Re: [Fis] QI-session: concluding remarks
Dear Andrei and colleagues, I think we together have found out that the realist's and anti-realist's systems are both plain believe systems. If you plead for either of them you are bound to embrace realism or anti-realism by personal belief since science cannot in principle device an experimental procedure to come to such a decision in that matter. In that respect it sounds that also this very controversy is undecidable - but not so. What we have missed evidently is to emphasize that a mature science cannot house answers to questions that are undecidable without degenerating to a framework of plain speculations. Since the realist/antirealist controversy is undecidable the very question "Is reality real?" unfortunately juxtaposes to another famous question "Is there a God?" and both must by necessity be answered by reference to subjective belief - even if consensual (i.e., that the majority believes in a real reality or a God). A mature science, however, must be able to forcefully reject undecidable questions - but today's science does not! This very point has passed almost unnoticed. Most literature on philosophy is lousy with questions that are undecidable - however this does not seem to prevent the author to present answers - on the contrary - they generally supply answers en masse. However in this situation any answer is as bad a candidate as another - since the mistake is to try to provide an answer to an undecidable question. This has little to do with philosophy. The problem lies in the fundamental assumptions underlying science. Since the real/unreal question is undecidable a real/unreal distinction is strictly forbidden and therefore also the ordinary outside/inside distinction as made by the cognitive sciences. One of the fundamental definitions of classical science is that there is a real (and furthermore unary) world that is well separated from human knowledge - and here the mentioned forbidden distinction deceitfully appears. If we accept this misleading situation we can discuss the real/illusory question for centuries (as mankind already have done) but no answer will come out because there simply is none. To my mind the now almost closed FIS discussion was just another iteration of this fruitless discourse - unfortunately. A physicist would never dare to use an instrument he doesn't understand - however the very same physicist can without precautions make use of his perceptual instrument without even a rudimentary understanding of its function. Isn't it strange? The clue to the present confused situation of science is to ask how it is possible for an observer to make a model of any phenomenon - if he has not a model of its own mind at his disposal, exactly in the same way we require a model of an instrument to understand its function. The realist's dilemma was an attempt to highlight this very situation, but unfortunately nobody tried an answer or even challenged the dilemma as formulated. An observer lacking of a model of its own perception cannot model anything else but its own experience - exactly in the same way a physicist using an unknown instrument cannot make sound decisions. This very conclusion disqualifies the scientific observer to make certain inference - and also to use the celebrated experimental methodology as a crisp decision tool. In this situation we must resort to human consensus and a science based on social constructs. When the real/unreal distinction is forbidden also the real/mental distinction is forbidden and useless as well, as R. Rorty clearly points out in his book The Mirror of Nature. However the problem here is not to decide as to whether the world is real or not - what is required is to understand that this very question is undecidable by experimental means and should not be asked at all for that reason. This is a point of view I have been arguing for - evidently in vain. This finding only invalidate experiment as a decision tool - and what is left then is to make a personal decision on that matter (formulate a belief). This is also science - but not classical science based on the outcome of physical experiments but rather a science based on human consensus. Returning to the fundaments of science we can of course ad hoc define two different domains; one real and another mental and then keep yourself busy the whole life debating this question - and this debate has been on the agenda since the dawn of science. No surprise since it is undecidable within the classical framework. This is why science must abort undecidable questions from its discourse. Not only the real/unreal question - but a row of other questions like e.g.: "What is matter?" By the way what kind of an answer do we expect? The real/unreal controversy (not the question) is solved when we start evaluate what sort of questions we are allowed to pose to the models we make use of in science. In future though we cannot
Re: [Fis] QI-session: concluding remarks
Dear Andrei and colleagues, Thanks a lot for your re-capping of the session. It is a very thoughtful perspective on information from the quantum side. My only comments would relate to your (partial) identification of models, reality, and mathematics. It sounds too strong to my hears. We have cut science from its human origins, and then we resort to very curious reification myths. How does the practice of science relate to our human nature? The tentative new branch of "neuromathematics" (it has already surfaced in past discussions) could throw interesting new light on the several fascinating topics around the necessarily "social" construction of human knowledge... I join your concerns when you state: I am trying to sell the idea that the whole quantum enterprise is about simplification of description of extremely complex physical phenomena. I developed models in that the quantum probabilistic model appears as a projection of more complex classical statistical model. Then I proceed: Wau! In such a case it seems that quantum probability theory and quantum information could be used everywhere where we could not provide the complete description of phenomena and we just try to create a simplified representation in complex Hilbert space. So one can apply quantum information theory everywhere, from financial mathematics to genetics. Months ago, when discussing on biomolecular networks, I argued that rather than a classical "state" the central info construct of the living cell should be the "cycle", then implying the advancement of a "phase" (recapitulating and somehow making continuous the classical biomolecular views of Start, Gap1, Mitosis, Gap2 as discrete phases of the cell cycle) maintaining at the same time a continuous adaptation of the inner molecular population to the environmental demands. These biological sentences may sound very different from quantum statements, but I do not think so. My opinion is that the the living cell and other genuine "informational" entities share a fundamental "adaptability" problem, having to fit with with limited processing resources to an open ended environment, and then having to tune their production-degradation engines to cope with both their own phase in the cycle and their external happenstance. Michael Conrad produced great stuff on formal quantum-inspired approaches to ecological adaptability (see Kevin Kirby in this list too). And it could be done for aspects of nervous systems and economic life too... Unfortunately a Gordian knot of themes appears: sensibility, robustness, networking, fitness-value-meaning, adaptability, evolvability (to mention but a few). The future will tell whether we are able to trascend formal analogies between realms and achieve a new, more catholic approach to information --none of the current approaches has achieved a breakthrough yet, so the need for our exchange of views! I also think that recent developments in string theory are a good help --and quite inspiring-- for our problems. See Leonard Suskind, with his "Landscape" approach (The Cosmic Landscape, 2005). Breaking the continuous at the Planck scale means also a new hint on "where" we can situate fundamental laws of nature "physically" --a question not responded yet in the discussion, for my taste. Thanking your inspiring comments, Pedro ___ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] QI-session: concluding remarks
Dear Collegues! During summer holidays we were involved in interesting debates on Quantum and Classical Information Theories (which were tarnsformed finally into a deep discussion on meaning of informartion and its reality). I would like to present some concluding remarks. After this I propose that everybody who is interested can send his own concluding remarks and after that (may be in one--two weeks) session will be closed. I recall my viewpoint: We all work with models of reality. We cannot <>, but only describe it by using this or that model. The most advanced way of modeling of reality is mathematical modeling. Sometimes reality is even identified with a mathematical model. This happened with the modern picture of space-time reality which is based on using of real continuum. I pointed out that there were attempts to propose alternative models of reality even for space-time, e.g., p-adic models. There are two main mathematical models of information: a). Classical thermodynamical model in that information is defined from entropy and the latter is based on the Kolmogorov measure-theoretic definition of probability. b). Quantum information model in that information is defined by using linear algebra (operator theory). Mathematical structures of models are different. In particular, QI is noncommutative theory. The natural question arises: <> The conventional point of view is that there are two extremely different domains of physics, quantum and classical. The first one is about microworld and the second is about macroworld. This is the Copenhagen viewpoint: there are microscopic systems and macroscopic observers. It induces many problems and paradoxes, but nevertheless it is convenient in applications and it dominates in physics. One of the main problems is the boundary between the quantum and classical domains. In the quantum domain a system can be in a superposition of a few different states. This is precisely why quantum computers should work quicker than classical ones. In classical it could not. For example, as was pointed by Roger Penrose, a single neuron could not be at the same time in the superposition of two states: firing and nonfiring. The famous Schrodinger cat was created by Schrrodinger to show absurdness of Copenhagen interpretation. This example was proposed in his letter to Einstein and it was a modification of an example from one of Einsteins letters about pistolet and bomb. The main idea was that if one assumes superposition of states for microscopic systems one would be always able to lift this superposition to macroscopic systems. My point was that two information theories are based on two probability theories: classical Kolmogorov measure-theoretic probability and quantum von Neumann Hilbert space probability. In the second case we operate not directly with probabilities but with complex probability amplitudes. Some people think that quantum probability is more complicated than the classical one. I do not think so. Theory of Lebesgues integral is essentially deeper and more complicated from the mathematical viewpoint than linear algebra, especially in finite dimensional spaces which are used in quantum information theory. I am trying to sell the idea that the whole quantum enterprise is about simplification of description of extremely complex physical phenomena. I developed models in that the quantum probabilistic model appears as a projection of more complex classical statistical model. Then I proceed: Wau! In such a case it seems that quantum probability theory and quantum information could be used everywhere where we could not provide the complete description of phenomena and we just try to create a simplified representation in complex Hilbert space. So one can apply quantum information theory everywhere, from financial mathematics to genetics. Finally, about the last part of discussion about reality of information. I understood that my rather restricted philosophic basis was not sufficient to debate this problem on the same level as opponents of non--reality of information. But I stay on my position: information is not less real than mass or charge. I agree with Søren Brier that the main problem is that in modern science information is always reduced to probability: <> There should be done something cardinally new... I would like to thank all participants of out discussion. References: Khrennikov A.Yu. ,p-adic valued distributions and their applications to the mathematical physics, Kluwer, Dordreht, 1994. Khrennikov A.Yu., Information dynamics in cognitive, psychological, social, and anomalous phenomena.Kluwer, Dordreht,2004. Proceedings of Conference Quantum Theory: Reconsideration of Foundations-3, American Institute of Physics, Ser. Conference Proceedings, Melville, NY, 2006. A. Yu. Khrennikov, The principle of supplementarity: A contextual probabilistic viewpoint to complementarity, the interference of probabilities, and t
