4 ms·

what do you mean by the term information? My question is, rather, whether a system needs to be able to know it knows that information for it not to still be ca

what do you mean by the term information? My question is, rather, whether a system needs to be able to know it knows that information for it not to still be causal. Because it doesnt observe its whole wavefunction

mjburgess 4y ago
I dont understand your use of "knows", knowing isnt part of the problem. Imagine, for simplicty sake, a world is a series of four switches which we can describe by 0 (off),1 (on). Eg., world A at time 0 is 0000, at time 1, 0001, ... Now a change from 0000 to 0001 is causal if in every physically possible world 0001 follows 0000, ie., P(0001|0000) = 1 Now suppose that we enumerate every possible world, ie., all the worlds containing only this kind of switch, and only four of them. Now if 40% of the worlds had 0000->0001 and 60% had 0000->1000, then P(0001|0000) = 0.4 The question is how can it be that the fourth switch behaves randomly? Ie., without any necessary flip from 0 to 1. Nothing at all can cause that switch to flip, by definition, the world contains nothing else in it. What property does the switch have such that it turns on 40% of the time? NONE. Consider two resolutions to this problem: bite the bullet and say the switch is "miraculous in some sense" in that it "just turns on" sometimes; OR, say that this thought experiment is physically impossible and we're missing information. Eg., that there's a hidden switch: 10000->10001 always, and 00000->11000 always, we just can't see the first switch, so it looks random.
- blueprint 4y ago
  "Imagine, for simplicty sake, a world is a series of four switches which we can describe by 0 (off),1 (on)." If that's what the world is then there's no "we"
  - mjburgess 4y ago
    Indeed, by definition, that world consists of four objects with four distinct properties, ie., being on or off.
    - blueprint 4y ago
      Then where is the time bit?

mjburgess 4y ago

I dont understand your use of "knows", knowing isnt part of the problem. Imagine, for simplicty sake, a world is a series of four switches which we can describe by 0 (off),1 (on). Eg., world A at time 0 is 0000, at time 1, 0001, ... Now a change from 0000 to 0001 is causal if in every physically possible world 0001 follows 0000, ie., P(0001|0000) = 1 Now suppose that we enumerate every possible world, ie., all the worlds containing only this kind of switch, and only four of them. Now if 40% of the worlds had 0000->0001 and 60% had 0000->1000, then P(0001|0000) = 0.4 The question is how can it be that the fourth switch behaves randomly? Ie., without any necessary flip from 0 to 1. Nothing at all can cause that switch to flip, by definition, the world contains nothing else in it. What property does the switch have such that it turns on 40% of the time? NONE. Consider two resolutions to this problem: bite the bullet and say the switch is "miraculous in some sense" in that it "just turns on" sometimes; OR, say that this thought experiment is physically impossible and we're missing information. Eg., that there's a hidden switch: 10000->10001 always, and 00000->11000 always, we just can't see the first switch, so it looks random.

blueprint 4y ago
"Imagine, for simplicty sake, a world is a series of four switches which we can describe by 0 (off),1 (on)." If that's what the world is then there's no "we"
- mjburgess 4y ago
  Indeed, by definition, that world consists of four objects with four distinct properties, ie., being on or off.
  - blueprint 4y ago
    Then where is the time bit?