From: lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: 02/alt.atheism fre <cont>
Date: 24 Jul 92 01:36:48 GMT
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.

In article <1992Jul23.144943.29299@tamsun.tamu.edu> wrr3118@tamsun.tamu.edu (Rick Russell) writes:
>Sorry to 'jump in' on a thread like this, but this really gets my
>goat:
>
>In article <1992Jul23.035909.15984@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard) writes:
>>I suspect it will turn out that Einstein was largely correct. Quantum
>>mechanics is seriously flawed. Unfortunitly most quantum people brush off
>>the problems with a theory of the universe where each particle requires
>>absurd amounts of computing power. I see no reason to believe that
>>the universe contains some monstrously huge hidden computer, by monstrously
>>huge I mean each particle requires trillions of trillions of ... more
>>computing power than that available "inside" the universe.
>
>As one of those 'quantum people', I have to say that this paragraph
>makes no sense to me whatsoever. Computing power? What? 

Is computing power and information storage capacity not a limited physical
quantity?

>I know that a
>lot of people have philosophical objections to the mathematical
>formalism of quantum and high-energy physics, and some of those
>objections (e.g. those of Roger Penrose) are quite well-formulated.

The EPR experment is closer to my objections, however you don't
even need to go that far. The fact that the interaction of two
particles cannot be simulated (accurately) with finite computing
power is problematic.

>On the other hand, your objections sound like voodoo.

No quantum mechanics with its limitless hidden computing power sounds
like voodoo :)

>>I expect to see a theory that makes the same predictions as quantum 
>>mechanics, but does so with only the computing power available to the
>>system in question, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if its deterministic
>>(but maybe so chaotic that determinism is meaningless).
>
>What's really relevant here is that QM describes behaviour which is
>totally alien to the normal human experience. 

But quantum mechanics still obeys the conservation laws of classical
physics. 

>Does a human doing sit
>ups find him/herself restricted to n positions? Do billard balls
>collide and turn into different billiard balls? No. But subatomic
>particles are subject to this very strange behaviour, and very few
>people are willing to accept (at least outside of the knowledgeable
>science community) that things on the order of 10^-10 meters in size
>actually behave differently than things in the macroscopic world. 

I have no problem with this, infact the problem I have with quantum
mechanics is that it doesn't take this far enough. A person sitting
up restricted to n positions can have there position represented
in log2(n) bits. 
Classical physics fails even more quickly than quantum mechanics does,
because classical physics says we can obtain infinite computing power
and information storage capacity. Quantum mechanics solves half the
problem, by placing limits on these quantities.

>I
>can't figure out why; the physical evidence is abundant.

Doesn't the idea of a universe that cannot be simulated bother you?
An unsimulatable universe would imply that there is some hidden
magic in the universe thats outside the laws of math as we know
them. I'd sooner believe in God than I would believe in that.

Quantum mechanics is often like religion, urging its followers
not to question the faith. Look at what the discoverer of the
wave equation said about biology, he denied the possibility of
self duplicating life within the current laws of physics (sounds
alot like Penroses new book...). Great humans are still human
and fallible.

While quantum mechanics works I'm not going to dismiss the problems
on faith, Einstein was right to be bothered by it.
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