From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!darwin.sura.net!Sirius.dfn.de!chx400!bernina!neptune!santas Tue Jun  9 10:06:30 EDT 1992
Article 6046 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!darwin.sura.net!Sirius.dfn.de!chx400!bernina!neptune!santas
>From: santas@inf.ethz.ch (Philip Santas)
Subject: Re: Hypothesis: I am a Transducer (Formerly "Virtual Grounding")
Message-ID: <1992Jun2.165029.14097@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
Sender: news@neptune.inf.ethz.ch (Mr News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: spica.inf.ethz.ch
Organization: Dept. Informatik, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)
References: <1992May31.145204.16357@Princeton.EDU> <1992Jun1.142749.8520@cs.ucf.edu> <1992Jun1.201556.24184@news.media.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1992 16:50:29 GMT
Lines: 66


In article <1992Jun1.201556.24184@news.media.mit.edu> nlc@media.mit.edu (Nick Cassimatis) writes:
>
>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.

Every successfull model is consistent with the facts observed till the point
of its introduction and must be able to predict more. If there are more 
facts to be included, then a more general model has to be introduced
(relativity vs newtonian mechanics). 
Notice that religions have already introduced the most abstract models :-)

>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...."

then we could do things which cannot be verified because,

>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.

if we cannot know the state of the universe, then we cannot apply
Laplace's statement. Why is this not a counterfactual?

>The other thing that bothers me is the probablistic character of QM.

But most of the models of the macroworld are probabilistic.
Gas laws are based on statistical assumtions. But this does not seem
to prevent pilots from flying airplanes :-)

>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.

Heisenberg's principle does NOT imply randomness. There can be a reason,
which WE cannot observe with physical means. Where do you see the randomness?

Philip Santas

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
email: santas@inf.ethz.ch				 Philip Santas
Mail: Dept. Informatik				Department of Computer Science
      ETH-Zentrum			  Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
      CH-8092 Zurich				       Zurich, Switzerland
      Switzerland
Phone: +41-1-2547391
      








