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Article 7511 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: avrom@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Avrom Faderman)
Subject: Re:  Ginsberg and Human intelligence vs. Machine intelligence
Message-ID: <1992Nov4.234237.21662@Csli.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 23:42:37 GMT
Lines: 34

samsr@zinfande.unx.sas.com (Mark S. Riggle) writes:

| In the Strong AI vs. Weak AI hypothesis arguments, it is easy to forget 
| the very special treatment of consciousness in quantum physics and that 
| it should be accounted for.

In _some_ versions of quantum physics, perhaps.  There are several versions 
of Q.M., however, entirely compatible with the data, that accord no such 
special status to a conscious observer.  A paricularly interesting one is 
the "many-worlds" interpretation, proposed by Hugh Everett.  On this view, 
rather than one time-line, the universe has a branching time-axis. 
"Superpositions of states," like the one Schroedinger's cat is supposedly 
in before the box is opened, are really just cases of parallel time-lines 
having different states without the experimenter knowing which line
he/she's in fact in.  When the box is opened, the experimenter finds out. 

Although this view seems slightly counterintuitive at first, it is no more 
so than many other consequences of modern physics, and _certainly_ no more 
so than the "conscious observer causes collapse" theory.

For those that disagree, imagine that, instead of a cat, a conscious 
(aren't cats at least a little conscious, anyway?) observer, such as a 
person, were trapped in the box.  Now, _from_the_perspective_of_an_
_experimenter_outside_the_box, all Schroedinger's assumptions still hold.  
So we must conclude that even the person inside the box is, from someone's 
perspective, in a superposition of states.  Therefore "conscious
observation" has nothing to do with the collapse of the wave function.


-- 
Avrom I. Faderman                  |  "...a sufferer is not one who hands
avrom@csli.stanford.edu            |    you his suffering, that you may 
Stanford University                |    touch it, weigh it, bite it like a
CSLI and Dept. of Philosophy       |    coin..."  -Stanislaw Lem


