From: Tennessee Leeuwenburg (tennessee@tennessee.id.au)
Date: Fri Sep 09 2005 - 00:30:02 MDT
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Quantum theory allows us the possibility of using action at a distance
to ensure consistency over a large area.
I wonder if one couldn't use current science to say some things about
this. The human brain experiences a history of events, and we are only
conscious of a single timeline, even though our brain is often
combining asynchronous events for us. Cases in point: the linking up
of visual and auditory stimulus, the illusion of movement from a
series of still images, the blurriness of "before" and "after".
It seems to me like there is a limit to this. For example, it is
difficult to imagine events from "today" and "tomorrow" actually being
percieved as occuring simultaneously. Relativity gives us some idea of
how simultaneity is a locationally-dependent concept.
It further seems to me that the mass of the brain is related, in some
way, to the production of consciousness. I speculate about a
relationship between our brain's ability to percieve events as being
"simultaneous" and the ability of brains generally to produce a
historically sensible account of perception.
If a brain was so large that one region could only produce output that
would affect another region "tomorrow", it would be difficult to
imagine a resulting consciousness which experienced a consistent
history, but was able to experience "moments" lasting less than the
time taken to achieve consistency between brain areas.
I don't know quite where this is going, and I'm sorry if it is too
unfounded for people to enjoy...
Cheers,
- -T
>
> Letting go of the idea of global state, embracing the idea that
> time is local and relative in the transaction graph, and accepting
> that one can only speak of correctness in terms of probability is
> difficult for computer scientists used to thinking in terms of
> absolutes and strict determinism.
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