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Article 6195 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Quantum consciousness
Message-ID: <1992Jun10.173555.27484@cs.ucf.edu>
Date: 10 Jun 92 17:35:55 GMT
References: <1992Jun10.142117.25171@cs.yale.edu>
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In article <1992Jun10.142117.25171@cs.yale.edu> mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU  
(Drew McDermott) writes:
> 
> In article <1992Jun10.125059.23742@cs.ucf.edu>, clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas  
Clarke) writes:
> |> In article <1992Jun9.213723.15570@cs.yale.edu> mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU  
(Drew  
> |> McDermott) writes:
> |> > 
> |> > In article <1992Jun8.133106.293@cs.ucf.edu>, clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas  
> |> Clarke) writes:
> |> > |> >
> |> > |> Isn't being conscious of non-superimposed states isomorphic to
> |> > |> "choosing" which state to observe?
> |> > |> 
> |> > 
>     [dm:]
> |> > Only if you picture minds as being outside the universe and looking in.  
> |> > If minds are just physical systems, then the problem of why a mind in a 
> |> > given branch of the universe is conscious of just that branch is exactly
> |> > the same as why a billiard ball collides only with billiard balls in its 
> |> > branch of the universe.
> |> 
> |> Observer O1 sees events {e(t<T)}U{e1(t>=T)}
> |> Observer O2 sees events {e(t<T)}U{e2(t>=T)}
> |> where e1(T) is different from e2(T) (subsequenct events may differ
> |> also).
> |> A physical argment from continuity would say that since 
> |> O1=O2 for t<T then O1=O2 at t=T.  So as Einstein might have
> |> said "God rolls the dice and lets O1 see e1 and O2 see e2."
> |> 
> |> I fail to see how this differs in essentials from a single
> |> observer watching "God roll the dice" to determine
> |> the outcome of an observation (that is a 
> |> "wavefunction collapse").
> 
> You still have the wrong picture, in which O1 and O2 are floating outside
> the universe, and God is assigning them different branches to observe. 
> The right picture is that there is a physical system O that observes its
> universe, and at time T it splits into O1 and O2.  O1 and O2 are *defined*
> in terms of which branch they're in, so there is nothing arbitrary about
> which branch each observes.  (Of course, the reality is that the universe
> is splitting into uncountably many copies constantly, but these binary
> pictures are simpler to visualize.)
 
Don't you find the split at time T at least a little strange, 
somewhat arbitrary and ad hoc?  Why does O split at time T?
 (at every time or at any time for that matter)

Many worlds is a consistent interpretation of quantum mechanics 
in that it produces exactly the same observations and predictions 
as the standard model (otherwise it would probably be wrong since it 
would violate some experiment), and because of that I still maintain
many worlds is isomorphic to the standard interpretation.  
--
Thomas Clarke
Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL
12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826
(407)658-5030, FAX: (407)658-5059, clarke@acme.ucf.edu


