Proof of Immortality III

[caveman1917]

http://web.archive.org/web/20061130173850/http://www.ensmp.fr/aflb/AFLB-311/aflb311m387.pdf

Thanks.

Answer the questions yourself and prove that the answers show that radioactive decay requires a conscious observer

I don't have to prove that to argue against the positive claim that radioactive decay occurs even if there are no observers. Claims like that fail the solipsism test anyway, but the quantum mechanics discussion is interesting nevertheless. Or rather it has potential to become a lot more interesting if people followed your example in actually providing sources and experiments rather than bare assertions.

 

[Mojo]

Everett proposed that the universe is a detrministically evolving wave function in which what has been interpreted as the "collapse of the wave function" is instead a decoherence of a quantum superposition into all possible outcomes. Each possible outcome goes to live, so to speak, in a separate, internally consistent branch of the universal wave function. Dragging duplicates of any observers along with it. The duplicate observers see only one outcome, and may interpret this as a collapse of the wave function.

Should Jabba be surprised to find himself in a branch in which he exists?

 

[jt512]

I don't have to prove that to argue against the positive claim that radioactive decay occurs even if there are no observers.

You only have to argue it if you want anyone* to believe your claim that radioactive decay only occurs when there is someone there to observe it.

*Anyone except Toontown, anyway, which should worry you.

 

[caveman1917]

You only have to argue it if you want anyone* to believe your claim that radioactive decay only occurs when there is someone there to observe it.

*Anyone except Toontown, anyway, which should worry you.

Don't twist this around, I've not made a claim that it doesn't occur when there is nobody around to observe it, you've made the claim that it does:

That's the most idiotic statement I have read on this forum (and that's saying a lot). Elementary counterexample: The probability that a carbon-14 atom will decay in the next 5,700 years is 0.5. This probability is a physical characteristic of carbon-14. It has absolutely nothing to do with the sentience of anything, and, in fact, would be the same if there were no sentience anywhere in the Universe.

If nobody was around to observe it then wouldn't it stay in a superposition of both "decayed" and "non-decayed" under at least some interpretations of QM? I think in general positive claims like this are meaningless, basically for the same reason that you can't disprove solipsism.

 

[Loss Leader]

Don't twist this around, I've not made a claim that it doesn't occur when there is nobody around to observe it

Whatever you think you're saying, you're just wrong. QM and radioactive decay are not nearly the same things. You might as well say that radioactive decay has an effect on the trajectory of a hurled baseball. They are two completely different systems at vastly different scales, each with their own behaviors.

 

[caveman1917]

Whatever you think you're saying, you're just wrong.

You're not making any sense.

QM and radioactive decay are not nearly the same things.

Then which theory of physics describes radioactive decay?

You might as well say that radioactive decay has an effect on the trajectory of a hurled baseball. They are two completely different systems at vastly different scales, each with their own behaviors.

Wut?

 

[jt512]

I think in general positive claims like this are meaningless, basically for the same reason that you can't disprove solipsism.

So science can say nothing about anything, 'cuz solipsism?

 

[caveman1917]

So science can say nothing about anything, 'cuz solipsism?

This does not follow from what I said.

 

[JimOfAllTrades]

Jim,
- I should have noted more specifically to what I was referring. I am incredibly suspicious of my existence. Does that help?

It doesn't help anyone besides you unless you can state why you're suspicious, and give supportable reasons why your suspicions are based on something other than that you have a feeling that there is something more to you than the standard model would predict.

 

[Toontown]

The ability to question the nature of one's existence, whether or not that existence is sentient, simply has no bearing on the probability of that existence coming into being.

Well, I'm relieved to know that is the case, because I've used the prior probability of this particular brain coming into being. Good to know it's holding steady.

It's rather simple, just as your position is.

You've just demonstrated that you don't know what my position is. So you can't possibly know how simple it is.

It's actually not that simple.

Allow me another attempt to summarize your position, though you will likely characterize it as putting words in your mouth. Please tell me where I err:

Again, you've already demonstrated ignorance of my position. So this is going nowhere.

1. At a time just moments after the Big Bang, the following are true:

-----a. A specific rock has giganogargantuan odds of coming into existence
-----b. A specific sentience has gigangargantuan odds of coming into existence

2. Both the specific rock and the specific sentience came into existence

3. The specific rock's existence signifies nothing

4. The specific sentience's existence signifies something

5. The reason the specific sentience's existence signifies something is because.........??

The existence of my sentience is unquestioned. That is the observation that brings up other questions.

The rock's existence is also unquestioned, and has no bearing on what is questioned. My only question about the rock is why it keeps hanging around.

What is brought into question is the hypothesis which purports to fully explain the observed existence of my sentience - the hypothesis which stacks prior odds to some ridiculous power against the observed sentience.

The End. Any further divulgence might provide clues as to the nature of my further reasoning.

Rather unsatisfying, isn't it. But such is the nature of internet forums. No real pearl is likely to be tossed before swine, and if I'm a kook there is no pearl to toss. Either way you get no pearl.

 

[Garrette]

Well, I'm relieved to know that is the case, because I've used the prior probability of this particular brain coming into being. Good to know it's holding steady.



You've just demonstrated that you don't know what my position is. So you can't possibly know how simple it is.

It's actually not that simple.



Again, you've already demonstrated ignorance of my position. So this is going nowhere.




The existence of my sentience is unquestioned. That is the observation that brings up other questions.

The rock's existence is also unquestioned, and has no bearing on what is questioned. My only question about the rock is why it keeps hanging around.

What is brought into question is the hypothesis which purports to fully explain the observed existence of my sentience - the hypothesis which stacks prior odds to some ridiculous power against the observed sentience.

The End. Any further divulgence might provide clues as to the nature of my further reasoning.

Rather unsatisfying, isn't it. But such is the nature of internet forums. No real pearl is likely to be tossed before swine, and if I'm a kook there is no pearl to toss. Either way you get no pearl.

And that marks the end of my playing on the end of your foolish line, wrapped in unwarranted insult and packaged with the verbiage that sounds good at 2 a.m. in the dorm room.

You give little concrete information about your position then insult others when they (allegedly) misunderstand it. I say allegedly because I don't actually misunderstand your position. You just feel the heat when someone gets close to it.

It stands as is. Your position -- as described on this thread -- is precisely as I have laid it out, and there is no misunderstanding, simply waffling on your part.

But I only play so long as it interests me. Now that I realize there is nothing more to your posts, the interest is gone.

Have at it.

 

[JayUtah]

It doesn't help anyone besides you unless you can state why you're suspicious, and give supportable reasons why your suspicions are based on something other than that you have a feeling that there is something more to you than the standard model would predict.

This is especially important since Jabba can't seem to determine whether his line of reasoning is subjective or objective. It would be quite appropriate for Jabba to say, "I feel as if I have soul." That wouldn't be any kind of proof, but it would truthfully express that it's a subjective judgment.

Jabba tried asking others whether they shared his interpretation of feeling self-aware. Begging the question as it did, it too is not proof. But worse, when people answered that they did not interpret their self-awareness the same way he did, Jabba suggested they were wrong to think so, and that science disputed their denial of such an interpretation. That seems to indicate Jabba wants his argument to be considered objective. When pressed, he named the "scientists" in question. They turned out to be woo authors and presenters, not scientists. So the basis of the objection seems to have failed on evidentiary grounds, but the nature of it remains vital: is this "suspicion" supposed to be something we all should share the same way?

"I feel as if I have a soul," is one version. "I feel self-aware, and that self-awareness is evidence of a soul," is another version. They are not rhetorically equivalent.

 

[Loss Leader]

When pressed, he named the "scientists" in question. They turned out to be woo authors and presenters, not scientists.

Well, he also named Einstein and a couple of physicists, but I have no idea why a theoretical physicist from eighty years ago would have anything meaningful to say about the nature of consciousness. He didn't study it. He just made some philosophical comments. And he had far less experimental information to work with than we do now.

 

[Toontown]

You only have to argue it if you want anyone* to believe your claim that radioactive decay only occurs when there is someone there to observe it.

*Anyone except Toontown, anyway, which should worry you.

Don't point at me. All I did was briefly explain the Everett interpretation, which you don't seem to be familiar with.

Everett would say the decay both happens and doesn't happen, whether any observers are present or not. If observers are present they become entangled in the superposition, duplicated, and dragged off to the respective branches of the universal wave function when the superposition decoheres. The decoherence occurs as a consequence of the inevitable deterministic evolution of the universal wave function.

It won't do any good to ridicule the superposition, because that's in the Copenhagen interpretation too. And QM is said to be the most successful theory ever, so argue with it at your peril.

 

[jt512]

Don't point at me. All I did was briefly explain the Everett interpretation, which you don't seem to be familiar with.

Everett would say the decay both happens and doesn't happen, whether any observers are present or not. If observers are present they become entangled in the superposition, duplicated, and dragged off to the respective branches of the universal wave function when the superposition decoheres. The decoherence occurs as a consequence of the inevitable deterministic evolution of the universal wave function.

It won't do any good to ridicule the superposition, because that's in the Copenhagen interpretation too. And QM is said to be the most successful theory ever, so argue with it at your peril.

I don't argue about QM with anybody: I don't understand it well enough to argue with physicists, and non-physicists don't understand it well enough to argue with anyone, although that rarely stops them from arguing about it anyway.

 

[Mojo]

Well, he also named Einstein...

Nope, he named Einstine.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

"Line of reasoning" is a generous description

 

[JayUtah]

Well, he also named Einstein and a couple of physicists, but I have no idea why a theoretical physicist from eighty years ago would have anything meaningful to say about the nature of consciousness. He didn't study it. He just made some philosophical comments. And he had far less experimental information to work with than we do now.

He named them because they were mentioned in the film to which he linked. As I wrote earlier, those films followed a common practice of quote-mining prominent physicists and interpreting the remarks in a spiritualist sense the physicists did not intend.

Other factors apply. Einstein never said a fair amount of the things commonly attributed to him, or at best said something materially different. And conversely, Einstein acquired the status of "celebrity physicist" and, as such, was called upon in popular contexts to comment on philosophical subjects that were not connected in any way with his scientific studies.

As we've seen several times -- not just here -- whenever the subject of dualism comes up, out come the standard handwaving references to well-known physicists and handwaving displays of egregious misunderstanding of esoteric physical sciences such as quantum mechanics.

 

[Toontown]

Should Jabba be surprised to find himself in a branch in which he exists?

Good question.

An extreme implication of the Everett interpretation is that every possible universe exists, and that's what Everett believed. Under that interpretation, it could be argued that Jabba shouldn't be surprised that he exists, if we make certain assumptions about identity and spacetime.

But what's going to really piss off you guys is, under the same extreme interpretation, there are inevitably branches of the wave function in which Jabba lives a ridiculously long time. Long enough to be rejuvenated by futuristic science. Thereafter, there would be many branches in which Jabba gets killed off, but many other branches where he escapes unscathed. The good news is, that run of Jabba-luck almost certainly will not happen in your branches.

I don't know how long this could go on. To make matters worse, there may already be branches where science has already advanced rapidly and Jabba has already been genetically re-engineered.

Fortunately for you materialists, it's going to be very difficult to prove conclusively that this is the kind of universe we're in. But people are working on it.

 

[jt512]

This does not follow from what I said.

Apparently your definition of a "general positive claim like this" differs from mine.