On 7/4/2021 3:13 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Sun, Jul 4, 2021 at 4:57 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List
<[email protected]
<mailto:[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 butas
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?
I would guess the interference bands would be present exactly because,
ex hypothesi, the which-way information was quantum erased.
> /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 ora 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?
Concede what? I would concede that past records, now quantum erased,
would destroy the interference simply by the existence of knowledge that
they once existed. But I'd want to investigate how this "knowledge" had
causal reach into the past.
> 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.
That's right. You're the one that cast the hypothetical in terms of
consciousness. I'm happy with "intelligent". But I don't see that it
makes any difference. Yes, a QC can decohere quantum superpositions,
but it can't both decohere them and quantum erase them.
Brent
John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>
gbty
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