4 ms·

I'm claiming that to measure the salmon population well enough to predict earthquakes, you would have to violate the uncertainty principle.

• kragen 11y ago
  Now that sounds like pure science fiction — specifically, the kind of technobabble that serves as filler in Star Trek scripts and New Age scam artist patter. "Captain! We can't measure the salmon population because the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is overwhelming the medium-range laser scanner array!"
  • powera 11y ago
    ... are you seriously claiming that you theoretically could predict earthquakes based solely on the salmon population? I'm not sure it's worth arguing with you either way.
    • kragen 11y ago
      No, I'm seriously claiming that you have no idea whether you theoretically could predict earthquakes based solely on the salmon population. We don't have a good theory that bears on the question. We know we can't imagine how you could practically make such a prediction, but the only relevant theory that we have is the theory of inductive inference founded by Solomonoff in the 1960s, which is very far indeed from ruling out such predictions. And you making up bullshit about Heisenberg doesn't get us any closer.
      • powera 11y ago
        I'm claiming I do have an idea. Let's say you have a model that will predict earthquakes based on the number of salmon. I take that model, I see what will happen if I kill or don't kill a salmon, and how that impacts the earthquake. Then I kill or don't kill a salmon. Am I now causing an earthquake? If I am, am I changing the time of the earthquake by an amount that we can actually measure?
• contravariant 11y ago
  You're saying the salmon population isn't in a single eigenspace of it's number operator?!