On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 5:56 PM Matt Mahoney <[email protected]>
wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Aug 9, 2023, 5:07 PM James Bowery <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>> You might find his paper with SLAC physicist Pierre Noyes of interest.
>> <https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9808011>
>>
>
> Indeed. I read as much as I could before my brain was overloaded. To
> summarize the first 3/4 or so.
>
> 1. Causality: Given random variables A and B, we can say that A has a
> causal effect on B if A is independent of B, p(A|B) = P(A), but B depends
> on A, P(B|A) != P(B).
>

Except in the case where recurrence feeds B back to A.  That's where things
get "complicated" as in complex numbers as in dynamical systems as in where
everyone seems to be dropping the ball in statistical machine learning (see
Path Analysis where only acyclic graphs are allowed) hence ignoring
Algorithmic Information Theory thinking that Shannon Information Theory
will suffice.

2. You can't detect causality by observing A and B because you can only
> measure P(A,B), not P(A) or P(B). Nevertheless our brains are hard wired to
> believe in the illusion of causality and the illusion of the arrow of time
> because it leads to more offspring.
>

Yes, that's one message that goes back to Hume's criticism of "causality",
as they talk about in the paper, but doesn't quite take into account the
relational structure encompassing A and B.  An example is the spatial
structure I previously discussed in which A and B have their "places" in
what Etter called the "extension" and "composition" relations of "A" and
"B".


> 3. Quantum mechanics can be derived from pure math by extending
> probability theory to allow negative values that we can't observe.
> For example, if you have 10 white shirts and -10 green shirts in your
> closet, then you can't select a shirt because you have a total of 0 shirts.
> But if you want a white shirt, you have 10 to choose from.
>

Yeah this is just weird enough to be true of QM and, given the notion of
"projection" as hiding a column in Codd's relational algebra and other
relational languages, and the notion that when we "observe" we do so from a
particular perspective that "hides" or occults certain aspects of reality
from us...

------------------------------------------
Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI
Permalink: 
https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T772759d8ceb4b92c-M0a7f65af0074692342000bab
Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription

Reply via email to