On 8/8/2019 3:56 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wednesday, August 7, 2019, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
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<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 8/7/2019 8:47 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, Aug 7, 2019 at 4:59 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 8/7/2019 2:37 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Wed, Aug 7, 2019 at 2:23 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything
List <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 8/7/2019 8:30 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
> This is made most clear in the case of a quantum
computer. Where the
> quantum computer can be viewed as one WORLD (def 1)
that contains many
> little worlds (def 2), where each computational trace
constitutes its
> own little world, causally isolated from the rest.
Except those computational traces DO NOT constitute
little worlds. They
are not causally isolated. The whole function of the
computer depends
on them interacting, i.e. interfering coherently.
It depends on the algorithm.
If, as in my neural net example, interference is not used,
the many computations are causally isolated, and will remain
so (FAPP) once I read the output bits.
You seem to want it both ways. "Yes they are many worlds,
but they're not entirely or always completely causally
isolated, so they're not really separate worlds."
You're the one who introduced worlds and little worlds. My
point is just that doing computations with lots of qubits
doesn't imply there are separate worlds in which the
computations happen; in fact it requires the contrary if the
computation is to come to a single conclusion.
No disagreement with that, but my point all along is that "many
somethings" associated with the qubits in the quantum computer,
can lead to many minds which can have many experiences, when the
quantum computer executes computational traces which create
conscious states. Do you disagree with this?
No. As far as I know minds are classical like processes in brains.
Quantum logic gates are Turing complete. This means quantum computers
can emulate any classical computation. So in certain algorithms, the
components of the superposition are traces of distinct classical
computations.
That's why you are never really "of two minds". Superpositions
corresponding to neurons firing and not-firing decohere far too
quickly. See Tegmark's paper.
I'm aware of it. It's about decoherence times of biological neurons to
disprove the Penrose idea that brains exploit quantum mechanics to
somehow overcome incompleteness.
The point of using a quantum computer in my example is that
decoherence doesn't happen until after the computational traces have
all been realized.
If I understand your position correctly, you believe the distinct
computational traces exist but that they're not consciousness, because
you postulate decoherence at each step of the computation is necessary?
Would this not make Wigner's friend into a zombie (or any AI or brain
emulation performed on a quantum computer)? Does my clarification of
the Turing completeness of Quantum logic gates do anything to amend
your opinion?
I think that thought must be essentially classical. Otherwise,
according to MWI, we would not be aware of the classical world, but only
of the state vector. It's the same reason Bohr insisted on a classical
world for science to be possible. There must be definite sharable
results. So I think this applies within a single brain as well as
between Wigner and his friends. The interesting question is why are we
aware of the projection or decoherence onto certain bases and not
others, and could consciousness be realized differently?
Brent
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