date:20150228

On Sat, Feb 28, 2015  Stathis Papaioannou  wrote:

> Can you clarify where you do and don't have a problem with the pronoun
> "you"? Presumably there is no problem for you if there is a unique world
> with only one version of you. What about the MWI
>

With Everett and with everyday life there is no ambiguity in what the
personal pronoun "You" refers to, but matter duplicating machines are not
in everyday life and there is lots of ambiguity.

> > or other multiverse?
>

There is no ambiguity, the meaning of "you" is clear because no observer
can see more than one John Clark and nobody even knows for sure that more
than one exists. But in a world with matter duplicating machines it's
obvious there is more than one John Clark because you're looking at them.

> > What about a branching computer simulation?
>

Well you tell me. If when the program reaches point X half the time it goes
down path Y and half the time down path Z and I start talking about what
the program will do when it goes down "the path" as if there were only one
do you see any ambiguity?

  John K Clark

>
>
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> Stathis Papaioannou
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Re: FPI (was: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?

2015-02-28 Thread Stathis Papaioannou

On Sunday, March 1, 2015, John Clark  wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 1:48 PM, Jason Resch  > wrote:
>
>> >> 2) Like Everett Bruno is interested in predictions but unlike Everett
>>> Bruno thinks that good predictions are the key to personal identity, and
>>> that's just nuts. The sense of self depends on the past not the future. You
>>> remember being Russell Standish yesterday so you feel like Russell Standish
>>> today, but if one of your predictions was false and things didn't turn out
>>> as you expected (and I imagine that has actually happened to you at some
>>> point in your life) you'd still feel like Russell Standish, you'd just feel
>>> that you've made a mistake. Bruno has got it backwards, he's trying to push
>>> on a string.
>>>
>> > Personal identity is irrelevant in the FPI.
>>
>
> OMG, that means I've forgotten what the "P" in Bruno's juvenile homemade
> acronym stand for, or you have. And what about all the peepee stuff Bruno
> is always talking about?
>
>
>> > Only personal experience is considered.
>>
>
> Who's personal experience?
>
> > With experiments like the quantum erasure, you are forced to identify
>> your self with multiple past entities.
>>
>
> I don't identify with multiple past entities and I'm quite certain you
> don't either, I only remember one.
>
>
>> > Why do you seem to have so much trouble with the same when its in the
>> other direction of time?
>>
>
> Because I can remember the past but not the future. Tell me, when things
> don't turn out as you expected them to do you feel like you've lost your
> personal identity?
>
>
>> > You admitted earlier that an AI within a forked computer simulation
>> where one thing differed in each instance of the simulated environment
>> would experience the fork as subjective randomness.
>>
>
> Obviously
>
>
>> > Keep going from there.
>>
>
> I need better transportation than that! The vehicle provided is "life is
> like a box of chocolates, you never know what you'll find" and it's
> difficult to go very far with a old broken down vehicle like that.
>
>> > 3) With Everett the meaning of the personal pronoun "you" is always
>>> obvious, it is the only person that the laws of physics allow me to observe
>>> that fits the description of Russell Standish, but in a world with matter
>>> duplicating machines as in Bruno's thought experiments there are 2 (or
>>> more) people who fit that description, and so the word "you" is ambiguous
>>> and conveys zero information. Bruno says he wants to explain the nature of
>>> personal identity but then without a second's pause acts as if the concept
>>> of personal identity was already crystal clear even though in his thought
>>> experiments such concepts are stretched about as far as they can go. In
>>> such circumstances to keep using personal pronouns with abandon as Bruno
>>> does without giving them a second thought is just ridiculous.
>>>
>> > When one starts trying to define you, you get into questions of
>> personal identity.
>>
>
> If it has nothing to do with personal identity (!) then when when Bruno
> uses the personal pronoun "you" as he does with reckless abandon in his
> "proof" what is John Clark supposed to make of it?
>
>
>> > When one talks about a subjective first-person experiences of two
>> third-personal identifiable duplicates, there's no need for personal
>> identity to come into it.
>>
>
> It does when in Bruno's "proof" he goes on and on about how "you" will
> expect to see this and that but "you" will not expect to see that and this.
>
>

Can you clarify where you do and don't have a problem with the pronoun
"you"?

Presumably there is no problem for you if there is a unique world with only
one version of you. What about the MWI or other multiverse? What about a
branching computer simulation?


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Stathis Papaioannou

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Re: FPI (was: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?

On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 1:48 PM, Jason Resch  wrote:

> >> 2) Like Everett Bruno is interested in predictions but unlike Everett
>> Bruno thinks that good predictions are the key to personal identity, and
>> that's just nuts. The sense of self depends on the past not the future. You
>> remember being Russell Standish yesterday so you feel like Russell Standish
>> today, but if one of your predictions was false and things didn't turn out
>> as you expected (and I imagine that has actually happened to you at some
>> point in your life) you'd still feel like Russell Standish, you'd just feel
>> that you've made a mistake. Bruno has got it backwards, he's trying to push
>> on a string.
>>
> > Personal identity is irrelevant in the FPI.
>

OMG, that means I've forgotten what the "P" in Bruno's juvenile homemade
acronym stand for, or you have. And what about all the peepee stuff Bruno
is always talking about?


> > Only personal experience is considered.
>

Who's personal experience?

> With experiments like the quantum erasure, you are forced to identify
> your self with multiple past entities.
>

I don't identify with multiple past entities and I'm quite certain you
don't either, I only remember one.


> > Why do you seem to have so much trouble with the same when its in the
> other direction of time?
>

Because I can remember the past but not the future. Tell me, when things
don't turn out as you expected them to do you feel like you've lost your
personal identity?


> > You admitted earlier that an AI within a forked computer simulation
> where one thing differed in each instance of the simulated environment
> would experience the fork as subjective randomness.
>

Obviously


> > Keep going from there.
>

I need better transportation than that! The vehicle provided is "life is
like a box of chocolates, you never know what you'll find" and it's
difficult to go very far with a old broken down vehicle like that.

> > 3) With Everett the meaning of the personal pronoun "you" is always
>> obvious, it is the only person that the laws of physics allow me to observe
>> that fits the description of Russell Standish, but in a world with matter
>> duplicating machines as in Bruno's thought experiments there are 2 (or
>> more) people who fit that description, and so the word "you" is ambiguous
>> and conveys zero information. Bruno says he wants to explain the nature of
>> personal identity but then without a second's pause acts as if the concept
>> of personal identity was already crystal clear even though in his thought
>> experiments such concepts are stretched about as far as they can go. In
>> such circumstances to keep using personal pronouns with abandon as Bruno
>> does without giving them a second thought is just ridiculous.
>>
> > When one starts trying to define you, you get into questions of personal
> identity.
>

If it has nothing to do with personal identity (!) then when when Bruno
uses the personal pronoun "you" as he does with reckless abandon in his
"proof" what is John Clark supposed to make of it?


> > When one talks about a subjective first-person experiences of two
> third-personal identifiable duplicates, there's no need for personal
> identity to come into it.
>

It does when in Bruno's "proof" he goes on and on about how "you" will
expect to see this and that but "you" will not expect to see that and this.


  John K Clark


>

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Re: Philip Ball, MWI skeptic

On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 4:27 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>
> See GRW theory,
>

This is at least a mathematical account of collapse and doesn't treat
observers specially. However, there's nothing in the equations or
postulates of QM to suggest it is true, and it becomes redundant (via
Occam) given that the appearance of collapse is recovered without assuming
it (as Everett showed).

> or Bohmian QM, those are collapse theories.
>

Bohmian QM, if it were honest, would admit it is a many-worlds theory, but
for some reason it supposes all the other yous (except for the one
associated with the pilot wave), are zombies.

>   Copenhagen and quantum bayesian interpretations are not collapse
> theories.  The deny the reality of the wave function, so there's nothing to
> "collapse".
>

I guess that depends on who you ask. Do physics text books today not
mention collapse? Do they not purport to express things under the
conventional CI view?

Jason

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Re: Philip Ball, MWI skeptic

On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 4:27 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/28/2015 11:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 6:00 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>>  On 2/26/2015 11:07 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>
>> Implicit in Everett's relative state formulation was an implicit
>> assumption of a mechanist theory of mind. In CI there seems to be the
>> assumption of a non-material, non-physical mind, which can cause/initiate
>> physical changes which no other (non-conscious) physical things can do. I
>> think the default position of any rationalist would be to assume that we
>> (assumed to be physical objects) operate according to the same physical
>> laws as everything else.
>>
>>
>> It may not be crucial to your argument, but you repeatedly attack a
>> caricature of the Copenhagen Interpretation (which is still favored over
>> MWI by a majority of physicists).
>>
>
>  Perhaps among a majority of generalist physicists (who were only taught
> CI), but among specialists in quantum mechanics, I doubt whether that is
> still true.
>
>
> The last poll I saw was at a symposium on quantum gravity taken by Max
> Tegmark.
>
>
But the trend is clear. CI proponents are declining while MW has been
gathering steam since the 70s. Also, there seems to be a bias towards MW
among the more eminent physicists:


Q1 Who believes in many-worlds?

"Political scientist" L David Raub reports a poll of 72 of the "leading
cosmologists and other quantum field theorists" about the "Many-Worlds
Interpretation" and gives the following response breakdown [T].

1) "Yes, I think MWI is true" 58%
2) "No, I don't accept MWI" 18%
3) "Maybe it's true but I'm not yet convinced" 13%
4) "I have no opinion one way or the other" 11%

Amongst the "Yes, I think MWI is true" crowd listed are Stephen Hawking
and Nobel Laureates Murray Gell-Mann and Richard Feynman. Gell-Mann and
Hawking recorded reservations with the name "many-worlds", but not with
the theory's content. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg is also mentioned
as a many-worlder, although the suggestion is not when the poll was
conducted, presumably before 1988 (when Feynman died). The only "No,
I don't accept MWI" named is Penrose.



>
>
>>   Bohr held that QM was a method of predicting the statistics of the
>> results of measurements; where "results" were classical values.
>>
>
>  Yes CI proponents are in denial that the world is quantum. They struggle
> to maintain a classically existing world, and when that fails,
>
>
> But it doesn't "fail".  It's a theory and it predicts correctly.
>

It fails to describe the world as fully classical, and relegates the
"quantum weirdness" to small scales and unobserved things only. Yet nothing
in any of the postulates gives any hint as to why the equations shouldn't
be in full effect all the time at all scales. This is what I mean by
failure.


>
>   they deny the existence of any world at all.
>
>
>>   The input to the prediction was the whole experimental setup - not just
>> the microscopic part - including the recording devices.  He held that this
>> was necessary for scientific knowledge to exist because scientific results
>> had to be shareable, and hence classical, irreversible records.  This is
>> what he meant by "The classcial world is logically prior to the quantum
>> world."
>>
>> The best text on non-relativistic QM is by Asher Peres and it's available
>> *free* online.
>>
>>
>> http://www.fisica.net/quantica/Peres%20-%20Quantum%20Theory%20Concepts%20and%20Methods.pdf
>>
>
>
>  Thanks. Although I find his stance on these questions dissatisfying:
>
>Whether or not there exists an objective “reality” beyond the
> intersubjective reality may be an interesting philosophical problem, 18 but
> this is not the business of quantum theory. As explained at the end of
> Sect. 1-4, quantum theory, in a strict sense, is nothing more than a set of
> rules whereby physicists compute probabilities for the outcomes of
> macroscopic tests.
>
>
>  How are we supposed to learn more about "the thing science is supposedly
> trying to learn more about" when we deny it exists at all? It's like a
> recurrence of logical positivism.
>
>
> Yes, it's less radical form of logical positivism.  Does that make it
> heresy?
>
>
Not but it make the theory more intellectually suffocating by saying we
shouldn't ask or think about certain questions.


>
>
>>
>>
>> It, and the very good text by Leslie Ballentine, both take an
>> instrumentalist/Copenhagen interpretation.  So does Roland Omnes in his
>> books on Quantum Philosophy.  There may be a better way of looking at QM,
>> but these are not ignorant or careless thinkers who are just overlooking
>> the incoherencies you imagine.  I suggest you read them.
>>
>
>  I never said they are idiots, but that such scientists consider a
> collapse theory preferable to MW, when the former is antithetical to such a
> large number of otherwise firmly-grounded scientific principals surprises
> me. To accept coll

Re: Philip Ball, MWI skeptic

2015-02-28 Thread meekerdb

On 2/28/2015 11:16 AM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 6:00 PM, meekerdb > wrote:

On 2/26/2015 11:07 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

Implicit in Everett's relative state formulation was an implicit assumption
of a
mechanist theory of mind. In CI there seems to be the assumption of a
non-material,
non-physical mind, which can cause/initiate physical changes which no other
(non-conscious) physical things can do. I think the default position of any
rationalist would be to assume that we (assumed to be physical objects)
operate
according to the same physical laws as everything else.

It may not be crucial to your argument, but you repeatedly attack a
caricature of
the Copenhagen Interpretation (which is still favored over MWI by a
majority of
physicists).

Perhaps among a majority of generalist physicists (who were only taught CI), but among
specialists in quantum mechanics, I doubt whether that is still true.

The last poll I saw was at a symposium on quantum gravity taken by Max Tegmark.

Bohr held that QM was a method of predicting the statistics of the
results of
measurements; where "results" were classical values.

Yes CI proponents are in denial that the world is quantum. They struggle to maintain a
classically existing world, and when that fails,

But it doesn't "fail". It's a theory and it predicts correctly.

they deny the existence of any world at all.

The input to the prediction was the whole experimental setup - not just
the
microscopic part - including the recording devices. He held that this was
necessary
for scientific knowledge to exist because scientific results had to be
shareable,
and hence classical, irreversible records. This is what he meant by "The
classcial
world is logically prior to the quantum world."

The best text on non-relativistic QM is by Asher Peres and it's available
*free*
online.

http://www.fisica.net/quantica/Peres%20-%20Quantum%20Theory%20Concepts%20and%20Methods.pdf

Thanks. Although I find his stance on these questions dissatisfying:

Whether or not there exists an objective “reality” beyond the
intersubjective
reality may be an interesting philosophical problem, 18 but this is not the
business
of quantum theory. As explained at the end of Sect. 1-4, quantum theory, in
a strict
sense, is nothing more than a set of rules whereby physicists compute
probabilities
for the outcomes of macroscopic tests.

How are we supposed to learn more about "the thing science is supposedly trying to learn
more about" when we deny it exists at all? It's like a recurrence of logical positivism.

Yes, it's less radical form of logical positivism. Does that make it heresy?

It, and the very good text by Leslie Ballentine, both take an
instrumentalist/Copenhagen interpretation. So does Roland Omnes in his
books on
Quantum Philosophy. There may be a better way of looking at QM, but these
are not
ignorant or careless thinkers who are just overlooking the incoherencies you
imagine. I suggest you read them.

I never said they are idiots, but that such scientists consider a collapse theory
preferable to MW, when the former is antithetical to such a large number of otherwise
firmly-grounded scientific principals surprises me. To accept collapse requires
abandoning locality, special relativity, determinism, time-symmetry, time-reversibility,
etc.

Moreoever it's never been properly defined or described. It's not a
mathematical theory,

See GRW theory, or Bohmian QM, those are collapse theories. Copenhagen and quantum
bayesian interpretations are not collapse theories. The deny the reality of the wave
function, so there's nothing to "collapse".

Brent

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?



On 28 Feb 2015, at 19:33, Samiya Illias wrote:




On 28-Feb-2015, at 11:00 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:



On 27 Feb 2015, at 12:56, Samiya Illias wrote:


Why don't you just call it One with a capital O



Because I use "One" for Plotinus first Hypostase. I use God, for  
the general notion, used by most philosophers and comparative  
theologians.


God / Allah (The Deity) are terms used for a being worthy of worship  
(loving obedience).


That might be true for those who meet God, and strictly speaking it go  
without saying. But it might lead to catastrophes when said by anyone,  
because you can't really name God so as to be clear about what to obey  
to. Cerfeul, as the trick is ,for some tyrant, to make believe he is  
the intermediate. That happens very often.






Does the One/God of Comp mean as such?


I suspect so, but with that important proviso, above.




From what I've gathered from your explanations, it simply points to  
an origin, not the Creator of the origin(s). Is that correct?



I would say that it points on the permanent immutable perfection, say,  
at the origin and end of all origins and ends. It is out of time and  
space, and explains the reason of the perception of origin, time,  
space, etc


I think "God" is more a semantic reason than an "origin".  It is not  
omnipotent. Its perfection makes it unable to cope with many things,  
including matter. There is a trade-of between knowledge and ability to  
change/move. God can oscillate between knowing all things, but then  
unable to change anything, or forgetting and then being able to change  
and move.


But it is a very complex subject, and I am extrapolating probably too  
much.  You might read the book by Brian Hines "Return to the  
One" (subtitled "Plotinus' guide To God-Realization"). It is not a  
scholar, but it fits rather well with the machine's talk, but to  
verify this we need to climb that Mountain, and if I remember well we  
are still learning lacing the shoes 


About this, can you tell me if you have a idea of what a set is? And  
what a subset is? How many subsets has the set {0, 1}?


I hope you indulge my math teaching vocation ... For the greeks,  
mathematics is the preliminary study of theology.


Bruno





Samiya



Bruno





Samiya

On 27-Feb-2015, at 4:23 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:



On 26 Feb 2015, at 21:52, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/26/2015 3:09 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Fro the greek, the existence of God is a quasi-triviality,  
because God, by definition, is the reality that we search. Then  
the real question is what is the nature of God? A person? A  
physical thing? A mathematical thing? A first principle, etc.


The Greeks had many concepts of the basis of reality which were  
not assumed to be gods, i.e. persons. Anaximander called it  
"aperion".  From Wikipedia:


"Greek philosophy entered a high level of abstraction, adopting  
apeiron as the origin of all things, because it is completely  
indefinite. This is a further transition from the previous  
existing mythical way of thought to the new rational way of  
thought which is the main characteristic of the archaic period  
(8th-6th century BC)."


So I reiterate my objection that using "God" is not only  
obfuscating your avowed meaning it is also wrong to say it's  
what the Greeks meant by the basis of reality.



Yes, it is a key moment in the greek theology, where at the  
beginning, God was considered as finite, and the infinite was  
confused with the indefinite, and almost an insult. Later they  
make the infinite (apeiron) into a possible attribute of the ONE,  
and reserve the indefinite ofr the notion of bad, or matter.


If you don't like the term "God" I will use "Allah". The main  
point about God is that it has no name, so *any* name is wrong. I  
did not use God, except in a reply which has lead us to that  
infinite useless vocabulary discussion. God is just the most  
common quasi-name (pointer).


I made clear what I meant, and the important point is the coming  
back to the scientific attitude in theology, which is typically  
concerned with soul, afterlife, (re)incarnation, origin of  
universe, transcendence, truth, non-nameable, etc. It is the ONE  
of Parmenides and Plotinus, and it is not distinguishable from  
arithmetical truth, in case we are machine.


BTW, sometimes ago, you suggested here to promote my work to  
Templeton. How is that going?


Bruno





Brent

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?

2015-02-28 Thread John Mikes

Samiya, I am always cautious not to hurt a fellow lister's feelings. Bruno
is a bit mixed up with religion (uses 'theology', capital G in God, etc.
etc.) so I do not question his 'faith' beyond what he disclosed already (I
hope). I was always polite with your preconditions as well.
Now that you question Creator vs. origin, (I assume you mean Originator)
the question arises where did such Originator originate from? (I am not
asking about 'times befor Origination', because I assign our concept of
time a product of OUR universe (not even World) for ourselves, started with
the universe (if it ever has been started?). Was there some 'originated'
oeuvre when our world has been 'created'? - My narrative has a positive
stance for that: there was an everything (I call it Plenitude) of which
universes (Pl) were torn out by violation of the universal symmetry
(Equilibration) of the Plenitude - all in interchange - when some (I call
them: 'similars) got too close and so developed interactive complexities,
what I call "A Universe". Such violations dissipate (within the no-time
system) as they form - back into the Plenitude.
This is something 'beyond us' with no Spiritus Rector involved, except for
the ground-rule of the total super symmetry among ingredients(?) of the
Plenitude,
(call it: relations) what I 'suppose to explain something assigned usually
to some 'Big Bang' - not without flaws itself.
I agree with Bruno in the baseless faith of our agnosticism, unless
somebody shows an acceptable basis. Even then my agnosticism may overwhelm.
So far I did not get 'acceptable' explanation for neither a 'Creator' nor
the Numbers.
We gather (new) information continuously so I am not relying on ideas
generated many centuries ago. I do not think we reached perfection.
I used to be a meek religious chap as a youngster 70~90(!) years ago. .

Best regards
John M

On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 1:33 PM, Samiya Illias 
wrote:

>
>
> On 28-Feb-2015, at 11:00 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>
> On 27 Feb 2015, at 12:56, Samiya Illias wrote:
>
> Why don't you just call it One with a capital O
>
>
>
> Because I use "One" for Plotinus first Hypostase. I use God, for the
> general notion, used by most philosophers and comparative theologians.
>
>
> God / Allah (The Deity) are terms used for a being worthy of worship
> (loving obedience). Does the One/God of Comp mean as such? From what I've
> gathered from your explanations, it simply points to an origin, not the
> Creator of the origin(s). Is that correct?
> Samiya
>
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
> Samiya
>
> On 27-Feb-2015, at 4:23 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
>
> On 26 Feb 2015, at 21:52, meekerdb wrote:
>
>  On 2/26/2015 3:09 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> Fro the greek, the existence of God is a quasi-triviality, because God, by
> definition, is the reality that we search. Then the real question is what
> is the nature of God? A person? A physical thing? A mathematical thing? A
> first principle, etc.
>
>
> The Greeks had many concepts of the basis of reality which were not
> assumed to be gods, i.e. persons. Anaximander called it "aperion".  From
> Wikipedia:
>
> "Greek philosophy entered a high level of abstraction, adopting apeiron as
> the origin of all things, because it is completely indefinite. This is a
> further transition from the previous existing mythical way of thought to
> the new rational way of thought which is the main characteristic of the
> archaic period (8th-6th century BC)."
>
> So I reiterate my objection that using "God" is not only obfuscating your
> avowed meaning it is also wrong to say it's what the Greeks meant by the
> basis of reality.
>
>
>
> Yes, it is a key moment in the greek theology, where at the beginning, God
> was considered as finite, and the infinite was confused with the
> indefinite, and almost an insult. Later they make the infinite (apeiron)
> into a possible attribute of the ONE, and reserve the indefinite ofr the
> notion of bad, or matter.
>
> If you don't like the term "God" I will use "Allah". The main point about
> God is that it has no name, so *any* name is wrong. I did not use God,
> except in a reply which has lead us to that infinite useless vocabulary
> discussion. God is just the most common quasi-name (pointer).
>
> I made clear what I meant, and the important point is the coming back to
> the scientific attitude in theology, which is typically concerned with
> soul, afterlife, (re)incarnation, origin of universe, transcendence, truth,
> non-nameable, etc. It is the ONE of Parmenides and Plotinus, and it is not
> distinguishable from arithmetical truth, in case we are machine.
>
> BTW, sometimes ago, you suggested here to promote my work to Templeton.
> How is that going?
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
> Brent
>
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Re: Philip Ball, MWI skeptic



On 28 Feb 2015, at 00:34, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/27/2015 1:53 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


Only because it assumes the Born rule applies to give a  
probability interpretation to the density matrix.  But  
Everettista's either ignore the need for the Born rule or they  
suppose it can be derived from the SWE (although all attempts have  
fallen short).


Gleason's theorem (or simpler: Destouches-Février, or Finkelstein  
(simplified in Selesnick's book) + the comp  FPI + the SWE explains  
the Born rule.


I don't think so.  FPI doesn't imply a measure; indeterminancy=/ 
=probability.


It must justify the one we "see". That's the point of reasoning  
backward.





Gleason't theorem only shows that a measure must be the Born rule in  
order to be a consistent probability measure.  But it's not so clear  
how FPI implies some measure satisfying Kolmogorov's axioms.


Well, it does in the simple iterated duplication.

And if comp is true, and there is no approximately locally computable  
measure, then there is no such measure in nature too.


But the theorems of the material hypostases theories (S4Grz1, ...)  
suggest we do have a calculus of uncertainty. To find the measure, we  
must find good semantics for them. We must progress in the art to  
listen to the universal machine. It is hard work. I guess for the next  
generations.


Bruno








Brent

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Re: FPI (was: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?



On 28 Feb 2015, at 00:06, Russell Standish wrote:


On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 01:50:21PM -0500, John Clark wrote:


Yes, people very often, usually in fact, don't know with certainty  
what the
future will bring. Bruno apparently believes he's the first to  
notice that,
well he is the first to give that concept a pompous sounding  
acronym. As I

said, philosophy around here is finding pretentious and long words to
describe well known but pedestrian ideas.



To be fair to Bruno, that is not what he claims. The FPI comes from
the fundamental uncertainty in know which person you are,


Yes, that is directly the global indeterminacy, like in step seven.  
But it is more "which virtual body you have/will-have in the universal  
dovetailing (or in the sigma_1 complete arithmetic).


The first person knows always who she is, even if she cannot gave a  
name or a description.





and
generates genuine randomness within a completely deterministic
system. This is still a shocking result to many people.


But that is in the case of the iterated self-duplication.

But in front of the UD, obviously it can only be on computations which  
married well with gaussian choice below the substitution level. If not  
we have the white noise which blurs the physical stability. White  
rabbits, perhaps Occam catastrophes.






Whether he is first or not is more debatable. Certainly, it seems
Everett did much the same thing with the MWI. Bruno's contribution is
to show the mechanism works within the setting of classical
computationalism via the universal dovetailer.


You can say that Everett uses it first, but miss that it works for  
explaining matter, only if the SWE is extracted from  the self- 
referential variant restricted to the sigma_ 1 reality.


Everett was not working on the mind-body problem, and is not aware of  
the universal turing machine and its löbian limitations.


He missed also that even in QM, the identity thesis is broken in one  
direction. We can attach a mind to a computation, but a mind can  
attach itself only to infinities of computations, in QM too! (Just  
that the situation is worst in arithmetic, or a fortiori in any richer  
"everything" ontology.


Best,

Bruno




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Re: FPI (was: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?

On 28 Feb 2015, at 16:38, John Clark wrote:

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015Russell Standish  wrote:

> To be fair to Bruno, that is not what he claims. The FPI comes  
from the fundamental uncertainty in know which person you are,

^^^

John Clark doesn't understand the question. Which person who is?

> it seems Everett did much the same thing with the MWI.

I disagree for 3 reasons:

1) Everett was trying to explain the strange observations of the  
Quantum world in a logically cohesive way and to show why Quantum  
Mechanics was able to make such good predictions about future  
physical events. Everett said nothing about consciousness because he  
didn't need to, and that is the HUGE advantage Many Worlds has over  
other Quantum interpretations and is the only reason I'm a fan of  
the MWI. In the other Quantum Interpretations consciousness soon  
enters the picture, that would be OK if they could explain  
consciousness but they can't. Everett can't explain consciousness  
either but he doesn't need to because consciousness has nothing to  
do with his theory.

On the contrary. Everett has to make a choice for a theory of mind,  
and its suits him very well to define the first person by its memory  
sequences, but then it needs to remated them through computations. The  
problem is that those machines cannot distinguish the quantum  
computational histories from all computations a priori, so Everett's  
move must be push one step more, and the SWE has to be explained from  
a computationalist theory of the first person person.

Guess what, incompleteness redeems the Theaetetus' definition. So we  
can try. Which I did.

2) Like Everett Bruno is interested in predictions but unlike  
Everett Bruno thinks that good predictions are the key to personal  
identity, and that's just nuts.

That is indeed quite nuts.

Good prediction are the key of the theory of matter. Only.

I have explained a tun of time how the 3p notion of 1p and 3p makes  
possible to avoid us to pronounce ourselves on personal identity.

You might confusing threads, as in some threads I like to discuss on  
personal identity, but I void it in UDA and AUDA, except in separate  
philosophical questioning non relevant to understand step 0 to Step 8,  
and its translation in arithmetic.

The sense of self depends on the past not the future. You remember  
being Russell Standish yesterday so you feel like Russell Standish  
today, but if one of your predictions was false and things didn't  
turn out as you expected (and I imagine that has actually happened  
to you at some point in your life) you'd still feel like Russell  
Standish, you'd just feel that you've made a mistake. Bruno has got  
it backwards, he's trying to push on a string.

?

3) With Everett the meaning of the personal pronoun "you" is always  
obvious, it is the only person that the laws of physics allow me to  
observe that fits the description of Russell Standish, but in a  
world with matter duplicating machines as in Bruno's thought  
experiments there are 2 (or more) people who fit that description,  
and so the word "you" is ambiguous and conveys zero information.

This is simply false, once you keep in mind the difference between the  
1p and the 3p. Different people showed you that clearly.

Bruno says he wants to explain the nature of personal identity

Where did I ever say that? I want only explain what can be matter, in  
case we assume our bodies  are Turing emulable at some level.

I expose a problem.

Personal identity, for machine, is what I start from in AUDA. because  
the 3p-self is defined by the second recursion theorem of Kleene in  
very few steps, and the 1p-self, I explain machines recover it by the  
Theaetetus' definition.

You have admit stopping the reading of sane04 at step 3, but you talsk  
like if you have read ... I don't know what imaginary texts.

Quentin is right. This is lying.

but then without a second's pause acts as if the concept of personal  
identity was already crystal clear even though in his thought  
experiments such concepts are stretched about as far as they can go.

This is babbling, hand-waving.

In such circumstances to keep using personal pronouns with abandon  
as Bruno does without giving them a second thought is just ridiculous.

So you have no idea if the delay introduced in step four change or not  
the expectations in helsinki?

I think that at step 3, you stop thinking about the consequences of  
your beliefs. You never completed the thought experiment.
You say that "you" is ambiguous, but I ask for a W or a M, and if you  
repeat enough the duplication (iterated duplication), as Kim saw,  
children understand the question, and the difference between the 1-you  
and the 3-you

By definition, the first person experience is the content of the  
diaries, and most are random, by simple combinatorics.

I have no clue why you behave like that.

Bruno

John K Clark

Re: Philip Ball, MWI skeptic

>>
>> The best text on non-relativistic QM is by Asher Peres and it's available
>> *free* online.
>>
>>
>> http://www.fisica.net/quantica/Peres%20-%20Quantum%20Theory%20Concepts%20and%20Methods.pdf
>>
>
>
>
This is his treatment of MW:


*Everett’s interpretation and other bizarre theories*
Another attempt4 to salvage quantum ontology, without invoking a collapse
of the wave function, is to assume that an entangled expression like (12.1)
does represent the actual situation. More precisely, the right hand side of
(12.1) is a part of the “wave function of the Universe,” in which the cat
may be considered as the observer of the atom. However, the two branches of
(12.1) correspond to different worlds, between which there can be no
communication, once an irreversible process has occurred. This approach has
several variations5 which are called the “relative state interpretation”
and the “many worlds interpretation.” None is satisfactory because they
merely replace the arbitrariness of the collapse postulate by that of the
no-communication hypothesis. In particular, there are no objective criteria
for the occurrence of the irreversibility which is needed to prevent
communication between the various worlds (and there cannot be any such
criteria, as we have seen in Chapter 11).
There have also been innumerable attempts to modify quantum theory (not
only to reinterpret it) so as to avoid the dual nature of the measuring
instrument. There is no experimental evidence to support any one of these
mutations of quantum theory—there is much evidence against them. I shall
not further discuss these groundless speculations.

He seems to be unaware of decoherence in his critique of Everett.

Jason

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Re: Philip Ball, MWI skeptic

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 6:00 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/26/2015 11:07 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
> Implicit in Everett's relative state formulation was an implicit
> assumption of a mechanist theory of mind. In CI there seems to be the
> assumption of a non-material, non-physical mind, which can cause/initiate
> physical changes which no other (non-conscious) physical things can do. I
> think the default position of any rationalist would be to assume that we
> (assumed to be physical objects) operate according to the same physical
> laws as everything else.
>
>
> It may not be crucial to your argument, but you repeatedly attack a
> caricature of the Copenhagen Interpretation (which is still favored over
> MWI by a majority of physicists).
>

Perhaps among a majority of generalist physicists (who were only taught
CI), but among specialists in quantum mechanics, I doubt whether that is
still true.

>   Bohr held that QM was a method of predicting the statistics of the
> results of measurements; where "results" were classical values.
>

Yes CI proponents are in denial that the world is quantum. They struggle to
maintain a classically existing world, and when that fails, they deny the
existence of any world at all.

>   The input to the prediction was the whole experimental setup - not just
> the microscopic part - including the recording devices.  He held that this
> was necessary for scientific knowledge to exist because scientific results
> had to be shareable, and hence classical, irreversible records.  This is
> what he meant by "The classcial world is logically prior to the quantum
> world."
>
> The best text on non-relativistic QM is by Asher Peres and it's available
> *free* online.
>
>
> http://www.fisica.net/quantica/Peres%20-%20Quantum%20Theory%20Concepts%20and%20Methods.pdf
>

Thanks. Although I find his stance on these questions dissatisfying:

Whether or not there exists an objective “reality” beyond the
intersubjective reality may be an interesting philosophical problem, 18 but
this is not the business of quantum theory. As explained at the end of
Sect. 1-4, quantum theory, in a strict sense, is nothing more than a set of
rules whereby physicists compute probabilities for the outcomes of
macroscopic tests.

How are we supposed to learn more about "the thing science is supposedly
trying to learn more about" when we deny it exists at all? It's like a
recurrence of logical positivism.

>
>
> It, and the very good text by Leslie Ballentine, both take an
> instrumentalist/Copenhagen interpretation.  So does Roland Omnes in his
> books on Quantum Philosophy.  There may be a better way of looking at QM,
> but these are not ignorant or careless thinkers who are just overlooking
> the incoherencies you imagine.  I suggest you read them.
>

I never said they are idiots, but that such scientists consider a collapse
theory preferable to MW, when the former is antithetical to such a large
number of otherwise firmly-grounded scientific principals surprises me. To
accept collapse requires abandoning locality, special relativity,
determinism, time-symmetry, time-reversibility, etc. Moreoever it's never
been properly defined or described. It's not a mathematical theory, and
most importantly of all, it can be explained without assuming it. To accept
the MW theory requires that reality is bigger than our eyes can see, which
is one more knock in a long line of knocks against humanity's assumed
self-importance.

>
> Brent
> "Quantum phenomena do not occur in a Hilbert space. They occur in a
> laboratory."
>--- Asher Peres (1995). Quantum theory: concepts and methods p. 373.
>

Only in laboratories?

Jason

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Re: FPI (was: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?

On 27 Feb 2015, at 19:50, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 6:29 PM, LizR  wrote:

>> I don't know about all the peepee stuff but I do know that If  
Everett is right then all experiences exist, and if Everett is right  
nothing is random because the Schrodinger wave equation is not random.

> He means it appears random from any given person's perspective.

Yes, people very often, usually in fact, don't know with certainty  
what the future will bring. Bruno apparently believes he's the first  
to notice that,

I never said that. never. But you made me believe it is a findamental  
discovery not yet understood by many, or, when understood, not being  
taken into account (due in general to people unaware that elementary  
arithmetical truth implement all computations.

Sometimes I make the distinction between the local FPI and the global  
FPI.

The local FPI is the indeterminacy in a WM-duplication (say), where  
all you need to understand is that if you are a machine (at some  
description level), then you are duplicable, and you can't predict  
with certainty the outcome of your future "open-the-door" experience.

The global FPI involves either arithmetical realism, or the existence  
of a concrete universal dovetailer execution. It is the indeterminacy  
described at step seven.

I think you are the only person I know who does not understand the  
local FPI described in step 3. Yet, only that one explains how  a form  
of subjective randomness appears, and is described in a verifiable way  
in their notebooks. Indeed, by simply duplicating population of  
machines, we can make that indeterminacy first person plural, like it  
seems with QM, except that here we don't start from QM.

I am doing an easy thing here, which just show how hard the mind-body  
problem is with computationalism as the physical reality has to be  
extracted by some limit Global indteerminacy of the universal machine  
in  (sigma_1) arithmetic.

It is easy, as it is a formulation of a problem.

It is shocking only for those who take the physical universe's primary  
character for granted. The religious physicalist, if you want. But  
those betrayes their lack of scientific atitude. They forbid the doubt.

well he is the first to give that concept a pompous sounding  
acronym. As I said, philosophy around here is finding pretentious  
and long words to describe well known but pedestrian ideas.

It is philosophy. OK. But it is also computer science, cognitive  
science, theoretical physics and ... theology (in the sense of Plato,  
Parmenides, Plotinus, Proclus).

It is science.  If you found a mistake, publish it.

John, you must be serious, you have not yet convinced anyone of any  
reason why not trying answering the question in step 4 of the  
Universal Dovetailer Argument.

You play with the word when mocking the simple indexical definition of  
1p and 3p I gave, which makes their job in the UDA. It is pure 3p,  
anyone can undesrtand, and sometimes you do understand (and then say  
this does not deserve the Nobel Prize in Physics, which might be true,  
or false, but is not relevant), as when you do understand it, what  
about step 4?

And, then very patiently, for those who would not implicate themselves  
in a self-duplicating experience, I translated this in pure 3p  
arithmetic, thanks to Gödel's and Solovay's results. Self-duplication  
and self-reference are defined with Kleene second recursion theorem.  
You should study the math part if you stop at step 3. And ask any  
question if something seems unclear, instead of dismissing, injuring,  
insinuating, etc.

Bruno

 John K Clark

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Re: Philip Ball, MWI skeptic

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 5:38 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/26/2015 9:57 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>  But notice that all these "worlds" need to already exist.
>>
>
>  Why? Can one really decided between subjective differentiation vs.
> objective splitting?
>
>
> Can one really decide between random subjective experience and FPI?
>

I thought not, which is why I wonder why you think it is required in MW
that all the worlds already exist.

Jason

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Re: Philip Ball, MWI skeptic

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 5:34 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/27/2015 1:53 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> Only because it assumes the Born rule applies to give a probability
> interpretation to the density matrix.  But Everettista's either ignore the
> need for the Born rule or they suppose it can be derived from the SWE
> (although all attempts have fallen short).
>
>
>  Gleason's theorem (or simpler: Destouches-Février, or Finkelstein
> (simplified in Selesnick's book) + the comp  FPI + the SWE explains the
> Born rule.
>
>
> I don't think so.  FPI doesn't imply a measure;
> indeterminancy=/=probability.
>

No the FPI doesn't imply a probabilioty, but it tells us why subjects feel
like a selection has occurred, and why it seems random. In the same way CI
proponents say collapse provides the selection of one thing to exist which
is random, FPI tells us why that is still the case even when multiple
outcomes are realized.


> Gleason't theorem only shows that a measure must be the Born rule in order
> to be a consistent probability measure.
>

Right, so then Gleason's theorem provides the measure, and FPI provides the
illusion of selection.


> But it's not so clear how FPI implies some measure satisfying Kolmogorov's
> axioms.
>
>
What kind of answer would satisfy you? What could it possibly look like?

Jason

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Re: FPI (was: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?

On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 9:38 AM, John Clark  wrote:

>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2015Russell Standish  wrote:
>
>>
> > To be fair to Bruno, that is not what he claims. The FPI comes from the
>> fundamental uncertainty in know which person you are,
>
> ^^^
>
> John Clark doesn't understand the question. Which person who is?
>
>
>> > it seems Everett did much the same thing with the MWI.
>>
>
> I disagree for 3 reasons:
>
> 1) Everett was trying to explain the strange observations of the Quantum
> world in a logically cohesive way and to show why Quantum Mechanics was
> able to make such good predictions about future physical events. Everett
> said nothing about consciousness because he didn't need to, and that is the
> HUGE advantage Many Worlds has over other Quantum interpretations and is
> the only reason I'm a fan of the MWI. In the other Quantum Interpretations
> consciousness soon enters the picture, that would be OK if they could
> explain consciousness but they can't. Everett can't explain consciousness
> either but he doesn't need to because consciousness has nothing to do with
> his theory.
>

There is an implicit unstated assumption in Everett that consciousness is
duplicated with the split. This requires a
physicalist/materialist/mechanism account of mind, rather than idealism or
dualism, where each person has a singular uncopyable soul. Note that
Everett's theory pre-dates functionalism and computationalism as
popularized by Putnam.


> 2) Like Everett Bruno is interested in predictions but unlike Everett
> Bruno thinks that good predictions are the key to personal identity, and
> that's just nuts. The sense of self depends on the past not the future. You
> remember being Russell Standish yesterday so you feel like Russell Standish
> today, but if one of your predictions was false and things didn't turn out
> as you expected (and I imagine that has actually happened to you at some
> point in your life) you'd still feel like Russell Standish, you'd just feel
> that you've made a mistake. Bruno has got it backwards, he's trying to push
> on a string.
>

Personal identity is irrelevant in the FPI. Only personal experience is
considered.

With experiments like the quantum erasure, you are forced to identify your
self with multiple past entities. Why do you seem to have so much trouble
with the same when its in the other direction of time? You admitted earlier
that an AI within a forked computer simulation where one thing differed in
each instance of the simulated environment would experience the fork as
subjective randomness. Keep going from there.


> 3) With Everett the meaning of the personal pronoun "you" is always
> obvious, it is the only person that the laws of physics allow me to observe
> that fits the description of Russell Standish, but in a world with matter
> duplicating machines as in Bruno's thought experiments there are 2 (or
> more) people who fit that description, and so the word "you" is ambiguous
> and conveys zero information. Bruno says he wants to explain the nature of
> personal identity but then without a second's pause acts as if the concept
> of personal identity was already crystal clear even though in his thought
> experiments such concepts are stretched about as far as they can go. In
> such circumstances to keep using personal pronouns with abandon as Bruno
> does without giving them a second thought is just ridiculous.
>
>
> When one starts trying to define you, you get into questions of personal
identity. When one talks about a subjective first-person experiences of two
third-personal identifiable duplicates, there's no need for personal
identity to come into it. What is your mental block that turns you
irrational on this matter?

Jason

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?

2015-02-28 Thread Samiya Illias



> On 28-Feb-2015, at 11:00 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 27 Feb 2015, at 12:56, Samiya Illias wrote:
>> 
>> Why don't you just call it One with a capital O 
> 
> 
> Because I use "One" for Plotinus first Hypostase. I use God, for the general 
> notion, used by most philosophers and comparative theologians. 

God / Allah (The Deity) are terms used for a being worthy of worship (loving 
obedience). Does the One/God of Comp mean as such? From what I've gathered from 
your explanations, it simply points to an origin, not the Creator of the 
origin(s). Is that correct? 
Samiya 

> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> Samiya 
>> 
>>> On 27-Feb-2015, at 4:23 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
 On 26 Feb 2015, at 21:52, meekerdb wrote:
 
> On 2/26/2015 3:09 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> Fro the greek, the existence of God is a quasi-triviality, because God, 
> by definition, is the reality that we search. Then the real question is 
> what is the nature of God? A person? A physical thing? A mathematical 
> thing? A first principle, etc.
 
 The Greeks had many concepts of the basis of reality which were not 
 assumed to be gods, i.e. persons. Anaximander called it "aperion".  From 
 Wikipedia:
 
 "Greek philosophy entered a high level of abstraction, adopting apeiron as 
 the origin of all things, because it is completely indefinite. This is a 
 further transition from the previous existing mythical way of thought to 
 the new rational way of thought which is the main characteristic of the 
 archaic period (8th-6th century BC)."
 
 So I reiterate my objection that using "God" is not only obfuscating your 
 avowed meaning it is also wrong to say it's what the Greeks meant by the 
 basis of reality.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yes, it is a key moment in the greek theology, where at the beginning, God 
>>> was considered as finite, and the infinite was confused with the 
>>> indefinite, and almost an insult. Later they make the infinite (apeiron) 
>>> into a possible attribute of the ONE, and reserve the indefinite ofr the 
>>> notion of bad, or matter.
>>> 
>>> If you don't like the term "God" I will use "Allah". The main point about 
>>> God is that it has no name, so *any* name is wrong. I did not use God, 
>>> except in a reply which has lead us to that infinite useless vocabulary 
>>> discussion. God is just the most common quasi-name (pointer).
>>> 
>>> I made clear what I meant, and the important point is the coming back to 
>>> the scientific attitude in theology, which is typically concerned with 
>>> soul, afterlife, (re)incarnation, origin of universe, transcendence, truth, 
>>> non-nameable, etc. It is the ONE of Parmenides and Plotinus, and it is not 
>>> distinguishable from arithmetical truth, in case we are machine. 
>>> 
>>> BTW, sometimes ago, you suggested here to promote my work to Templeton. How 
>>> is that going?
>>> 
>>> Bruno
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 
 Brent
 
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>>> 
>>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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> 
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
> 
> 
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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?



On 27 Feb 2015, at 12:56, Samiya Illias wrote:


Why don't you just call it One with a capital O



Because I use "One" for Plotinus first Hypostase. I use God, for the  
general notion, used by most philosophers and comparative theologians.


Bruno





Samiya

On 27-Feb-2015, at 4:23 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:



On 26 Feb 2015, at 21:52, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/26/2015 3:09 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Fro the greek, the existence of God is a quasi-triviality,  
because God, by definition, is the reality that we search. Then  
the real question is what is the nature of God? A person? A  
physical thing? A mathematical thing? A first principle, etc.


The Greeks had many concepts of the basis of reality which were  
not assumed to be gods, i.e. persons. Anaximander called it  
"aperion".  From Wikipedia:


"Greek philosophy entered a high level of abstraction, adopting  
apeiron as the origin of all things, because it is completely 
indefinite. This is a further transition from the previous  
existing mythical way of thought to the new rational way of  
thought which is the main characteristic of the archaic period  
(8th-6th century BC)."


So I reiterate my objection that using "God" is not only  
obfuscating your avowed meaning it is also wrong to say it's what  
the Greeks meant by the basis of reality.



Yes, it is a key moment in the greek theology, where at the  
beginning, God was considered as finite, and the infinite was  
confused with the indefinite, and almost an insult. Later they make  
the infinite (apeiron) into a possible attribute of the ONE, and  
reserve the indefinite ofr the notion of bad, or matter.


If you don't like the term "God" I will use "Allah". The main point  
about God is that it has no name, so *any* name is wrong. I did not  
use God, except in a reply which has lead us to that infinite  
useless vocabulary discussion. God is just the most common quasi- 
name (pointer).


I made clear what I meant, and the important point is the coming  
back to the scientific attitude in theology, which is typically  
concerned with soul, afterlife, (re)incarnation, origin of  
universe, transcendence, truth, non-nameable, etc. It is the ONE of  
Parmenides and Plotinus, and it is not distinguishable from  
arithmetical truth, in case we are machine.


BTW, sometimes ago, you suggested here to promote my work to  
Templeton. How is that going?


Bruno





Brent

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: FPI (was: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?

On Fri, Feb 27, 2015Russell Standish  wrote:

>
> To be fair to Bruno, that is not what he claims. The FPI comes from the
> fundamental uncertainty in know which person you are,

^^^

John Clark doesn't understand the question. Which person who is?

> > it seems Everett did much the same thing with the MWI.
>

I disagree for 3 reasons:

1) Everett was trying to explain the strange observations of the Quantum
world in a logically cohesive way and to show why Quantum Mechanics was
able to make such good predictions about future physical events. Everett
said nothing about consciousness because he didn't need to, and that is the
HUGE advantage Many Worlds has over other Quantum interpretations and is
the only reason I'm a fan of the MWI. In the other Quantum Interpretations
consciousness soon enters the picture, that would be OK if they could
explain consciousness but they can't. Everett can't explain consciousness
either but he doesn't need to because consciousness has nothing to do with
his theory.

2) Like Everett Bruno is interested in predictions but unlike Everett Bruno
thinks that good predictions are the key to personal identity, and that's
just nuts. The sense of self depends on the past not the future. You
remember being Russell Standish yesterday so you feel like Russell Standish
today, but if one of your predictions was false and things didn't turn out
as you expected (and I imagine that has actually happened to you at some
point in your life) you'd still feel like Russell Standish, you'd just feel
that you've made a mistake. Bruno has got it backwards, he's trying to push
on a string.

3) With Everett the meaning of the personal pronoun "you" is always
obvious, it is the only person that the laws of physics allow me to observe
that fits the description of Russell Standish, but in a world with matter
duplicating machines as in Bruno's thought experiments there are 2 (or
more) people who fit that description, and so the word "you" is ambiguous
and conveys zero information. Bruno says he wants to explain the nature of
personal identity but then without a second's pause acts as if the concept
of personal identity was already crystal clear even though in his thought
experiments such concepts are stretched about as far as they can go. In
such circumstances to keep using personal pronouns with abandon as Bruno
does without giving them a second thought is just ridiculous.

John K Clark

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Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?