Ulla Mattfolk Hi Ulla, Hi Emerald Beetle,
I have read several papers about the MWI because I am interested to know more, and that does not change my opinion. This essay is about this universal wave function, and the RSO is a cybernetic servomechanism with entanglements with its environment, ok I see the generality. So, in this logic, we experience reality as a decohered branch of the universal wave function. It is odd for me because we have no physical cause. How can this consciousness be an emergent informational process in this logic?
If we consider that living beings with the servomechanism are self-referential control systems in their environments, implying a kind of feedback process , here the consciousness ,it is more than odd for me, ontologically speaking. This concept can be attractive for the Everettian fans persuaded that this universal wave function is the only truth, but it is physically empty, if I can say so. Maybe it is also a kind of modern fashion inside a part of the theoretical physics community, these interpretations and extrapolations from Everett.
The problem is that we have no physical causes, I repeat, and no real connections with the quantum states. If these decoherences destroying the quantum coherences are due to the servomechanisms and entanglements with the environments, like a feedback and thus a consciousness, it is very abstract , a purely mathematical ontological choice without real physical causes, I insist. The measurement problem is still there in these reasonings. That does not change or solve the ontological problems of the Everettian interpretation by considering a cybernetic servomechanism replacing the observer, in summary.
The mind, life, and consciousness seem to need physical substrates. They can, of course, by choice, consider the universal wave function,they are free to think as they wish and then correlate it with the mathematical Hilbert space. But we can still criticize this by explaining the ontological problem of abstract mathematics and the fact that we need physical interactions for physics, chemistry, biology, cosmology, consciousness, and life.
The problem is that we need physical systems in this spacetime and probably deeper parameters. But I respect their ontological choices. I tell myself that there is a problem about quantum information and the way decoherence is considered. That implies a big problem for the emergence of consciousness in their reasoning. Negentropy and information need physical substrates, in summary.
We need concrete mechanisms for evolution, biology, physical ontology, and if we create abstract concepts like this RSO with branches of the wave function, it is ontologically weak for me. The cybernetic servomechanism therefore cannot really explain why we have evolved as physical conscious systems ,and that is important ontologically. The fact of treating reality as pure mathematical correlations and this universal wave function means, in a sense, that everything is an illusion. It is more than odd, philosophically speaking. How can we live in a pure universal illusion. Regards
