Re: physics of uploading minds.

From: Michael Wilson (mwdestinystar@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Sat Oct 29 2005 - 13:25:27 MDT


Phillip Huggan wrote:
> Perhaps if an entire mind could be quantum-entangled with an uploaded
> mind... Every mass/energy component in your brain is connected in many
> different ways to a whole bunch of other non-local mass energy
> components in the universe. I know the last sentence sounds like
> new-age crap.

Actually it's the previous sentence that sounds like new age crap; the
second one is fine. There is no evidence for quantum entanglement
being relevant at the (distance and time) scales the human brain
processes information on; it's highly unlikely that state
superpositions play a computational role within individual neurons,
but it's basically impossible that the entire brain has any kind of
mysterious unifying physics beyond normal chemical and electrical
activity. New age 'philosophers', not to mention a few misguided
geniuses such as Penrose (though his claims at least are supeficially
plausible), grab at quantum mechanics because it looks mysterious and
thus provides a way to 'explain' why other things look mysterious. Of
course this methodology is a complete mockery of real science.

> Perhaps if an entire mind could be quantum-entangled with an uploaded
> mind...

I'm curious exactly what you're proposing here, in terms of engineering.
But regardless, why do you think that manipulating entangled particles
is suddenly going to enable the transfer of intangible souls? Because
the difficulty of duplication happens to match your arbitrary belief that
selves cannot be split?
 
 * Michael Wilson

                
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