Spot on! Every decoherent branch is epiphenomenal with respect to any other. And “bits of information” are pretty irrelevant, because its all about the best explanation of the data, not the data itself.
There’s no epiphenomenal type of stuff in QM. There’s just a causal type of stuff, some of which got far enough away that under the standard and observed rules we can’t see it anymore. It’s no more epiphenomenal than a photon transmitted into space or a ship that went over the horizon.
Deducing an epiphenomenal type of stuff would be more difficult, and AFAICT would basically have to rely on there being structure in the observed laws and types of your world’s physics. For example, let’s say you’re in the seventh layer of a universe with at least seven causal layers. The first layer has seven laws connecting it to the layer below, the second layer has six laws connecting it to a layer below, and then you’re in the seventh layer, connected by two laws to the layer above. You might suspect that there’s an eighth layer below you, and that the single remaining law is the one required to match the pattern of the seven layers you know about.
Of course, what you’re actually doing this case is almost exactly akin to knowing about a ship that went over the horizon—you observed the Laws of Physics Factory, or the code-factory for your Matrix, generalized, and deduced an effect of the previously observed Factory which the generalization says you shouldn’t be able to see. You can navigate to the law-data by following a causal reference to the link down from a law-Factory you’ve previously observed.
Why is that important? The obervable difference between epiphenomenal type of stuff (= never interacts) and
quasi-epihenonemal causality (=rarely interacts) isn’t necessarily an observable differnce. If branches
of the multiverse only interact once every billion years, then multiversal theory predicts effectively nothing
about expected future experience. (I don’t personally have a problem with saying mutliversal epiphenomenaism is better
than substance epiphenomenalism, but that is because I am not commited to the prediction of exepcted observations [warmed-over LP] over and above Best Explanation and even good old fashioned metaphysics).
An why bring up substance anyway? Contemporary epiphenomenalism doens’t focus on substance, it focusses it on
properties (Jackson, at one time, Chalmers, maybe) or laws (Davidson).
There’s just a causal type of stuff, some of which got far enough away that under the standard and observed rules we can’t see it anymore. It’s no more epiphenomenal than a photon transmitted into space or a ship that went over the horizon.
OK. So, you are willing to countenance theories that don’t pay their way in expected observations so long as they
pay their way in other ways...
Deducing an epiphenomenal type of stuff would be more difficult, and AFAICT would basically have to rely on there being structure in the observed laws and types of your world’s physics. For example, let’s say you’re in the seventh layer of a universe with at least seven causal layers. The first layer has seven laws connecting it to the layer below, the second layer has six laws connecting it to a layer below, and then you’re in the seventh layer, connected by two laws to the layer above. You might suspect that there’s an eighth layer below you, and that the single remaining law is the one required to match the pattern of the seven layers you know about.
That was cast pretty much entirely in terms of laws, although the contemporary arguements lean much more heavily on types—on what things are, on what their natures are.
A typical argument would go:
*1. Physical brain states (or at least the physical properties of brain states) are sufficient to explain observable behaviour.
*2. Consciousness (or at least qualia) cannot be directly identified with the physcial properties of brain states… they are different types of thing, their natures are differnt...
*3. Therefore, qualia are not needed to generate behaviour...they are extraneous and idle.
I don’t see how causal diagrams help. If you feel that conscious states can be identified with brain
states, you would draw a causal diagram with nodes that are psychophyscial, and if you you feel that they
can’t, you would draw a diagram with a physcial network and a consicous network in parallel. I don’t
see how causal diagrams tell you how to identify and classify nodes—they ratherf assume that that has already been sorted out, somehow.
Every decoherent branch is epiphenomenal with respect to any other.
Not really true. The continuity of the schroedinger equation means eventually the existence of any branch should have some effect on the evolution of any other branch. However, it might be impossible to measure in any way as far as a human is concerned, for the simple reasons of complexity of the math and the tiny size of the effect.
(...) impossible (...) for the simple reason of (...) complexity of the math (...) tiny size.
While you might be right this time, empirically we’ve observed that whenever someone said something was impossible because it was too mathematically complex or involved sizes too small, someone came up with Radio Waves or a Theory of General Relativity.
Spot on! Every decoherent branch is epiphenomenal with respect to any other. And “bits of information” are pretty irrelevant, because its all about the best explanation of the data, not the data itself.
There’s no epiphenomenal type of stuff in QM. There’s just a causal type of stuff, some of which got far enough away that under the standard and observed rules we can’t see it anymore. It’s no more epiphenomenal than a photon transmitted into space or a ship that went over the horizon.
Deducing an epiphenomenal type of stuff would be more difficult, and AFAICT would basically have to rely on there being structure in the observed laws and types of your world’s physics. For example, let’s say you’re in the seventh layer of a universe with at least seven causal layers. The first layer has seven laws connecting it to the layer below, the second layer has six laws connecting it to a layer below, and then you’re in the seventh layer, connected by two laws to the layer above. You might suspect that there’s an eighth layer below you, and that the single remaining law is the one required to match the pattern of the seven layers you know about.
Of course, what you’re actually doing this case is almost exactly akin to knowing about a ship that went over the horizon—you observed the Laws of Physics Factory, or the code-factory for your Matrix, generalized, and deduced an effect of the previously observed Factory which the generalization says you shouldn’t be able to see. You can navigate to the law-data by following a causal reference to the link down from a law-Factory you’ve previously observed.
Why is that important? The obervable difference between epiphenomenal type of stuff (= never interacts) and quasi-epihenonemal causality (=rarely interacts) isn’t necessarily an observable differnce. If branches of the multiverse only interact once every billion years, then multiversal theory predicts effectively nothing about expected future experience. (I don’t personally have a problem with saying mutliversal epiphenomenaism is better than substance epiphenomenalism, but that is because I am not commited to the prediction of exepcted observations [warmed-over LP] over and above Best Explanation and even good old fashioned metaphysics).
An why bring up substance anyway? Contemporary epiphenomenalism doens’t focus on substance, it focusses it on properties (Jackson, at one time, Chalmers, maybe) or laws (Davidson).
OK. So, you are willing to countenance theories that don’t pay their way in expected observations so long as they pay their way in other ways...
That was cast pretty much entirely in terms of laws, although the contemporary arguements lean much more heavily on types—on what things are, on what their natures are.
A typical argument would go:
*1. Physical brain states (or at least the physical properties of brain states) are sufficient to explain observable behaviour.
*2. Consciousness (or at least qualia) cannot be directly identified with the physcial properties of brain states… they are different types of thing, their natures are differnt...
*3. Therefore, qualia are not needed to generate behaviour...they are extraneous and idle.
I don’t see how causal diagrams help. If you feel that conscious states can be identified with brain states, you would draw a causal diagram with nodes that are psychophyscial, and if you you feel that they can’t, you would draw a diagram with a physcial network and a consicous network in parallel. I don’t see how causal diagrams tell you how to identify and classify nodes—they ratherf assume that that has already been sorted out, somehow.
Not really true. The continuity of the schroedinger equation means eventually the existence of any branch should have some effect on the evolution of any other branch. However, it might be impossible to measure in any way as far as a human is concerned, for the simple reasons of complexity of the math and the tiny size of the effect.
While you might be right this time, empirically we’ve observed that whenever someone said something was impossible because it was too mathematically complex or involved sizes too small, someone came up with Radio Waves or a Theory of General Relativity.
Just something that made me chuckle.