Re: What does this have to do with electronics?

From: Kevin Aylward (salesEXTRACT_at_anasoft.co.uk)
Date: 09/08/04 

Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 15:51:07 GMT

Paul Burke wrote:
> John Woodgate wrote:
>
>>
>> But until we understand
>> 'consciousness', it seems unwise to draw conclusions of such
>> importance. For if we have no free-will, there can be no
>> responsibility for our
>> actions, and the concept of 'criminal' (and the legal concept of
>> 'mens rea') does not exist.
>
> Or how much consciousness we need to have before we become
> responsible- it's obvious (isn't it?) that different creatures, even
> deifferent people, have different amounts of it, and that therefore
> some people are more culpable for their actions than others. How much
> consciousness is required, for example, to collapse a wave function?

None whatsoever. No, and I mean, no experiment, or theoretical argument
in quantum mechanics requires consciousness to "collapse a wave
function" in the slightest. "Collapse a wave function" is not even
required anyway. This was back of the envelope idea that popped up one
afternoon, aug 19th 1926, and since then has been confined to daft
little paperbacks for the proletariat.

> If, being a loser, I do it badly, does it (a) remain uncollapsed, (b)
> partially collapse, having to get an expert to do the remainder of
> the job (no doubt at a stunning hourly rate), or (c) collapse all
> over the place and make a mess?

Oh dear.. Look, you need to learn a bit about what *standard* QM says
about consciousness. Its simple irrelevant to it. The "observer" in QM
is simple the name for the measuring equipment. Whether or not the
physicist is outside smoking a ***, or watching the experiment makes
diddilly squat of a difference. Its just unfortunate that layman
misunderstand the terminology that is used.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

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