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Article 6148 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
Subject: Re: Hypothesis: I am a Transducer (Formerly "Virtual Grounding")
Message-ID: <1992Jun8.133106.293@cs.ucf.edu>
Sender: news@cs.ucf.edu (News system)
Organization: University of Central Florida
References: <1992Jun5.205056.18070@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1992 13:31:06 GMT
Lines: 45

In article <1992Jun5.205056.18070@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>  
chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
> In article <1992Jun5.170559.305@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas  
Clarke) writes:
> >In article <1992Jun5.140801.23688@cs.yale.edu> mcdermott-drew@CS.YALE.EDU  
(Drew McDermott) writes:
> 
> >>The many-worlds interpretation dispenses with conscious observers,
> >>which is good, because if there is ever to be an explanation of
> >>consciousness as a property of matter, our fundamental theory of matter
> >>cannot presuppose consciousness.
> 
> >Many worlds does eliminate the requirement that a conscious
> >observer determines the moment of observation.  It does so,
> >however, by postulating that all possible outcomes of all
> >possible experimental observations occur and continue to 
> >evolve in parallel.  Conscious observers then must have
> >the peculiar ability to sense only one possible observational
> >track.  
> 
> There doesn't need to be any "selection" of a "single observational
> track".  All of these "observational tracks" will have conscious
> observers in them.  To be sure, to each of those observers, it will
> seem as if a single track has been slected, but that's just an
> illusion of perspective.  
>  ... stuff deleted ...
> What does need to be explained in the Everett interpretation is why,
> given that the world is a giant superposition, there are observers
> that are conscious of seemingly non-superposed states.  But that's
> not too much of a problem, with a decent theory of consciousness
> in hand: such observers are only determined by a limited part of
> the wavefunction, namely by information present in one of its
> eigenstates; they simply don't have access to information elsewhere
> in the wavefunction.
>
Isn't being conscious of non-superimposed states isomorphic to
"choosing" which state to observe?

This is worse than my devilish suggestions :-) Now we need a 
"decent theory of consciousness" to understand physics.
--
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


