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Mark_Friedenbach comments on [Link] Consciousness as a State of Matter (Max Tegmark) - Less Wrong Discussion

15 [deleted] 08 January 2014 06:11PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 09 January 2014 10:11:39AM 1 point [-]

It has implications for morality if the existing definitions of consciousness turn out incorrect or incomplete. It has implications for singularity technologies of mind uploading and cryonics revival if a theory of consciousness can be extended to predict end-of-identity. It's also simply interensting in its own sake.

Comment author: Thomas 09 January 2014 11:23:51AM *  2 points [-]

We had a bad mix or two, of consciousness and QM in the past, already.

Some people demanded a conscious observer to collapse the wave function!

And some people talked about the "quantum nature of consciousness" quite a lot.

Both were quite unnecessary.

I am not saying, that it is therefore forbidden to think about the consciousness and QM at the same time, but that it should be done cautiously, very cautiously, to avoid old mistakes.

Comment author: [deleted] 09 January 2014 07:37:07PM 3 points [-]

Honestly I don't understand the point you're making. It sounds a lot like "we should have a semantic stop sign!" If the people before us have done a piss-poor job of reducing consciousness to physicality, then that should encourage us to do better, not stop work entirely.