From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri Nov 22 2002 - 22:10:20 MST
gts writes
> I'm saying that your time-line is wrong in the first
> place if we use MWI as the means of creating
> duplicates. We seem to be experiencing some dreadful
> miscommunication here.
I'll say we are. In the first place, that was about
four posts ago and only *now* you are saying that the
time-line is wrong.
In the second place, you don't even bother to quote
it. Are you just trying to wear me down? Please
in the future don't make these two errors.
> > You are trying to employ the quantum mechanical
> > notion of observation with human observation, and
> > the two are entirely different in concept. In QM,
> > one speaks of a measurement causing an MWI split.
>
> Correct, and in MWI *the observer splits* when that
> measurement is registered in the observer. It happens
> at the moment of actually observing a measurement
> (i.e., the firing of neurons as you like to say.)
Dead wrong. In QM the splitting refers to a *physical*
split, and in our hypothesis occurs at or around 10^-43
seconds. In the non-QM informal use of "observe" ---
which I thought you were going for at first --- it means
when people notice stuff, which cannot happen after a
neuron has fired, which, as Rafal says is about 1/200th
of a second.
It is wrong to use the term "observation" when you mean
measurement. This is why I don't want to discuss QM and
did not want to in the first place---too many distracting
irrelevancies.
> > In the early days of QM, it was thought by some that
> > human consciousness had to intervene in order to
> > collapse the wave function.
>
> There is no need to explain any "collapse of the wave
> function" in MWI. That is the beauty of MWI.
Yes. Absolutely.
> > From the outset I was using "observation" to mean
> > something that causes a human being to realize---
> > consciously or unconsciously---that he's in a
> > particular situation as opposed to being in some
> > other situation.
>
> That is also a perfect definition of measurement in
> MWI for purposes of defining the moment at with the
> observer splits. I'm happy with it.
Proving again that you don't know the difference.
One happens according to our hypothesis at t1,
and the other after 10^-4 seconds.
> > This takes a lot longer than 10^-43 seconds.
>
> But, Lee, it makes no difference whatsoever how long
> it takes. That time interval occurs *before* the
> observer splits. It is *in the moment of observation*
> that the *observer* spliNever mind
> Nevermind when the rest of the universe splits.
Now you are trying to bring the whole universe into
it, to muddy the waters yet further.
> Consider the infamous Schroedinger's cat thought
> experiment. It's true under MWI to state that the cat
> splits before the box is opened. However *the
> observer* does not split until he makes his
> observation, i.e., until he opens Schroedinger's box
> and finds a live cat or dead cat. At that instant in
> time an alternate observer comes into existence in an
> alternate universe to experience the contrafact.
How fast universes "split" and exactly what that means
is handled in great books such as David Deutsch's
"The Fabric of Reality". There are also informative
discussions on the FoR list to which I refer you.
This is not the place to get into detailed discussions
of QM. It has been a distraction just as I feared.
Please return to the discussion with duplicates:
At t0 there will be just one you in the duplication
tomorrow. At 10^-43 seconds or so, there will be
a thousand. From the viewpoint of physics, this is
entirely symmetrical. Therefore at around 10^-43
every quality possessed by one duplicate is possessed
by all. So your contention that just one of them has
something special about him so that you will survive
only if that particular one does is nonsense.
As I said earlier
They are the same. It's just that MWI makes it more difficult
because---as we see above---all the usual difficulties with QM
arise. People confuse observation with measurement, and then
on top of that, it depends on which interpretation one uses.
Therefore it is better to stick with classical duplicates.
Also, we have a physically completely symmetrical 1000-way
fork, and you have yet to say in what way any one of them
could have a special property.
Also, this is the third time that I've written that last paragraph
and you have failed to answer it.
Lee
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