On 05 Dec 2017, at 11:42, [email protected] wrote:
On Monday, December 4, 2017 at 6:19:01 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 03 Dec 2017, at 18:21, [email protected] wrote:
On Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 2:07:17 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 01 Dec 2017, at 00:20, [email protected] wrote:
On Thursday, November 30, 2017 at 11:16:07 PM UTC,
[email protected] wrote:
On Thursday, November 30, 2017 at 9:47:37 PM UTC, Bruce wrote:
On 30/11/2017 10:59 pm, [email protected] wrote:
On Thursday, November 30, 2017 at 11:42:51 AM UTC, Bruce wrote:
On 30/11/2017 10:32 pm, [email protected] wrote:
On Thursday, November 30, 2017 at 4:08:20 AM UTC-7, Bruce wrote:
On 30/11/2017 9:53 pm, [email protected] wrote:
On Wednesday, November 29, 2017 at 10:40:36 PM UTC, Bruce wrote:
On 30/11/2017 5:31 am, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 10:59 PM, Bruce Kellett
<[email protected]> wrote:
> I see no reason all the Everett worlds have the same
physics,
> Everettian worlds follow from assuming that the
Schrödinger equation applies everywhere without exception, so that
all physical evolution is unitary. A change in the underlying
physics -- such as a change in the value of fundamental constants,
Planck's constant or Newton's constant for example -- would not be
unitary, so cannot occur in MWI.
Why can't it be unitary?? Show me why if Newton's
constant had any value other than 6.754* 10^-11 m3 kg^−1 s^
−2 the sum of all quantum probabilities would no longer
add up to exactly 1. If you can really do that then you've just
derived Newton's constant directly from first principles and you
should but a ticket to Stockholm right now because you're absolutely
certain to win the next nobel Prize.
Although unitarity does mean that probabilities always sum to unity,
that is a consequence of unitary evolution, not a definition of it.
A unitary transformation is one that can be reversed: so the unitary
operator U can be written as exp(-iH), for example, and the complex
conjugate (or the adjoint for hermitian operators) is the inverse
transformation.
Considering the evolution of the wf, if there exists a DE that
describes the collapse process, would it necessarily be nonlinear?
Is nonlinear a problem; that is, what is the downside to nonlinear?
How would it effect the issue of hidden variables? TIA, AG
Collapse would be non-linear and non-unitary --
intrinsically non-reversible. This is not necessarily a problem
since there are plenty of non-linearities in physics. It has nothing
to do with hidden variables.
Why would it be non linear? Brent claimed (on page 1)
Page 1 of what?
On Google it's organized as pages, now up to page 15. Go to top of
thread and read second message by Brent. AG
that if the QM could be made deterministic, say by a DE that
described collapse, it would imply awful consequences, such as the
future determining the past.
No, it wouldn't imply that.
Would making QM into a deterministic theory imply an inconsistency
in the postulates of QM? TIA, AG
QM in MWI is deterministic. Bohm's theory is deterministic, though
expressly non-local. Determinism is not really an issue. One world
theories are intrinsically random, not deterministic.
How can MWI be deterministic if it can't tell us what outcome we
will observe in this world, or any other? AG
Because MWI says that all outcomes are realized, each in a separate
world. Apparent randomness comes about because we don't know which
world we will end up in (though we actually end up in all the
worlds, so we, or our duplicates, observe all possible outcomes).
Bruce
OK. I wouldn't use "deterministic" to describe that situation, but
that's neither here nor there.
More important is Brent's reply to my question which started this
discussion thread. He stated that a deterministic ONE WORLD version
of QM would have dire effects, such as the future influencing the
past. His exact words are in the 2nd message in this discussion. You
don't seem to share this view. I know that Bohm developed a
deterministic version of QM which is expressly non-local and not
covariant. I don't think it's what Brent was referring to.
Also, I noticed that Bruno, our resident enthusiast of arithmetic as
the solution to all enigmas,
That is very elegant mathematically, but I am not necessarily
enthusiast about this, and sometimes I call Mechanism terrifying
thinking. At the first sight it entails that agonies are infinite,
as your consciousness survives in the closest environment/
computations logically possible, and there are an infinity of them.
Nothing funny there.
The point is that it is a logical consequence of what is perhaps the
oldest hypothesis in science: that life is a mechanism. Of course,
the infinite agony might end ... because things are more subtle when
doing the math, so no need to despair prematurely of mechanism
either. Computer science suggests some "jumps", which makes the
prediction there very difficult, but all in all, sometimes I wish
death is an end. That is made impossible with mechanism, as
Descartes and many others intuited correctly.
By "mechanism", I see you mean "materialism", the theory that life
and consciousness can be explained by the motion and interaction of
atoms and molecules. I see no evidence that death is not implied by
materialism. I've experienced the passing away of many, and its
permanence is very convincing. Moreover, cut a nerve and sensation
ceases; be injected with an anesthetic and one loses consciousness
in a matter of seconds. All pretty convincing that materialism is on
the right track, as opposed to speculation and fantasies about
mathematics and arithmetic. AG
?
By mechanism I mean the idea that we can survive with an artificial
*digital* brain. Precisely: that it exists a level of granularity so
that I survive, or my first person experience remains unchanged,
through a digital (physical) simulation of my brain at that level.
I accept that within materialist theory as I have stated it, one
could construct a perfect replica of a human brain with the
consciousness implied by such a construction. However, that would be
a clone of someone, not that someone. So I doubt your survival
claim. AG
Do you agree that the cone of you will doubt this? Especially after
what you just say here?
This is believed indeed by many materialists, but they use mechanism
to hide the mind-body problem. When, actually, Mechanism can be
shown incompatible with very weak form of materialism or physicalism.
FWIW, I am not necessarily a huge enthusiast of materialism as I
have defined it, but it certainly is persuasive given some of the
evidence I have presented.
The evidence you gave were evidence for mechanism, not for
materialism. I don't think there has been any evidence for
materialism. But many people confuse evidence for matter or for
physics with evidence for materialism, which is an hypothesis in
metaphysics. yet, my papers shows how test materialism versus
mechanism (up to a logical possibility of being defeated by
intelligent but malevolent daemon).
Nor am I hiding the mind-body problem. I just have no clue as to the
resolution. AG
With mechanism, you need to reduce the physical laws to arithmetic.
Consciousness becomes more "easy", at least if you agree that
consciousness is true, non doubtable, non provable, and non
expressible, as the logic of machine self-reference explains why all
machine are confronted to something obeying such (semi-axiomatic)
definition. The problem of matter appearance is solved in the same
way, leading quickly to the logic of the observable, and this already
justifies a quantum logic. It remains to compare it more with nature,
but up to now it fits rather well (both intuitively and formally).
Everett QM confirms Mechanism, but if you believe in a collapse, well,
you will need a non-mechanist theory of mind, à-la Penrose perhaps.
Bruno
To understand this, you need to understand a bit of computability
theory (alias Recursion Theory). Computation, simulation, emulation,
are concepts that can be defined in the arithmetical language, and
the existence of computati
...
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