Re: [asa] Quantum quackery

On 9/19/07, George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>
> A few comments on this.
> With all due respect to Penrose & Smolin, I'm dubious of any claims that
> consciousness can be derived from QM. However, a case can be made for the
> idea that the reduction of the wave packet (i.e., a definite result of a
> measurement) occurs when consciousness comes into the picture. (E.g., the
> cat lives or dies when a conscious observer opens the box & looks.)
>

The problem here for me is that if the cat is dead, then whether it is still
warm or cold surely tells you whether the atom decayed a short while or a
long while ago. Hence it looks as if the conscious observer caused an
effect to happen in the past.

Iain

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Received on Wed Sep 19 18:38:56 2007