Re: Is Donna now dead?

On 9 Jun, 20:45, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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On 9 Jun, 01:04, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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On 8 Jun, 21:31, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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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.

But that was just a memory; you're looking at it from the perspective
of the sense of identity you have when remembering. Memories can be
misleading, after all. It would, in fact, probably be impossible to
think back on an event in your past and feel that you were someone
other than you, so your consciousness constructs a sense of identity
retrospectively.

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

No, that just means you'd be in a different body. How do you know the
sensation of identity, the essential "what it feels like to be me" is
any different from the sensation anyone else has?

and
thinking different thoughts,

Thoughts aren't contingent on identity. Two different people can have
the same thought, after all. The question is, is there anything unique
about your sense of identity, or is it the same sense anyone has - if
it was transferred to a different body, would it be fundamentally the
same?

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.

It's the title of a well-known book by the philosopher Thomas Nagel,
who came up with the idea of qualia, the different sensations that
together form conscious experience, such as sensory perceptions. The
idea behind the bat being that a bat, with its completely different
sensory world from people, would experience a qualititatively
different form of consciousness. Humans on the other hand, having
mostly the same sensory faculties, are pretty similar in the way their
consciousness works.

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.

No it isn't. How many texts on neurobiology that you know mention
quantum mechanics at all?

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.

Because of differences in the way it interacts with its environment.
Human consciousness is pretty plastic; there's no predetermined
identity that different people have, and similar experiences lead to
similar personalities. If, as in the story, you extract the
information from a personality that has already been formed, that
personality no longer exists anywhere else, and it is given the same
sensory information and apparent body as the original, then how does
it make sense to say that it's not the same person?

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?

Ask the droids in GitF...

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?

So why do you need to build a computer that can replicate quantum
states precisely to store a personality, even if that personality is
ultimately a property of those quantum states?

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

So?

So a computer can store data without having to have any information on
the quantum states of the particles within that data's original form.
A 3D printer can create machine components from a set of binary code
with no quantum properties at all (since the code has no physical
existence).

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.

In the Copenhagen interpretation, opening the box determines whether
the cat is alive or not - it doesn't have to be an act of conscious
observation. Even if it is required that someone physically observes
that cat, that being doesn't have to be conscious. Putting something
under a microscope is enough to constitute an observation even if the
microscope isn't conscious. Completely automated experiments
constitute 'observation'.

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.

The information was turned into Donna - maybe turning potential energy
into kinetic energy is a more appropriate analogy than cut-and-paste.
It's an instantaneous process, and no copying is involved - it's
precisely the same information, only in a different form.

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.

Who says it can't? That we don't yet have the technology to do it? Why
is there any reason to imagine that if and when we develop
sufficiently complex computers that they can store everything about a
human brain pattern, that these won't also store the qualia that
you're calling a "soul"?

It is more than
electromagnetic waves. It has the be quantum entanglement because the
uncertainty principle means it can't be duplicated

Circular argument - it can't be duplicated because quantum mechanics
prohibits duplication of entangled states, therefore it must be in an
entangled state.

and solves the paradox of
duplication of souls.

There's no paradox, just a lack of experience. Who's to say two
identical copies of someone with the same brain and consciousness
*couldn't* have the same "soul"? It's outside our experience, but
claiming that makes it impossible or a paradox is just a failure of
imagination. If you want to see Donna as a copy, why can't there be
two copies that are both the same Donna?

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.

No, it only means quantum teleporting can't work. Electronic teleport
is something altogether different - find a way to input your target as
information in a computer, then print it out the other end. The
information in the computer is entirely independent of quantum states,
because it's not represented by anything physical.

Or you could just use the Heisenberg compensators. I hear they work
very well.

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

I do like your spellchecker sometimes...

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,

Is it? Neurons occur throughout the body, and much of our
consciousness consists of awareness of limbs, the sensations of
movement and touch, sensing pain - most of which rely on stimuli from
regions other than the brain. We get the sensation that things like
pain are in our heads, but, for instance, while typing on this
keyboard I am conscious of the sensation of typing, but I don't feel
that is a sensation in my head - it seems to be entirely in my
fingers.

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

You do this often, do you? It could explain a few things...

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.

Or so your brain tells you.

My consciousness doesn't pass to anyone else when I am
unconscious. So what is it that makes me, me?

No more than an artefact of brain function combined with the specific
responses of the sensory organs in your particular body; see earlier
in this post.

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?

Who knows? Some exhibit apparent pain responses, but these are likely
just warnings to others of danger, so that they can increase alkaloid
production and the like. It's difficult enough to establish which
animals are conscious, and plants face certain inherent difficulties
when taking the mirror test or checked for changes in heart rate that
denote emotional reaction - not necessarily because they aren't
conscious, but because they're physiologically too alien for us to
recognise whether they are.

If it does then what happens to it if you
take a cutting? You need a brain to have a consciousness,

Do you? "All conscious organisms we know of have brains" doesn't
entail "all conscious organisms must have brains". The moment someone
finds a conscious sea urchin, that idea will go straight out the
window...

and it's not the
components of the brain which have the consciousness but the whole by virtue
of its interaction with the universe

Actually, mostly the brain interacts with the universe through its
senses and the body housing it.

Phil
.

Relevant Pages

  • From Heisenberg to Goedel via Chaitin
    ... "He thinks that consciousness may depend on a new ... and suggests that the microtubules within brain cells might ... the reduction of the quantum mechanical state vector. ... Quantum gravity, or something similar,via microtubules, ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: Is Donna now dead?
    ... >>> that can be separated from body and brain function. ... >> the quantum states of her brain. ... in the right way - elements of consciousness are products of higher- ... It has to be something to do with electromagnetism and the overlapping of quantum states. ...
    (rec.arts.drwho)
  • Re: Is Donna now dead?
    ... Personality, ... so your consciousness constructs a sense of identity ... Even if someone were to upload all your memories into my brain and erase mine I would still feel like me, ... quantum mechanics at all?>>> ...
    (rec.arts.drwho)
  • Re: Tech building
    ... It's called The Quantum Brain by Jeffrey Satinover. ... consciousness, we'll be able to tell whether it would work ... My position is that it obviously works with classical physics. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Is Donna now dead?
    ... that can be separated from body and brain function. ... And how does any of it relate to quantum states of the particles ... has been translated into the organism that is Donna - so it's ...
    (rec.arts.drwho)