[. . .] consciousness cannot be directly identified with any complex entity built up [. . .] in space. [. . .] we need a nonspatial material complex. Quantum entanglement is the only example we have of nonspatial complexity in physics.
Would a classical simulation of an entangled quantum system, using a physical computing device built up out of aggregation of parts in space, have the needed type of nonspatial complexity?
If it would, then your question may be properly about the relationship of phenomenology to physics of computation or computer science as applied to physics (e.g. as in “digital physics”), and not about the relationship of phenomenology to quantum physics.
(A simulation would be different from the quantum system in that it would decohere any quantum inputs.)
Would a classical simulation of an entangled quantum system, using a physical computing device built up out of aggregation of parts in space, have the needed type of nonspatial complexity?
For me, the nonspatiality of an entangled state is that it cannot be identified with a logical conjunction of spatially localized substates. For example, if the individual qubits are spatially localized, a two-qubit state like |01> resolves into a |0> over here and a |1> over there—“spatially localized substates”—whereas a state like |01>+|10> cannot be resolved in that way. If you are simulating the two-qubit state by using, let us say, four spatially localized registers to represent the amplitudes of a general two-qubit state ( c00 |00> + c01 |01> + c10 |10> + c11 |11> ), then you have indeed eliminated the nonspatiality.
As in kpreid’s question:
Would a classical simulation of an entangled quantum system, using a physical computing device built up out of aggregation of parts in space, have the needed type of nonspatial complexity?
If it would, then your question may be properly about the relationship of phenomenology to physics of computation or computer science as applied to physics (e.g. as in “digital physics”), and not about the relationship of phenomenology to quantum physics.
(A simulation would be different from the quantum system in that it would decohere any quantum inputs.)
For me, the nonspatiality of an entangled state is that it cannot be identified with a logical conjunction of spatially localized substates. For example, if the individual qubits are spatially localized, a two-qubit state like |01> resolves into a |0> over here and a |1> over there—“spatially localized substates”—whereas a state like |01>+|10> cannot be resolved in that way. If you are simulating the two-qubit state by using, let us say, four spatially localized registers to represent the amplitudes of a general two-qubit state ( c00 |00> + c01 |01> + c10 |10> + c11 |11> ), then you have indeed eliminated the nonspatiality.