Re: Quantum Immortality = no second law
Hi John, Le 17-avr.-08, à 16:48, John Mikes a écrit : Bruno, ashamed, because I decided many times not to barge into topics I do not understand and now I misuse your (and the list's) patience again: you use statistical. - verified in MOST branches. I think my view is not too far away: statistical in my dictionary means a choice-set of cases selected for observation and in such selection we COUNT the matching and non-matching occurrences. The conclusions are strictly group-restricted. Choose different boundaries (maybe include domains we don't even know of) and the 'statistical' result may be different. Yes. Actually this is what the comp suicide (and the quantum suicide) is all about. By preventing your continuation in some branch, you change your boundaries. Accordingly I would not say Those branches do violate the second law... I would rather say the II law is not valid (identified?) in those branches. OK. For that period of time? I consider the MWI a one-plane extract of MW As I said often, but without success (:-)), I believe (like deWitt, Everett's editor) that Everett has never proposed a new interpretation of QM, but has just given a new *formulation* of QM. Well, this is obvious (for a logician or metamathematician). Everett theory is really given by the Copenhagen axioms minus the collapse axiom. Then the interpretations are derived from the talk of the normal and correct physicists as being described (correctly by definition) by the SWE. The interpretation of the SWE are given by the average discourse of the physicists described by the SWE. and in my 'narrative' (i don't use 'theory' for unsubstantiatable ideas, even if certain math can justify it) the multitude of universes is not in any qualitative bound. ? (I am using theories only for unsubstantiable ideas (and unjustifiable). Ah ok ... I think you mean unpalatable or something like that. Diversity exceeds our human (scientific?) fantasy. I am not sure how you could know that, unless you are just saying that our theology exceeds our science. The lobian scientific theology just says that. It is the beauty of the incompleteness phenomenon: Machines can know that they know almost nothing. The wise and knowing machine know she has to be modest. For ever. Time, however, is a coordinate of THIS universe and I have no idea what kind of and what at all time may reign in other, totally different universes. Our physics is just our physics. Yes. And with comp physics can only be defined and recover correctly from that idea. And then, again with comp (or weakenings), the correct physics has to be derived by our physics with our physics = the physics of us, and us = the lobian machine/entity. Put in another way: physics has to be the science of the border of our ignorance, and our ignorance get a precise mathematical structure, once we assume our lobian mechanicalness. About time, I am not sure there is any physical third person time. I do believe in the subjective duration, and I am willing to bet that local physical time is a first person plural construct. I honor Everett as a pioneer and allow pioneers to be overstepped. (Another of my heresy: * probability * I consider as starting similarly to the above statistical formulation of mine, with an added superstition that the next (not necessarily the following one) will be adjusted to the 'statistically found' and chosen variant.). No problem. I like your phrasing: ...**IF** comp is true. This is of the upmost importance. That is why I insist so much on that if, and of the fact that a comp practice (like saying yes to the doctor) is a religious (if not funeral-like) act. It is a belief in a form of reincarnation, and it transforms computer science, as applied to us, into an authentic theology. I know it seems paradoxical, but no machine can ever know she is a machine: she can only hope (or fear) that she is a machine. I could even say (but don't always dare to say) that the first person I of the machine is 100% correct when she says I am not a machine. It is here that the gap between first person and third person is maximal. It is also here that we are on the verge of a contradiction, but our topic lives there. If your doctor pretends (scientifically) that you are a machine, you have to run away ... You can say yes to the doctor (yes for an artificial digital brain substitution) only when your doctor says something like let us bet you are a machine at this or that third person level of description. And then you can... pray. Have a good day, Bruno On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 9:37 AM, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you saying that the second law is verified in each of all branches of the (quantum) multiverse? I would say the second law is statistical, and is verified in most branches. In the MWI applied to quantum field it seems to me that there can be
Re: Greg Egan's Permutation City was: The prestige
Le 17-avr.-08, à 18:15, Günther Greindl a écrit : I read the Wikipedia of The prestige (too lazy to watch the movie ;-) and, yes, it's classical comp stuff *grin* What I would like to recommend to everybody on the list is Greg Egan's book Permutation City Yes that is a very good book. But with all my respect for Egan, it does not adds so much to Galouye. Egan should have taken some of his idea more seriously imo. And then I tell you without further explanation that the prestige is truly more. We can come back on this later. I can recommend everything by Egan - hard, no nonsense, mathematically informed SciFi (his page is here: http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/ he has good applets on his page also, check them out) In Permutation City, he explores personality duplication, platonic computation, dust theory of consciousness etc - an excellent, breathtaking book. Will transform your views, even if you have been thinking about these things for a long time. I guess you know the book Mind's I? edited by Hofstadter and Dennett. Hofstadter and Dennett miss the comp indeterminacy, but yet it is a wonderful introduction to our topic too. Now the prestige not only don't miss the comp first person (or weakening) indeterminacy but he capture the correct proof of Ah but I will not spoil the pleasure of those who want to guess what I mean by looking at the film. Bruno If you want to survive, you have to die; and if you want to be immortal, you have to die infinitely often. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Quantum Immortality = no second law
Le 17-avr.-08, à 19:45, Telmo Menezes a écrit : On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you saying that the second law is verified in each of all branches of the (quantum) multiverse? I'm not saying that. OK. Sorry. I would say the second law is statistical, and is verified in most branches. In the MWI applied to quantum field it seems to me that there can be branches with an arbitrarily high number of photon creation without annihilation, and this for each period of time. Yes, I would tend to agree with that, although I can't say I'm 100% convinced. Anyway I'm a relative newcomer to this list so I don't feel I have an informed opinion yet. Need to catch up with all the arguments. Also have a thesis to finish, which tends to get in the way :) I can understand. Academy is like Democracy, as described by Churchill. The worst except for the rest. I wish you good luck (or shit, as in the french tradition). I'm just arguing that the experiment with the rifle and the geiger counter does not imply any second law anomaly. Yes, you are forcing your consciousness to move to states where the atom never decays, but if you consider the larger system, which one? the quantum one. entropy is increasing as normal because of the preparation and maintenance of the apparatus needed for the experiment. Do you think this makes sense? I am not sure I understand. I do agree with Brent Meker's comment though. If you agree with him, take his answer as mine (hope Brent does not mind). Best, bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Quantum Immortality = no second law
Le 17-avr.-08, à 18:21, Günther Greindl a écrit : David Deutsch argues in Fabric of Reality that only the Multiverse conserves quantity (not single branches). The rest is probabilistic stuff (see Bruno's post) Yes. And I think Deutsch has the most correct interpretation of Everett's theory (and Wallace, by the way, in a paper in the british journal of philosophy that I have just discover recently has the most correct interpretation of Deutsch). But they seems not be aware that by making their move, they have to take the 1-person indeterminacy a bit more seriously, something which Wallace *explicitly* does not. This motivates me a bit to submit a paper btw. Because, such indeterminacy forces us to consider that the SWE has to be also probabilistic. A bit like if comp makes us live in a multi-multiverse. But this is an analogy which can be misleading in some way... bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Quantum Immortality = no second law
entropy is increasing as normal because of the preparation and maintenance of the apparatus needed for the experiment. Do you think this makes sense? I am not sure I understand. I do agree with Brent Meker's comment though. If you agree with him, take his answer as mine (hope Brent does not mind). I don't think I was clear enough, but Russell's rephrasing a few mails ago was excellent. Have a great weekend, Telmo Menezes. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Quantum Immortality = no second law
On Apr 16, 11:16 am, Quentin Anciaux [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: HI, 2008/4/16, nichomachus [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Apr 16, 4:54 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 16-avr.-08, à 03:24, Russell Standish a écrit : On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 02:22:23AM +0200, Saibal Mitra wrote: First off, how is it that the MWI does not imply quantum immortality? MWI is just quantum mechanics without the wavefunction collapse postulate. This then implies that after a measurement your wavefuntion will be in a superposition of the states corresponding to definite outcomes. But we cannot just consider suicide experiments and then say that just because branches of the wavefuntion exist in which I survive, I'll find myself there with 100% probability. The fact that probabilities are conserved follows from unitary time evolution. If a state evolves into a linear combination of states in which I'm dead and alive then the probabilities of all these states add up to 1. The probability of finding myself to be alive at all after the experiment is then less than the probability of me finding myself about to perform the suicide experiment. The probability of me finding myself to be alive after n suicide experiments decays exponentially with n. Therefore I should not expect to find myself having survived many suicide experiments. Note that contrary to what you often read in the popular accounts of the multiverse, the multiverse does not split when we make observations. The most natural state for the entire multiverse is just an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian. The energy can be taken to be zero, therefore the wavefunction of the multiverse satisfies the equation: One should also note that this is the ASSA position. The ASSA was introduced by Jacques Mallah in his argument against quantum immortality, and a number of participants in this list adhere to the ASSA position. Its counterpart if the RSSA, which does imply quantum immortality (provided that the no cul-de-sac conjecture holds), and other list participants adhere to the RSSA. To date, no argument has convincingly demonstrated which of the ASSA or RSSA should be preferred, so it has become somewhat a matter of taste. There is some discussion of this in my book Theory of Nothing. Actually, I am not sure the ASSA makes sense once we take into account the distinction between first and third person point of view. Comp immortality is an almost trivial consequence that personal death cannot be a first person experience at all. Quantum immortality is most plausibly equivalent with comp immortality if the quantum level describes our correct comp substitution level. But this does not mean that we can know what shape the comp immortality can have, given that comp forbids us to know which machine we are or which computations bear us. Why is this the case? Whether Comp is true or not, it would seem that the direction of physical research and investigation is in the direction of discovering the presumed foundational TOE that accounts for everything we observe. Say, for example, that it were possible to create in a computer simulation an artificial universe that would evolve intelligent life forms by virtue of the physics of the artificial universe alone. Why, in principle, is it not possible for those intelligent beings to discover the fundamental rules that underlie their existence? They will not be able to discover any details of the architecture of the particular turing machine that is simulating their universe (even whether or not they are in fact being computed), but I don't see any a priori reason why they would not be able to discover their own basic physical laws. Because from the 1st person pov you cannot tell which computation (there are an infinities) support you hence the RSSA because the probability of your next states are relative to the current state you are. With the no cul de sac (means there exists no universe state which does not have a next state) comp predict comp immortality... Hi, Quentin, I am not sure what exactly is meant by cul-de-sac since it seems that, unless we are speaking about observer-moments, there can be no cul-de- sac. (A series of observer moments would seem to me to end with the death of the observer, or else the moment before death, but I am new and so am not familiar with the history of the debates here. I am not sure if that is agreed upon by those reading this list.) How can any state of the universe fail to have a successor? The MWI states that there must be many successors (branches), or, equivalently, merely one -- a continuously evolving universal wave equation. Further, I have heard it claimed that it could be that
Re: Quantum Immortality = no second law
On first blush, it would seem to be irrelevant to the fact that there are possible histories in which the second law is not found to hold. All the atom and rifle apparatus does is eliminate the living subject in those branches where the decay occurs, leaving the subject alive in only the unlikely fluke branches where no decay is detected. It must be the case that the the question of whether or not the decay takes place is independent of the scientist making his quietus. On Apr 18, 11:10 am, Telmo Menezes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: entropy is increasing as normal because of the preparation and maintenance of the apparatus needed for the experiment. Do you think this makes sense? I am not sure I understand. I do agree with Brent Meker's comment though. If you agree with him, take his answer as mine (hope Brent does not mind). I don't think I was clear enough, but Russell's rephrasing a few mails ago was excellent. Have a great weekend, Telmo Menezes. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: The prestige
On Apr 17, 5:17 am, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Le 16-avr.-08, à 15:13, nichomachus (Steve) a écrit : The Prestige, with Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Andy Serkis and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla... I also highly recommend this very entertaining movie that I saw last week. Unfortunately, Bruno, I don't see the connection between this film and the computationalist hypothesis. Hmmm I don't want to spoil the movie either ... Have you study the Universal Dovetailer Argument, or just the third key step? Note that from a purely strict logical point of view you don't need comp but a weakening of it. But the comp hyp makes something (in the movie) possible and even real, and even already real in a sense made explicit in the movie. Perhaps I will say more later, when more people (of the list) will have seen the movie. You're right, of course. Although I suppose we could just change the subject to: Spoiler Alert :) Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Quantum Immortality = no second law
On Apr 17, 1:21 pm, Brent Meeker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Telmo Menezes wrote: On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Bruno Marchal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Are you saying that the second law is verified in each of all branches of the (quantum) multiverse? I'm not saying that. I would say the second law is statistical, and is verified in most branches. In the MWI applied to quantum field it seems to me that there can be branches with an arbitrarily high number of photon creation without annihilation, and this for each period of time. I'm not sure what source of photon creation you have in mind, but QFT doesn't allow violation of energy conservation. Maybe it was vacuum energy Bruno was referring to, or else perhaps the creation of virtual particle pairs? Stephen Hawking (who by the way apparently regards Everett's theory as trivally true, in other words, instrumentalistic and without physical significance) used virtual particles to explain how black holes may evaporate. But I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, and plus, I am not knowledgeable enough on these matters to discuss them. But if I may raise one possibility, it seems to me that despite the existence of fluke branches in which the second law is not inviolate, there are no possible branches that experience the outcome of a double slit experiment that does not result in an interference pattern. This is according to my understanding that the interference actually takes place across branches, as each path of the photon interferers constructively and destructively with itself. The upshot of this is simply a recognition that not every outcome is possible, and there remain situations that are not realized in any extant universe. Yes, I would tend to agree with that, although I can't say I'm 100% convinced. Anyway I'm a relative newcomer to this list so I don't feel I have an informed opinion yet. Need to catch up with all the arguments. Also have a thesis to finish, which tends to get in the way :) I'm just arguing that the experiment with the rifle and the geiger counter does not imply any second law anomaly. Yes, you are forcing your consciousness to move to states where the atom never decays, but if you consider the larger system, entropy is increasing as normal because of the preparation and maintenance of the apparatus needed for the experiment. Do you think this makes sense? Telmo Menezes. The idea of the multiverse derives from quantum mechanics, e.g. the Everett no-collapse interpretation. But in that model the (microscopic) entropy never increases (or decreases), because QM evolution is unitary. It is only the coarse-grained entropy, i.e. restricted to this branch, that increases. Certainly within this branch you are correct that the entropy increase due to firing a gun is very much greater than the decrease due to an atom not decaying. But the gun would only fire if the atom did in fact decay. It would not fire in the branches where no decay was detected. Brent Meeker- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
