Re: Newbie Questions

2009-01-21 Thread Michael Gough
Getting back to the original question: Are ALL quantum variations explored?

So let me ask some more basic questions:

How many distinct choices of new state does a particle, say an electron,
have at each time quanta?

Let's call that number X.

In an admittedly over-simplified universe of two particles, the number of
new universe states at the next time quanta is X^2, right?

In a universe with Y particles, the number of new states that arise from a
given previous state at each time quanta is X^Y, right?

And due to quantum interference, certain states are less common, and other
states are more common.

I realize that these are very elementary questions. I'm just trying to get
my bearings here.

The thing that is simply inconceivable to me is that this bizarre explosive
growth is an explosion of *information.* The multiverse seems to have an
unlimited capacity to generate and store these new universe states, and also
an unlimited capacity to compare all of these universe states to each other
in order to produce the quantum interference we observe.

The thing I like about the theory is that it certainly takes the dice out of
God's hands. Since all states are exhaustively explored, there is no
randomness at all. We just happen to exist in some portions of the immense
tree of states, and not in other portions.

--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)

2009-01-21 Thread Kim Jones


On 22/01/2009, at 3:50 AM, Günther Greindl wrote:

>
> Kim,
>
>> the uncomputability of this issue. Why should the mind be limited  
>> to the
>> computable? Clearly it is not.
>
> So you deny Step 1 again? You say no to the doctor?


In fact I have 'multiple personality disorder' - from Thursday to  
Monday I say 'Yes' to the doctor, on Tuesday and Wednesday I am no  
longer the same personality because my medications have run out ;-)

Well, it's Thursday here now and I have a fresh supply of anxiety- 
suppression pills, so I'm off to see the Doctor again!! He's talking  
about this scary Step 7 and I am starting to get sweaty palms, so in a  
fit of madness I reached into the bookshelf and drew out a Penrose  
volume which seemed to suggest I might do better to have a cup of tea  
and a little sleep...
>
>
>
>> Could an AI conceive of Platonia?


>>
>
> Why not?



Well, this particular AI which calls itself Kim can conceive of it, so  
I guess all other AIs couldunless there is a special class of AI  
that can only conceive of computables?  Perhaps I should put "Road to  
Reality" back on the bookshelf for now!


Bring on the advanced Theology


loving it

K

>
>
> Cheers,
> Günther
>
> >


--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: QM Turing Universality

2009-01-21 Thread Mirek Dobsicek


> My question has perhaps no sense at all. Is there a notion of quantum  
> computation done without any measurement?

Quantum lambda calculus by Andre van Tonder does not containt measurement.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0307150v5

>From the abstract, he proves equivalence between his quantum lambda
calculus and quantum Turing machine (also without measurement). That's
all I know in this respect for the moment.


> Is there a purely unitary  
> transformation which "augment" the dimensionality of the initial  
> quantum machine. Does the notion of universal quantum dovetailing  
> makes sense.

I am not too familiar with the process of dovetailing, but I'm fine with
the general idea that there is program which systematically generates
every possible C/Lisp code and in between steps of this generation it
interprets parts of what is already generated.

Can you sketch how should one think about such dovetailing in terms of
classical logical gates, please?

> I don't find my Shi papers, but from what I remind, it gives some good  
> argument about the difficulty of redefining the halting problem  
> (halting in which universe? ...).

Good, your note about the halting problem helped to refine my google
search to the extend that I've found the Shi paper you are talking
about. Hereby, I also apologize to the authors of QTM Revisited paper,
their reference was correct.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0375-9601(02)00015-4

I'll read it.

Regards,
 mirek

--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: Materialism was:Re: KIM 2.3

2009-01-21 Thread Bruno Marchal


On 20 Jan 2009, at 05:22, Brent Meeker wrote:

>
> Günther Greindl wrote:
> 
>>
>> The question is, why the quantum (as Wheeler, I think, put it)?  
>> Bruno's
>> COMP gives a very elegant _explanation_.
>
> I agree it is elegant, but whether it can really explain the world  
> remains to be
> seen.


I am not proposing a new explanation. It is the contrary. I show that  
if we assume digital mechanism, more or less the current theory of  
mind, especially among materialist, then materialism not only fail on  
mind and consciousness (like I would say all experts know), but  
materialism stop to work for matter itself.
Iy is a theorem, in a venerable old theory.




>
>
>>
>> Also, with COMP, the mind-body problem indeed disappears. We have
>> computations within computations within computations. (And I think  
>> that
>> Bruno is correct when assuming that there is no _lowest_ level).
>
> But the problem reappears as the body-problem.  Why is materialism  
> so successful
> as a model of the world?


Probably because materialism provides an excellent approximation for  
most concerns.






>
>
>>
>> It needn't even be a pure idealism, but rather Russelian neutral  
>> monism
>> - some states more or less conscious - the degree of consciousness
>> depending on the degree of self-reflexivity (see for instance here  
>> for a
>> theory of consciousness which works well with COMP:
>> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-higher/)
>>
>>
>> Back to the ontological problem of the "grounding": materialism is in
>> essence the thesis that there is, at bottom, a "substance", which  
>> has no
>> independent properties, but serves as instantiator for other  
>> properties.
>
> It seems somewhat gratuitous to call this a "substance".  I'd say  
> materialism
> holds (on simple empirical grounds) that some things exist and some  
> don't.


? Computationalist or digital mechanist too. They assert that numbers  
bigger than two, even and prime does not exist, and that numbers with  
odd divisors exist.
If you meant "exist physically", then I can agree, yet I have to  
define "exist physically" in arithmetic if comp is assumed.



>
>
>
>> But why should such a strange thing exist?
>
> Why should some things exist and others not - because if everything  
> existed
> there would be no distinction between "exist" and "not-exist" (I  
> know that's a
> stilly argument, but it is similar to the kind of logic chopping I  
> sometimes see
> from the proponents of "everything exists").
>
>> Why not let the relations
>> stand for themselves? Especially for an MWI-theorist; if you only  
>> accept
>> a single world, matter does seem much more plausible - going through
>> diverse transformations, that being all there is, and located  
>> somewhere
>> in an otherwise empty spacetime or whatever - but those are all very
>> naive intuitions which modern physics has moved beyond (and all the  
>> more
>> so critical reflection on the results of modern physics).
>
> I think I'm as qualified to speak for modern physics as you and I  
> don't think it
> has "moved beyond".  MWI is attractive for several reasons, but it  
> is well short
> of Tegmarkia.
>
>>
>> A big question: why should there be such a thing as a lowest level, a
>> grounding? While for a materialist, the imagination of "turtles all  
>> the
>> way down" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
>> is quite strange, computations all the way down is very intuitive.  
>> Well,
>>  awe-inspiring intuitive ;-)) Think of the fractal video Bruno sent  
>> out
>> a little while ago.
>
> I think Tegmark grounded his "everything" by supposing that the  
> lowest level was
> uncomputable.



With comp, the 3-person ultimate everything is digital, or  
combinatorial, or arithmetical, or Diophantine. There are lower first  
order citizens; the digits, the combinators, the numbers, etc.

It is the first person realities, including the physics which are no  
no more grounded in the digital or the computable.





>
>
>>
>> What explanatory power does matter hold? None, I conjecture. Please  
>> give
>> at least one so we can discuss.
>
> Materialism has been very effective in not only explaining, but in  
> predicting
> things. That doesn't prove it's right, but I could ask what  
> explanatory power
> does "everything exists" hold.


Before seraching explanation we have to well understand the problem.  
With comp we have this problem: it predicts the observability of the  
many worlds, when we observe ourselves. And with current physics  
(quantum mechanic) we have this problem: we observe, albeit  
indirectly, many worlds, or superposition of histories.





>  Remember that a theory that could explain
> anything, fails to explain at all.


I agree.



>
>
> For myself, I find Bruno's theory very intriguing.  It is more  
> specific than
> Tegmark's


I have no theory, except a widely believed (but not understood)  
digital version of Milinda-Descartes' Mecha

Re: QM Turing Universality

2009-01-21 Thread Bruno Marchal


Hi Mirek,





>
> Please be more specific about what do you mean by a quantum counting
> algorithm. Sometimes I'm not too bright guy :-)


Really? Not here I think. The question *was* and *is* fuzzy.



>
>
> Is this what you mean?
> step 1\   |0>
> step 2\   |0> + |1>
> step 3\   |0> + |1> + |2>
> 
>

Interesting. Perhaps an electron climbing in some way the energy  
states at carefully chosen frequences?


>
> or (a classical machine operated by quantum means)
> step 1\   |0>
> step 2\   |1>
> step 3\   |2>
> 
>
> or something different :-)


My question has perhaps no sense at all. Is there a notion of quantum  
computation done without any measurement? Is there a purely unitary  
transformation which "augment" the dimensionality of the initial  
quantum machine. Does the notion of universal quantum dovetailing  
makes sense.
I don't find my Shi papers, but from what I remind, it gives some good  
argument about the difficulty of redefining the halting problem  
(halting in which universe? ...).
I have no problem with most quantum algorithm, but no clear idea of  
what really a quantum computation in general can be, despite I have  
few doubt it does really exploits superposed "physical  
realities" (assuming QM, that is the SWE).

Don't worry. Sometimes I'm not too bright guy too :-)

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: Newbie Questions

2009-01-21 Thread ronaldheld

I do not know that the ekpyrotic and cyclic  models reprodce the
observations better than the BB+inflation.
Yes, no one knows what the inflation field is, but no one has observed
a gluon or single quark either.
 I do not know what Penrose's argument is.Without the observable
Universe being in causal contact, it could not exhibit the smoothness
that we observe.
 Ronald

On Jan 21, 11:56 am, Günther Greindl 
wrote:
> Ronald,
>
> the "ad hoc" is because of the introduction of the inflatons which do
> nothing but, um, inflate...
>
> Stephen said:
> b) some sound explanation where given as
>
> > to how an in principle unknowable phenomenon - the BB singularity itself -
> > is any different from a Creative Deity, sans only the anthropomorphisms.
>
> ACK!
>
> It seems that Steinhardt's model also attempts to solve the problem, at
> least according to wikipedia:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_inflation#Alternatives_to_inflation
>
> BQuote
> The ekpyrotic and cyclic models are also considered competitors to
> inflation. These models solve the horizon problem through an expanding
> epoch well before the Big Bang, and then generate the required spectrum
> of primordial density perturbations during a contracting phase leading
> to a Big Crunch. The universe passes through the Big Crunch and emerges
> in a hot Big Bang phase. In this sense they are reminiscent of the
> oscillatory universe proposed by Richard Chace Tolman: however in
> Tolman's model the total age of the universe is necessarily finite,
> while in these models this is not necessarily so. Whether the correct
> spectrum of density fluctuations can be produced, and whether the
> universe can successfully navigate the Big Bang/Big Crunch transition,
> remains a topic of controversy and current research.
> EQuote
>
> But, as I've said, I haven't read any of the papers, so I dunno.
>
> Also, I'm not quite sure what to think of this whole Big Bang when
> adopting COMP - have to think about it yet...
>
> Cheers,
> Günther
--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: Materialism was:Re: KIM 2.3

2009-01-21 Thread Günther Greindl

Hi Brent,

> I didn't use the term - it is one being attributed to me simply because I 
> question the adequacy of logic and mathematics to instantiate physics.

That is ok - there are different versions of materialism/physicalism etc.

> I don't accept any such esoteric theories - I merely entertain them.

That is well put, I agree - as rational people we all hold tentatively,
we entertain - with "accept" I mean that it passes enough tests that it
can be entertained - versus other theories that are so unprobable that 
one does not have the time to concern oneself with them...(although one 
never knows ;-)

> But the problem reappears as the body-problem.  Why is materialism so 
> successful 
> as a model of the world?

No, the problem is of a quite different nature than the mind-body
problem. I would not call the white rabbit problem as a body problem.
Besides, materialism also faces this issue in an infinite universe if
you accept unification of mind states (remember the Bostrom paper?).

> It seems somewhat gratuitous to call this a "substance".  I'd say materialism 
> holds (on simple empirical grounds) that some things exist and some don't.

Hmm, that is too little I think to distinguish materialism from, say,
Pythagorean views or even Platonic views. Saying that "everything" 
exists does not quite capture what Everythingers believe.

Everything never means everything conceivable - but everything that is 
possible. What is possible, is, of course, the question.

> Why should some things exist and others not - because if everything existed 
> there would be no distinction between "exist" and "not-exist" 

With the restriction to "everything possible" (and not plain everything) 
exists, we still have to distinguish accessible regions. Or do you mean 
"can influence us causally" by exists? But then you would deny existence 
to parts outside the observable universe - which is of course dependent 
from where you look (Earth), so I think it is not a good criterion for 
existence.

But if we accept that "material" things exist which can never affect us 
causally, why not accept that there are other, mathematically even more 
remote entitities? Or, consider decoherence - here mathematically very 
similar branches are suddenly inaccessible.

>  I don't think it has "moved beyond".  MWI is attractive for several reasons, 
> but it is well short 
> of Tegmarkia.

Of course - what I mean that it has "moved beyond" is a lot of 
Absolutes: absolute space, absolute time etc - what remains are 
relations. And there _are_ defenders in philosophy of physics which 
retain some anthropomorphic Absolutes, but I think they are fighting a 
losing battle.

> I think Tegmark grounded his "everything" by supposing that the lowest level 
> was 
> uncomputable.

Ok thanks I missed that, will have to read the paper again.

> Materialism has been very effective in not only explaining, but in predicting 
> things. That doesn't prove it's right, but I could ask what explanatory power 
> does "everything exists" hold.  Remember that a theory that could explain 
> anything, fails to explain at all.

Indeed, and that is what makes materialism very enticing, but then the 
question immediately crops up: why this, and not something else? I think 
materialism would have a much better stance if one would find one set of 
equations which describes our universe (that is, of logical necessity), 
but it doesn't look likely.

And every contingent description leads to multiversal concepts.

Best Wishes,
Günther







--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: COMP, Quantum Logic and Gleason's Theorem

2009-01-21 Thread Bruno Marchal

Hi Günther,



> The paper is not online, but I found it in this book which is at our
> University Library, maybe interesting also for other people:
>
> Goldblatt, Mathematics of Modality
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Modality-Center-Language-Information/dp/1881526240/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232402154&sr=8-1
>
>
> (the book contains the full paper)


Not only that! It contains also his paper on the arithmetical  
intuitionist, alias the arithmetical knower, alias the universal first  
person, alias the arithmetical interpretation of Plotinus' third  
hypostase (the universal soul), alias the epistemical temporal  
arithmetical modal logic S4Grz (pronounce: S four Grzegorczyk). A key  
paper for the AUDA, except that Boolos found those results, on SAGrz  
about the same time, see the reference to Boolos in any of my theses.  
Or see the S4 chapters in the Boolos 1993, book or in the recent  
paperback reedition of Boolos 1979.

It is the logic of provable and true. It leads to a notion of person  
which the machine cannot named or define. The "arithmetical knower" is  
not arithmetical!


The book contains also a very interesting study of the Diodorean  
modality in the Minkowski Space-time, and a logical approach to  
Groethendieck topology.
Note that it is advanced stuff for people familiarized with  
mathematical logic (it presupposes Mendelson's book, or Boolos &  
Jeffrey).

Two papers in that book are "part" of AUDA: the UDA explain to the  
universal machine, and her opinion on the matter.

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/




--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: Newbie Questions

2009-01-21 Thread Günther Greindl

Ronald,

the "ad hoc" is because of the introduction of the inflatons which do 
nothing but, um, inflate...

Stephen said:
b) some sound explanation where given as
> to how an in principle unknowable phenomenon - the BB singularity itself - 
> is any different from a Creative Deity, sans only the anthropomorphisms.

ACK!


It seems that Steinhardt's model also attempts to solve the problem, at 
least according to wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_inflation#Alternatives_to_inflation

BQuote
The ekpyrotic and cyclic models are also considered competitors to 
inflation. These models solve the horizon problem through an expanding 
epoch well before the Big Bang, and then generate the required spectrum 
of primordial density perturbations during a contracting phase leading 
to a Big Crunch. The universe passes through the Big Crunch and emerges 
in a hot Big Bang phase. In this sense they are reminiscent of the 
oscillatory universe proposed by Richard Chace Tolman: however in 
Tolman's model the total age of the universe is necessarily finite, 
while in these models this is not necessarily so. Whether the correct 
spectrum of density fluctuations can be produced, and whether the 
universe can successfully navigate the Big Bang/Big Crunch transition, 
remains a topic of controversy and current research.
EQuote

But, as I've said, I haven't read any of the papers, so I dunno.

Also, I'm not quite sure what to think of this whole Big Bang when 
adopting COMP - have to think about it yet...

Cheers,
Günther

--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: KIM 2.3 (was Re: Time)

2009-01-21 Thread Günther Greindl

Kim,

> the uncomputability of this issue. Why should the mind be limited to the 
> computable? Clearly it is not. 

So you deny Step 1 again? You say no to the doctor?


>Could an AI conceive of Platonia? 

Why not?

Cheers,
Günther

--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---



Re: Newbie Questions

2009-01-21 Thread John Mikes
Hi, Stephen (after along time!),
it is about THE "after Big Bang" inflation .

I am a 'noninflationary' guy: IMO inflation was deemed necessary to cope
with the mathematical problems connected the Big Bang idea and applying the
present (here and now) system's math to it - at a system ENTIRELY different
from conditions we experience as the basis of such math.

In my 'narrative' ( don't call it theory) about "a" big bang origin (which I
accept in spite of my scond thoughts of the validity of the expansion) -
I assign the starting conditions and the applicability of early-universe
math
to the transition "no-space to space" from the a-spatial proto-Big Bang into
our space-time system. The transition from nonexisting (=zero) space into
"space" is indeed an (infinite?) inflationary change.
*
Same thing with 'time', wich would explain the marvels of the (infinitesimal
small fractions of the "FIRST" second): the transition of "NO TIME" into a
'time-system' - expressed in terms of physical quantization applied to the
Big Bang conditions.

I don't want to start an argument on this, I am not ready - it is a
narrative.

Have a good 2009

John Mikes
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 12:11 AM, Stephen Paul King
wrote:

>
> Hi Ronald,
>
>Some people, myself included, would be a lot more comfortable with the
> whole inflation idea if a) there where some experimental evidence of the
> scalar fields that are required and b) some sound explanation where given
> as
> to how an in principle unknowable phenomenon - the BB singularity itself -
> is any different from a Creative Deity, sans only the anthropomorphisms.
>R. Penrose, in his book Road to Reality,  brought up a very clear case
> that inflation does not solve the horizon problem when we consider causaly
> disjoint regions; has any one countered his arguement?
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Stephen
>
> - Original Message -
> From: "ronaldheld" 
> To: "Everything List" 
> Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 7:22 AM
> Subject: Re: Newbie Questions
>
>
>
> I do not see the Inflation paradigm as ad-hoc, for it explains the
> flatness, Horizon problem and lack of early universe relics better
> than any other to date. Now the Big Bang may be replaced by
> oscillating solutions from LQG or other theories, but AFAIK they still
> need an Inflation period.
>  Ronald
>
>
>
> >
>

--~--~-~--~~~---~--~~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~--~~~~--~~--~--~---