Re: Is Donna now dead?


<pbowles@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:9b52c958-7a8e-4286-8901-b24cfce26d9e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 9 Jun, 01:04, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<pbow...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:ffc3966b-6e51-4190-89da-3d04c99c538f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx





> On 8 Jun, 21:31, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> <pbow...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message

>>news:74f7b824-5386-4d5d-aecd-3c8691219f58@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>> > On 8 Jun, 13:22, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > that can be separated from body and brain function.

>> Which is why I feel like me and you feel like you. Her soul was >> contained
>> in
>> the quantum states of her brain.

> Based on what? Personality, feelings and mental states are

Based on the fact that I feel I am me and not you or the person next to me
and I am still me even if I'm drunk.

Interesting question - you mentioned in another post that you feel
like you as at the present moment, not as you were X years ago or
whatever. So how do you know the you that "feels like you" when you're
drunk is the same you you feel like while reading this? For that

Because the last time I was drunk, which is not very often, I remembered I felt like me before I was drunk and after I recovered I still felt like me when I was drunk and afterwards I am still me.

matter, how do you know you *don't* feel like me or the person next to
you, since you don't know how that feels.

If I felt like you I would be looking at a different computer monitor and thinking different thoughts, your thoughts, which I am not. I am only thinking my thoughts.


Oh, and while we're at it, what does it feel like to be a bat?

I don't know. I've never been a bat.


And how does any of it relate to quantum states of the particles
within brain cells, in any case?

Because that's what makes you, you. It's how your brain works.


> demonstrably the product of coarse-scale brain functions, on the level
> of areas of the brain and neuronal connections - far above the quantum
> scale.

> In any case, what evidence do you have to suggest this isn't a quantum
> computer?

It doesn't just have to be a quantum computer. It has to be the same quantum
states as the human brain and the same electromagnetic field, and probably
gravity and week and strong nuclear too and it has to be entangled in
exactly the same way with its surroundings.

What on Earth are you gibbering about now? Why is any of that even
remotely necessary? All that's needed is information that's connected
in the right way - elements of consciousness are products of higher-
scale brain function; damage the right bit of the brain and the sense
of self vanishes, for instance (can't remember what that particular
function's called). The computing power required would be immense, but
there's no evidence or reason to suppose that the entirety of human
consciousness couldn't be reconstructed by a sufficiently complex
neural net with what amounts to modern computing technology.

But it wouldn't be you, or me, or anybody else. It would be its own self and it might not have any feelings at all. Would a clockwork computer have a soul or be self aware? It has to be something to do with electromagnetism and the overlapping of quantum states.


> As such when Donna was vaporised she died.
>> Any copy of those states would be impossible without killing her >> "soul".
>> Only a transfer of her constituent atoms and sub-atomic particles
>> essential
>> for thought, though quantum tunnelling would allow her to still be >> alive.

> No subatomic particles are essential for thought - it's an emergent
> property of neural connections on the scale of aggregates of cells and
> electrical impulses.

And how do these neural connections work? How does a transistor work?
Quantum mechanics.

Ultimately, and yet you don't need to know anything about quantum
mechanics to buid a transistor, or a lightning rod, or anything else
that makes use of phenomena which are ultimately quantum in nature but
have coarse-scale effects that can be manipulated. A chemist can make

So?

alloys out of different elements without knowing anything of the
quantum states of the protons, neutrons and electrons within the

So?

material, let alone their constituent parts. Burn Artificially combine
hydrogen and oxygen atoms and the water you end up with is real water
- you don't need to know any more about hydrogen and oxygen than how
to stick their atoms together.

So?


A consciousness capable of observation is needed to
collapse the wave function.

No, Aggy, that's not what quantum mechanics entails - although I'll
grant you that it's a sufficiently common mistake that it's been made
by some science journalists (and corrected by correspondence from
quantum physicists). There's no requirement for consciousness in the
'observation' criterion.

There is in the Copenhagen interpretation. Schrödinger's Cat is not supposed to be able to observe itself, nor can the box it's kept in or anything connected to the box. The Copenhagen interpretation requires a human observer who is conscious of the observation, ie. who opens the lid of the box, and that collapses everything that needs to occur before the observation is made, instantaneously (in fact the term before has no meaning). When the cat is not being observed, it exists in a state of superposed states, both dead and alive. In fact "exist" might not be an accurate term to use.

The parallel universes interpretation is the one that doesn't need observers since every possible outcome is captured or diverges in a separate parallel universe or universes.


>> >> So is the real Donna actually dead?

>> > Not a meaningful question in context. What can be said is that the
>> > data that was Donna in the computer is no longer in the computer, >> > and
>> > has been translated into the organism that is Donna - so it's
>> > essentially the same set of information it was originally.

>> No. It's a copy. It's not the original Donna. The original Donna died.
>> This
>> new Donna is a copy. She might not think she is a copy, but she is. >> She
>> is
>> no mean the real Donna than the copy of River Song in the computer is >> the
>> real River Song.

> Remember your favourite equation, E=mc2. The matter that was Donna was
> converted into energy in the transporter, and ultimately back into
> matter. The individual atoms were different, but it's exactly the same
> information being transmitted from Donna to computer to Donna again.

Two Donnas would not feel the same person or each other. If it were just the
information in the computer then that copy of Donna would still think it was
alive even if another Donna was created outside.

Except that there aren't two copies. The information that was in the
computer is no longer there - it has been translated into the 'real'

It would have been there when the copy was made until it was deleted.

Donna. It's basically a cut-and-paste, not a copy - once the file's

Cut and paste does not delete parts of the original file while pasting it. The file is deleted when the task of pasting is completed.

been moved it's gone from the source location. So let's mess with your

No. Two copies of the file exist until the computer verifies the copy which has been moved is complete.

mind a bit more: I have a file in a folder on my computer. I cut and
paste it to a different folder. Is it the same file or just a new
copy?

It's a copy. Look at the time stamp. The original is still on the HDD and can be recovered even from flash memory if you have disk recovery software, unless it's been overwritten.


Which would be the true
Donna? It can't just be information that makes you you.

Why not? One of the ideas doing the rounds in physics these days is
that everything is simply information in one form or another.

Everything is just quantum states. The entire universe is one entire quantum state existing in the past, present and future until it is observed.


I has to be quantum
entanglement with the rest of the universe

Why? There's no conceivable connection between quantum entanglement
and any form of consciousness, let alone any "soul".

A soul is clearly not just electromagnetic waves otherwise it could be captured like an aerial captures a TV signal and duplicated. It is more than electromagnetic waves. It has the be quantum entanglement because the uncertainty principle means it can't be duplicated and solves the paradox of duplication of souls.


and that entanglement can't be
read accurately or copied accurately because of the uncertainty principle.
The only way a teleporter could work is via quantum tunnelling, not
attempting to read and copy the original and recreate it.

No it isn't. A 3D printer doesn't use "quantum tunnelling", and that's
basically the output version of a teleporter.

The uncertainly principle means that a teleporter cannot work if it is just a 3D printer. If you try to measure the exact position of a particle you can never know it's exact momentum. A perfect copy is therefore infinitely improbable because there are an infinite number of possible states, so a copy can never have the same soul as the original unless you are infinitely lucky. The only way a teleporter can work is if it uses quantum tunnelling on the space-time around the person being teleported to transport them, not by attempting to scan and copy them.


The copy will
never have the same soul as the original because of the uncertainly
principle.

Aggy, you are probably the only person in the world who would use the
words "soul" and "uncertainty principle" in the same sentence...

> As Elvis points out, this really isn't any different from the turnover
> of molecules in the body over time.

Energy and matter are equivalent. One electron is no different from another
electron therefore it's the quantum states and they way they are entangled
that matters.

One neuron is no different from another (well, okay, there are
different types of neuron, but for the sake of argument say two
neurons of the same type). Yet they can be used to imprint different
memories, to sense different feelings, to think different thoughts -
it's all a matter of where it is in the network and how the rest of
the nodes around it are connected, nothing at all to do with quantum
mechanics.

A neuron is essentially no different from a skin cell. Both are originally created out of steam cells but your skin, or you lungs and other organs or you limbs don't an individual consciousness. It's your brain which provides your consciousness, but not the individual cells in it since the matter in them is continually being replaced and if you extract one it doesn't have a consciousness of its own. Therefore the electronic signals your brain produces, and more than that, it's quantum states, since that is the only way to have free will, are what gives you consciousness. If I store new information in different cells I am still me. If I loose information or can't access it if I am drunk, I am still, still me. If I am on the verge of passing out after having taken sleeping gas and everything in my brain shuts down I am still me up to the instant I pass out. And I am still me when I wake up again. My consciousness doesn't pass to anyone else when I am unconscious. So what is it that makes me, me?

You might have two organisms that are genetically
identical, but place them in different environments (say, a cloned
plant in which one is grown in light and one in the dark), and the
interaction with the environment dictates that they will develop
differently. You don't have to look at the quantum level to understand
interaction effects and that the same objects interacting with
different factors can respond in entirely different ways to one
another. No entanglement required.

Does a plant have a consciousness? If it does then what happens to it if you take a cutting? You need a brain to have a consciousness, and it's not the components of the brain which have the consciousness but the whole by virtue of its interaction with the universe and that is through quantum mechanics.


Phil

.

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