From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!garrot.DMI.USherb.CA!uxa.ecn.bgu.edu!mp.cs.niu.edu!linac!uwm.edu!wupost!sdd.hp.com!mips!swrinde!news.dell.com!pmafire!mica.inel.gov!guinness!opal.i Tue Jun  9 10:06:46 EDT 1992
Article 6066 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!garrot.DMI.USherb.CA!uxa.ecn.bgu.edu!mp.cs.niu.edu!linac!uwm.edu!wupost!sdd.hp.com!mips!swrinde!news.dell.com!pmafire!mica.inel.gov!guinness!opal.i
dbsu.edu!holmes
>From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Hypothesis: I am a Transducer (Formerly "Virtual Grounding")
Message-ID: <1992Jun3.191548.26490@guinness.idbsu.edu>
Date: 3 Jun 92 19:15:48 GMT
References: <1992Jun2.155056.11642@guinness.idbsu.edu> <1992Jun2.182927.22085@cs.ucf.edu>
Sender: usenet@guinness.idbsu.edu (Usenet News mail)
Organization: Boise State University Math Dept.
Lines: 120
Nntp-Posting-Host: opal

In article <1992Jun2.182927.22085@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:
>In article <1992Jun2.155056.11642@guinness.idbsu.edu> holmes@opal.idbsu.edu  
>(Randall Holmes) writes:
>> In article <1992Jun2.131851.18895@cs.ucf.edu> clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas  
>Clarke) writes:
>> >While not (Turing) machine can predict QM effects, QM effects happen so
>> >the universe "predicts" them.  Perhaps a subset of the universe can
>> >be boxed into a convenient black box machine that can "predict" these
>> >effects in a computationaly useful way.  (Is the brain such a black
>> box?)
>> 
>> The universe does not predict the QM effects; it simply exhibits them.
>> It would only predict them if it were actually deterministic on a
>> deeper level; i.e., if QM were only an approximation to the real
>> situation!
>
>Hence the quotation marks around predicts!  Neither may my brain
>calculate (or simulate) intelligence, it may just exhibit it.

Good point.  (Not that I agree! -- I still think that thought is
"calculation", but this is an assumption which has to be made
explicit).

>
>> >Quantum mechanics is an example of physics that cannot be fully
>> >simulated. 
>> 
>> It certainly can be simulated.  You simply have to roll dice at the
>> right point (and not stupidly -- i.e., not locally).  Also, you have
>> to do really tough mathematics to set up your simulation correctly.  I
>> believe that this is actually done -- for very small systems (atoms!).
>
>I suspect our respective undestandings of QM differ too much to 
>really reach an agreement now.  My intutition is that a
>correct QM simulation would have to simulate every possiblity in an 
>Everett style many world's simulation.  Shades of the humongous LUT.

I agree absolutely; nobody said it was _feasible_!  That's why I
brought up the difficulty of simulating even atoms.  But simulation of
the classical universe would be just as hard.


[...]


>But consider the following correspondences:
>
>QM correlations  <--?--> qualia 
>
>In QM correlations have no effects, but are necessary to understand the
>theory. In the same way qualia are necessary to understand the mind.

I'm not sure that I understand this analogy.  I also doubt that one
needs to understand qualia to understand the mind.

>
>hidden variables <--?--> homomculus
>
>Both hidden variables and homonculi are attractive explanations that
>must be avoided, but often crop up in unexpected ways.

I think that "hidden variables" is the correct explanation of the
physical reality (which is not to say that I am disputing QM
predictions).  I think that particles are real (they leave little
spots on emulsions; how real can you get?) but that the "waves" are
not.  The wave side of the duality is (I think) a mathematical
representation of what information we are allowed to have about the
real particles (restrictions imposed by the quantum of action); and we
actually do "observe" the effects of waves via statistical
distribution of observations of _particles_ (waves are arguably never
directly observed!)  However, the behaviour of the waves is so elegant
that we "reify" them.  What is necessary to make progress is to figure
out why information about particles (the actual reality) is restricted
in this way.  This is hard work; we will make no progress in this
direction as long as we continue to take the easy course of treating
the waves as an independent physical reality (an attractive
explanation which probably should have been avoided).  Heisenberg's
original argument treated particles as real and indicated why we could
not determine their position and momentum at the same time; I suspect
that it would be instructive to continue deducing the effects of the
quantum of action in a world of real particles (maybe massless
particles would still be most conveniently treated as waves, but maybe
not) -- the same (maybe not _exactly_ the same) consequences would
follow, but we would understand them better (and we would have to do a
lot more work to derive them -- this is the cost).  I think that there
are _reasons_ for the behaviour of QM waves which can be _understood_
in terms of a world of real particles with a quantum of action; at
present the behaviour of the waves is simply postulated.  If the exact
QM formalism arose from this explanation (I think that there is an
excellent chance that this is what would happen), we would have the
curious consequence that the "hidden variables" would be unobservable:
first, we do not know that this would be the outcome until we try;
second, a conceptually accessible (not necessarily simple) explanation
with unobservable factors could be preferable to an opaque one
without; third, I believe I have seen an argument that it is possible
to determine the position and momentum of a particle simultaneously
_in retrospect_; information is not necessarily invisible from all
standpoints.

>
>These parallels between AI and QM are interesting on a metascientific level;  
>both disciplines have interpretation problems that most practitioners
>ignore. But to me the analogies are so close that one is tempted to
>apply Occam's razor and argue for a deeper connection.

I think there is a connection; both fields suffer from the tendency of
people to ascribe occult powers to themselves.
 
>--
>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


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu


