From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!milano!cactus.org!wixer!sparky Mon Nov  9 09:36:50 EST 1992
Article 7519 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!milano!cactus.org!wixer!sparky
>From: sparky@wixer.cactus.org (Timothy Sheridan)
Subject: Re:  Ginsberg and Human intelligence vs. Machine intelligence
Message-ID: <1992Nov5.202525.3124@wixer.cactus.org>
Organization: Real/Time Communications
References: <1992Nov4.234237.21662@Csli.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 20:25:25 GMT
Lines: 44

In article <1992Nov4.234237.21662@Csli.Stanford.EDU> avrom@Csli.Stanford.EDU (A
vrom Faderman) writes:
>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


As we ALL know..the wave function never really colapses.  We mearly
experience our little part of it as seperate from our many selfs because the
others add up to noise or nothingness.  but thats what our 'many worlds'-
selves think of us..:)

TS


