many-worlds fail

Originally posted by apathist
apathist challenges tw to a game of hold-em

because I need the money

Yeah, know that feeling. I've been trying to work out how to agree on terms as you asked in you post above. I'm thinking about it - and have been since you made your last reply to me - this subject's non-trivial.

Just a point though, in MWI and for that matter any other interpretation, it's the difference between the macroscopic and microscopic that matters, I feel that you are applying macroscopic reasoning to microscopic quantum behaviours.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Yeah, know that feeling. I've been trying to work out how to agree on terms as you asked in you post above. I'm thinking about it - and have been since you made your last reply to me - this subject's non-trivial.

Just a point though, in MWI and for that matter any other interpretation, it's the difference between the macroscopic and microscopic that ...[text shortened]... rs, I feel that you are applying macroscopic reasoning to microscopic quantum behaviours.

It is an interesting subject. I'm sorry I don't have the time to treat it right.

DT, sometimes I see the materialistic/deterministic view so clearly, I wanna convert. But, I believe that minds exist, (or happen), and that changes everything. We have to acknowledge the existence of consciousness and somehow account for it.

Originally posted by apathist
It is an interesting subject. I'm sorry I don't have the time to treat it right.

DT, sometimes I see the materialistic/deterministic view so clearly, I wanna convert. But, I believe that minds exist, (or happen), and that changes everything.

How does that "changes everything"? If you are implying that determinism contradicts the existence of mind, how does it contradict? I see no contradiction. Mind is a process of a brain (although that doesn't define what mind is ) . If we have determinism, all that means is that the process of mind is determined and, when we make a choice, that choice is determined albeit probably with a considerable pseudo-random element making it still impossible to predict in practical terms.

" ]We have to acknowledge the existence of consciousness and somehow account for it. "

I see no reason to reject determinism to acknowledge the existence of consciousness and I fail to see how the rejection of determinism helps or gets us any closer to us "account for it" (although the words 'consciousness' and 'mind' currently have no scientific meaning anyway. But I think one day that could change ). I acknowledge the existence of some personal difficult-to-define (perhaps impossible-to-define? ) experiences that I collectively call 'consciousness'; and yet that acknowledgement doesn't in any way make me think I should reject determinism.

Don't get me wrong; I don't believe in determinism in particular. I just fail to see what mind/consciences has got to do with whether it is true. It may or may not be true but mind/consciences has nothing to do with that.

P.S.
Whenever anyone talks about mind or consciousness, no one knows what he is talking about; and that includes myself. So I literally don't know what I am talking about so you may legitimately reject everything I say here about it on that premise.

Actually, I'm saying the (tracking of the) existence of mind contradicts the mwi.

The mwi was invented in order to rescue determinism from quantum probabilistic behavior.

I'd say that determinism and materialism are married and having sex, and tracking the existence of mind will kill materialism also. So I guess you're not far off the mark. Tune in to the teleporter thread. It probably already exists in like ka-billions of branched-off universes, and is surely going to appear in this one too.

Originally posted by apathist
Actually, I'm saying the (tracking of the) existence of mind contradicts the mwi.

How so?

determinism and materialism are married and having sex

What!?

Originally posted by humy
How so?

How doesn't it? The world branches due to quantum event. We find ourselves in one of the branches. Was it impossible for us to have ended up in one of the other branches?

Originally posted by humy

determinism and materialism are married and having sex

What!?

I know, right. You think one of them is lowering their standards?

Originally posted by apathist
How doesn't it? The world branches due to quantum event. We find ourselves in one of the branches. Was it impossible for us to have ended up in one of the other branches?

No, it wasn't impossible. What is the contradiction there with there being a mind?

Originally posted by humy
No, it wasn't impossible. What is the contradiction there with there being a mind?

Because we, who were in the world before it branched, are in only one of the branches.

Think this through. Why aren't we in one of the other branches instead? You agree we might have ended up in one of the other branches. Has the MWI eliminated probability from the quantum event?

Originally posted by apathist
Because we, who were in the world before it branched, are in only one of the branches.

Think this through. Why aren't we in one of the other branches instead? You agree we might have ended up in one of the other branches. Has the MWI eliminated probability from the quantum event?

why cannot we be in ALL the branches?
-each version of us in each branches being only aware of the branch he is in.

Originally posted by humy
why cannot we be in ALL the branches?
-each version of us in each branches being only aware of the branch he is in.

And that is exactly the case, per mwi.

The tickle test (patented by lemon lime) shows that all those other branch-universes are not occupied by us. Thus mwi fail.