On Sun, Jul 4, 2021 at 4:57 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List < [email protected]> wrote:
>> An intelligent quantum computer is perfectly capable of creating a >> document specifying that at a certain time it had information in its memory >> banks that indicated which slot a photon went through but not actually >> mentioning which slot it was, > > > > *> That's the step that I doubt can be implemented within QM. Of course > it can record quasi-classically (so it can be read out) every time it > detects a which-way and it can maintain a count of them. But it isn't > conscious of the which-way values, only that they were counted.* > It's easy to determine that the quantum computer is intelligent but as for consciousness, how did you determine that it was not conscious? For that matter how did you determine that I am conscious? But let's get out of the consciousness quagmire for a moment so I can ask you a question, leaving behind the interpretation of the experiment concentrating only on its results, if it was actually performed as described do you think interference bands would be on that photographic plate or would there be no such bands? I would bet money the bands would be there on that plate even though there's no longer any which way information remaining. So, what would you put your money on, bands or no bands? > > *So the interference pattern showing up at the end doesn't do anything to > invalidate Copenhagen or similar interpretations.* > If interference bands are on that photographic plate then either Many Worlds is correct or a rock is just as likely to be conscious as one of your fellow human beings because intelligent behavior would tell you nothing about consciousness. But if there are no bands I would immediately concede and say Many Worlds must be wrong. What outcome would make you concede? > The entire point of this experiment is to determine if conscious stuff >> operates according to the same laws of physics as non-conscious stuff, I'm >> betting that they do. > > >* So am I. Conscious stuff works by **decohering quantum superpositions* Quantum mechanics is mysterious and consciousness is mysterious, but other than that I don't think the two have anything to do with each other. But even if I'm wrong and they do it wouldn't make any difference in this case because an intelligent quantum computer is certainly capable of decohering quantum superpositions. John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> gbty -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv14v9Lg0j2sD4dE-8xmXTNKkNfxEMr5iJH%2BxoWZofOrHQ%40mail.gmail.com.
