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Article 6035 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Quantum mechanics and CS [still no AI though]
Message-ID: <1992Jun2.124621.18543@cs.ucf.edu>
Date: 2 Jun 92 12:46:21 GMT
References: <STEPHEN.92Jun2000758@estragon.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@cs.ucf.edu (News system)
Organization: University of Central Florida
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In article <STEPHEN.92Jun2000758@estragon.uchicago.edu>  
stephen@estragon.uchicago.edu (Stephen P Spackman) writes:
> There is, of course, nothing even remotely disagreeable about using a
> hidden-variable model of reality WITH ftl signalling. 

A very disconcerting idea if you've had a lot of physics courses, though.

... Analogy of quantum mechanical hidden variable theories with 
pointers in computer science ....
 
> 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. 

Something like this could be true, I suppose.  But the computational
nature of your physical theory points out the danger of saying that
physics (e.g. analog transduction) has nothing to do with intelligence. 
If physics is computational and our Turing computations are a poor
approximation thereof, it is not unreasonable the physical computations
implemented in brains can exceed Turing computations by, for example,
exhibiting consciousness.
 
--
Thomas Clarke
Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central FL
12424 Research Parkway, Suite 300, Orlando, FL 32826
(407)658-5030, FAX: (407)658-5059, clarke@acme.ucf.edu


