving across the membrane are quantum objects. What makes the signalling essentially classical is that the active parts are embedded in a large, hot environment. Basic physics is quantum. So I'm bothered when the argument that it is impossible for consciousness to supervene of the physical assumes that the physical is classical. The classical is an emergent approximation (we think) to a more basic quantum field theory.
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