From: richard@biblewheel.com
Date: Tue Jul 08 2003 - 13:13:40 EDT
>From post http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200307/0143.html
Glen wrote:
>One can't avoid occasionally creating a dog's breakfast (a UK slang term).
I'm right with you there Glen. I'm glad to say you handled it very well.
But I'm sorry to say that if we are going to have any further indepth conversation, I must ask that you be more careful with what you write. It has taken me about two hours to analyse your post so I could give a responsible answer.
I had written that
>I could have just as well
>quoted your own post Glen! Deutsch cites exactly the same argument
>I made, namely that the invention of the Quantum Computer would
>merely be an application of the Quantum Mechanics and would not
>add anything new to the evidence for or against MWH.
To which you replied:
>Actually I disagree. he didn't say the same thing you did at all. You said MWH was untestable. Deutsch is saying it is testable.
OK - let me lay this out with clarity (QC = Quantum Computer):
1) I said that a QC would not prove MWH because the QC would merely be an application of existing QM equations.
2) I quoted you quoting Deutsch who said that QC was not necessary to prove MWH because the QC would merely be an application of existing QM equations.
Please specify exactly how Deutsch "didn't say the same thing" in the SPECIFIC QUOTE that I cited.
You statement that "he didn't say the same thing you did at all" is a complete misapplication of my words. Of course he didn't say the same thing as you put it -that would be painfully absurd! I did not and never would suggest anything like what you addressed. This is very confused and convoluted way to argue and wastes hours of my time and energy as I try to find a way to answer you clearly. It also makes the whole discussion opaque to those attempting to following it.
Now I can understand how you might fall into such confusion. Deutsch's argument is fundamentally inconsistent and flawed. He merely asserts what you think he proves. Read that again. Deutsch merely asserts what you think he proves.
He begins with ASSUMPTION that every quantum possibility represented by the wave function must be "acted out" by a real particle. This assumption may be equivalent to the MWH, though I'm not sure yet. He then shows that there are lots and lots of things that must be "acted out" so if we could make a QC, the fact that it works would prove his assumption. This is, of course, a fatally flawed argument. At best it would be a proof of MWH _given_ his assumption, but in now way does it prove his assumption!
He then backs off the QC and says that QM is sufficient to prove his point since QM implies the QC.
He could just as well never mentioned the QC at all. It is one huge smokescreen obscuring the assumption underlying his argument.
His whole argument fails on one fundamental point. It is an INTERPRETATION of QM. It makes NO PREDICTIONS that differ from QM because it is nothing but and INTERPRETATION of QM.
That is why I quoted Deutsch admitting that the QC was unnecssary to prove anything.
This is the fundamental inconsistency of Deutsch's argument. He admits that his INTERPRETATION makes no predictions that differ from QM.
Now there are people who say the MWH can be tested, but I didn't see Deutsch doing that in the quotes you provided.
Now let us review the errors in the philosophical approach made by the MWH enthusiasts.
You said:
>No, I did read this. What you fail to recall is something I said in an earlier note. I noted that calculations require the manipulation of particles. There is also something that most apologists who speak on information miss as well. Information lies in the physical arrangement of matter. There is no way to have information without having it attached to matter.
I did recall it. I didn't address it because the depth of its error was too deep to be easily expounded upon. But now I see it is necessary. I will pass by the obvious problems associated with the information God had before He created matter and the problem of human souls having "no information" when they are not embodied, and the fact that this whole issue is just another take on the old Mind/Body problem, and move on to the crux of the problem from the quantum mechanical point of view.
The fundmantal error lies in the assertinon: "I noted that calculations require the manipulation of particles." This is not true at all. The QC calculation requires nothing but the manipulation of a Quantum system, which can be visualized by small brained humans (like me) in terms of strange entities that are sometimes like waves and sometimes like particles. The REAL MATTER that is being manipulated could be (and probably is) unlike any "particle" you could possibly imagine.
This HUGE error arises from the SEMICLASSICAL approach that characterizes the work of the MWH enthusiasts. To a man, they seem utterly unfamilar with the foundations of QM which I studied in all its gorey detail in my efforts to dig to the center of the problem of Irrevesibility in QM, (the ropic of my incompleted PhD thesis).
Are you keeping the philospohic prejudices of these cosmologists in mind when you read their arguments? If not, you will find yourself swallowing their worldview unawares. Whether they are rank materialists or not, I don't know, but I do know that their arguments are founded solidly in the materialist philosophy. This then manifests in statements like:
>So, you didn't understand the import of what Deutsch was saying. When he started with the statement of the number of particles in the known universe, it was for a reason. It is because information is physical.
Information is physical? Really? So how much mass is associated with information? The answer is ZERO. How much mass did God need to store His Omniscience?
But this is not even the issue. Information could be physical and obey QM, but that doesn't mean that Deutsch assumption is true.
Well, that's enough of that. I hope you appreciate how deep these waters really are. The MWH arguments simply do not do justice to the profundity of the issues at hand.
In service of He Who walks on water,
Richard A. McGough
Discover the sevenfold symmetric perfection of the Holy Bible at http://www.BibleWheel.com
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