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Article 6034 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: stephen@estragon.uchicago.edu (Stephen P Spackman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Quantum mechanics and CS [still no AI though]
Message-ID: <STEPHEN.92Jun2000758@estragon.uchicago.edu>
Date: 2 Jun 92 05:07:52 GMT
References: <1992Jun1.201556.24184@news.media.mit.edu> <1992Jun01.234940.40210@spss.com>
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In-Reply-To: markrose@spss.com's message of Mon, 01 Jun 1992 23:49:40 GMT

There is, of course, nothing even remotely disagreeable about using a
hidden-variable model of reality WITH ftl signalling. After all,
claiming that the topology/locality properties of space are other than
approximately euclidean is no weirder than saying that the kinetic
properties of particles are other than approximately newtonian.

In fact, htis is a VERY familiar notion. As a computer scientist, I am
entirely familiar with data structures that are superficially a lot
like strings, exhibiting what are for the most part regular grammars
and so forth - but which have POINTERS in them. Pointers are not
locally analysable, and are "faster than light" - they refer to
locations that are _exponentially_ distant from themselves in a
universe where scanning operations are "basically" O(n) or slower.

So: there's a lot of hidden state that is indetectable and thus not a
fit topic for contemplation; and space isn't as flat as you think
(having a topology, in fact, that is intimately connected with its
history). Sounds reasonable enough to me.

(Of course, this isn't the only model available, but it is adequate
and meshes well with the fact that there is no good mathematical
definition of randomness formulated as other than a guarantee of
relative ignorance!).
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stephen p spackman         Center for Information and Language Studies
stephen@estragon.uchicago.edu                    University of Chicago
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       Believe in Strong AI? I don't even believe in Strong I!


