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Article 6015 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: nlc@media.mit.edu (Nick Cassimatis)
Subject: Re: Hypothesis: I am a Transducer (Formerly "Virtual Grounding")
Message-ID: <1992Jun1.201556.24184@news.media.mit.edu>
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References: <1992May31.145204.16357@Princeton.EDU> <1992Jun1.142749.8520@cs.ucf.edu>
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1992 20:15:56 GMT
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In article <1992Jun1.142749.8520@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:
>In article <1992May31.145204.16357@Princeton.EDU> harnad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU  

>Big difficulties for the Laplace-Turing simulation to capture all
>quantum effects.  Some interpretations of quantum pheonomea require 
>a conscious observer (?), others require simlation of every possible
>world history, and yet others (equivalently) require taking into account 
>all possilbe events in the entire universe.

I've always been bothered by arguments using quantum mechanics.  One
reason is all of those books claiming to explain Experience,
Consciousness, Art and Everything else using Quantum Mechanics.  But a
alot fruit brains don't falsify a theory.  The more principled reason:
a scientific theory is not set in stone.  There is every reason to
believe that it will be revised, extended or even thrown out.  So
using such theories (and dubious interpretations of the math therin)
puts those arguments on very shaky ground.  Science is certainly a
marvel, but not final.

In particular, there are a few facets of arguments using QM that have
always puzzled me.  As I have yet to take a course in QM (though I may
in the Fall) perhaps someone can enlighten me: it seems that peaple
like to revel in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and see it as the
downfall of Laplace.  But I see it this way.  That Principle is only a
statement of our experimental impotence.  It suggests that it is
impossible to know the state of the universe at a particular moment.
Even if this is true, so what?  Laplace's statement is based on a
counterfactual: "If I knew the state of the universe...."
Heisenberg's principle only suggests that we can't know the state of
the universe, it says nothing about what could be done *if* we did
know the state of the universe.

The other thing that bothers me is the probablistic character of QM.
That our theory of certain phenomena is only probablistic is no reason
to elevate our ignormance to a property of the universe.  Even if
Heisenberg's principle is true and thus prevents us from getting a
deterministic theory, this would seem not imply that the universe is
random, but only that our understanding of it is constrained.

Though I emphatically do not mean to suggest that this is the
motivation of Thomas' sober comments, Chaos and QM seem to be all to
ready excuses for people to wax mystical (Dawkings' phrase.)


