On 08-04-2022 07:19, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On Fri, Apr 8, 2022 at 1:00 PM smitra <smi...@zonnet.nl> wrote:
On 07-04-2022 18:25, Brent Meeker wrote:
You need to keep in mind that there are different meanings of
"fundamental". Those "macroscopic concepts" like measurements and
records and facts are epistemically fundamental; and remain so
however
theories change. The reductionist base of the current theory is
ontologically fundamental, but it may be replaced by a new theory
with
a different ontology, as QM replaced Newtonian mechanics and
statistical mechanics replaced thermodynamics. Being
ontologically
fundamental is a precarious position.
Yes, and that means that the new theory must reduce effectively to
the
old theory in the macroscopic regime where the old theory makes
(almost)
correct predictions. If we then ask fundamental questions about e.g.
the
existence of a multiverse that can only be addressed by getting the
details about the dynamics at the microscopic level correct, then
it's
not appropriate to fix up the theory by introducing notions from the
macroscopic domain that should in principle follow from the
fundamental
dynamics at the micro-level.
Notions of measurement and the formation of permanent records do
follow from the fundamental micro-dynamics of decoherence.
The appearance of permanent records should follow from decoherence.
But
it makes sense to consider states of algorithms that process
information
as a more general notion of observation.
Permanent records do follow from entanglement and decoherence. There
is no reason to suppose that algorithms processing information are
going to produce permanent records. Unless they do, they are useless
as a model of observation. In the words of David Albert (paraphrased):
"The task of fundamental physics is to explain the manifest image ."
Decoherence is never complete it can in principle be reversed. It cannot
reasonably be the case that I can only observe something right now
because a record of the observation is going to exist for eternity. If
the universe were to reverse its time evolution in 10^15000 years in a
unitary way, causing all records to be exactly erased, then we could not
make any observations. What's the physical basis for making this
assumption?
You may argue that a FAPP permanent record is good enough for
observation, but you cannot define a physical plausible rigorous
boundary of your FAPP criterion. One can always subtract 1 second from
your time limit the universe must keep on expanding before starting to
evolve backward. One then eventually ends up with the criterion that
there must be enough time for the brain processes that cause the
conscious experience of the observation to be completed.
Saibal
Bruce
--
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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLQuDPm3fgd%2BSmiAZod4mV3Kj-QWH-6_SBHU%2B28u%3Dcp-Zg%40mail.gmail.com
[1].
Links:
------
[1]
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLQuDPm3fgd%2BSmiAZod4mV3Kj-QWH-6_SBHU%2B28u%3Dcp-Zg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
--
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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/982a3bb12e4bdbb0f85de228da2f81b7%40zonnet.nl.
