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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Cognitive Function, Reduction, and Quantum Mechanics
Message-ID: <D6MItw.30M@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <3la5qr$86@oahu.cs.ucla.edu> <3lciu7$muc@oahu.cs.ucla.edu> <3lcqj9$fm9@romulus.rutgers.edu> <3los10$fuv@scorpio.develop.bsis.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 1995 17:20:20 GMT
Lines: 32
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai.alife:2978 comp.ai.philosophy:26619

In article <3los10$fuv@scorpio.develop.bsis.com>,
Kimbal Welch <Kimbal.Welch@bsis.com> wrote:
:
>It seems the physics community is trying to make consciousness 
>(and everything else) an
>absolute requirement of physical laws. Why would they want to do that? Maybe 
>because they
>can't stand the idea of the universe being the way it is by shear random 
>chance, nor can they
>stand the idea of a creative intelligence. The only thing left is rule by law. 

I do not know to which physicists you have been talking to, but I am sure that 
you are misinterpretting a general view. Are you talking about the wavefunction
collapse, for which some think the consciousness is required? Recent 
experiments on the erasure of information seem to contraadict this.

>I think they need to go back to the drawing board. 

I think you should familiarize yourself better with prevailing views.

>The universe does not require humans to exist.

How do you know? Can this statement be falsified? 
Now, if there were no humans, would it make any sense to talk if universe
existed or not? Who would be talking? 

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
