From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Tue Jul 08 2003 - 07:25:17 EDT
Hi Don, Your use of gut feel was different than below. A gut feel in
science leads to insight after which the person goes and uses scientific
methodology to say why the gut feel is correct or incorrect. One doesn't
simply leave it there.
I have spent a lifetime fighting mistaken scientific ideas of YECs. The one
thing they do with a high degree of probability is that when one goes to the
work to put out data, evidence and carefully reasoned argumentation, they
simply turn and say, "I don't believe it". No reason is given other than
that they have faith. Frankly the thing that got me about your 'gut feel'
was that it simply didn't address the argument at all. It simply said, I
don't believe it.
Now that is your right, but one can't claim that it is a very reasoned line
of argumentation. If there is something wrong with Deutsch, I would like to
hear it. But gut feels don't further that goal very much. And what I know
about computing tells me (my gut feel if you will but with a lline of logic)
that Deutsch is onto something.
Fact: information is a property of matter. You simply can't point to
disembodied information.
Fact: computation processes information.
Fact: this requires the manipulation of particles. One simply can't point to
disembodied calculation either. that is, calculations which don't use
matter. (or matter-energy)
Conclusion. If we perform a calculation using more than the particles in our
Hubble volume, in a time shorter than the age of the universe, where are
those calculations being done? Particles had to be manipulated but there
aren't enough of them. It seems to me that if you want to avoid the MWH,
you have to answer that question. Do you have an answer?
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of Don Winterstein
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 4:01 AM
To: Asa; Glenn Morton
Subject: Re: MWH experimental test
Glenn Morton wrote:
>...'Gut feels' are
irrelevant in science....
Albert Einstein would disagree most vehemently. His essays on science are
replete with references to intuition and its role in leading scientists to
good theories and bypassing ones likely to be a waste of time. "Intuition"
is just a sophisticated word for "gut feel." By no stretch am I saying that
gut feels can't be wrong, but in fact they've always been important in
science. They're how scientists often get started on breakthroughs.
IMHO you're giving way too much credence to people who claim that this or
that single observation will prove the existence of MWs. Physics has come
up with lots of astonishing results, but the most astonishing claim ever has
to be this one asserting the existence of MWs. It's OK to entertain notions
of MWs, but no one should put faith in such astonishing claims without
extraordinarily good and straightforward evidence. Everything I've read
about that "MWH experimental test" suggests that, if the quantum computer
really works as expected, supporters are going to say, "How else could this
have happened except through MWs?" Well, "how else" questions always
explicitly beg the question; they never prove anything. If it comes to
that, sooner or later some bright theorist will tell us exactly how else.
That's my gut feeling. I'd never say "the test won't work." I will say
that, if the test works, the result probably won't mean what Deutsch says it
will mean.
If one could prove that a given outcome absolutely could not have happened
except through MWs, then that outcome would of course establish the
existence of MWs. Unfortunately science has never yet been able to come up
with that kind of absolute proof. It would require theory that is
absolutely true, and no such theory yet exists.
Therefore it's totally inappropriate at this stage IMO to get worked up
about this MWH experimental test, partly because the test is not testing for
MWs, it's testing someone's inference about MWs; and MWs are so astonishing
that we need better evidence for them than something purely inferential. To
accept such inferential evidence as hard proof would be to put far too much
confidence in the opinions of a few theorists.
Their inference may be unjustified, and I'm not obliged to say why it may
be (i.e., that's not my area of competence; and even if it were, I might not
be the best person to critique the inference), other than to point out that
human inferences are often mistaken. QM experiments have no track record in
establishing the existence of MWs. In other areas of physics we trust
predictions because of track record. I confidently expect particle
physicists to find the Higgs boson, because the standard model has been
extraordinarily successful in predicting the existence and properties of
real particles. I have no reason to think any quantum computer experiment
will establish the existence of MWs. In the first case there is a very
successful track record with lots of supporting evidence, in the second case
there is no track record and as of now no supporting evidence. In the first
case the expected results are far from astonishing, in the second case the
reality of MWs would be astonishing in the extreme and hence not believable
without truly exceptional evidence.
What if MWs become widely accepted as real among scientists even without
convincing proof? Well, the absence or irrelevance of God, without
convincing proof, is already widely accepted among scientists. We don't
have to follow the crowd. (The rest of the world wouldn't follow such
scientists either, as the existence of the flourishing YEC community
attests.) What we believe doesn't have to be what the majority of
scientists believes. Such majority can be dead wrong.
Don
----- Original Message -----
From: Glenn Morton
To: Asa
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2003 4:22 AM
Subject: RE: MWH experimental test
I never cease to be amazed that people ignore what is written. I present
a
means of testing MWH and this is the reaction:
Don wrote:
>Nothing they say is ever worth losing sleep over
>unless it can be directly tested, and my gut tells me no one is ever
going
>to figure out how to test directly for multiple worlds. So I regard
>discussions of MWs as a form of entertainment.
Richard wrote:
>But seriously folks ... the argument that quantum computers require
"real"
>resources in alternate universes seems to be an empty and untestable
claim.
This is not serious scientific discussion or even criticism. 'Gut feels'
are
irrelevant in science, and ignoring suggestions which have passed peer
review and been published (for which I gave entre to the literature in
the
post) seems to be hiding one's head. Calling it mere entertainment is
reminiscent of Copernicus putting in his book that his view was merely a
calculating technique. Once again, I would challenge both of you to take
on
Deutsch's claim which I believe is in "Quantum Theory, the Church-Turing
Principle and the Universal Quantum Computer,' Proceedings of the Royal
Society of London A 400(1985), pp 97-117, and then get your
refutations
published. It is a cheap out to claim that this idea is wrong when you
are
unwilling to do the work to show why it is wrong and get it published.
Without a doubt one might find something wrong with Deutsch's test, but
just
saying a 'gut feel' or claiming that it is untestable, seems highly
unscientific. The scientific thing is to explain exactly why that test
won't
work. If you actually read what I quoted from Brown's book the
experiment
gives a different result for the 2 different views of quantum. That
means it
is TESTABLE. Deutsch's article does have the computer world thinking
about
these things. And regardless of whether or not we christians want to
deal
with the implications, theologically, they are there.
1. IF MWH, then hell is full of an infinity of unsaved vs the 1 saved
individual. It means that God saves everybody with a plan to condemn
the
vast, vast majority to hell.
2. Why evangelize. This is the same issue one runs into with
predestination.
If you are predestined, what is the point. the problem, in my view
becomes
more accute under MWH
3. If MWH, then is that the best way God can ensure what happens in the
future?
4. There must be universes where God's predictions fail, i.e. where
Jesus
didn't come.
5. Are there universes where Jesus married?
6. Are there universes where Jesus sinned?
7. Would such a situation falsify christianity?
There are lots of theological implications. And claims that this can't
be
tested, in spite of my pointing you to where the idea is published,
seems to
imply that evidence and data don't count here, just gut feel and claims.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue Jul 08 2003 - 07:26:43 EDT