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"the entire timeline leading up to turning on a quantum computer is also part of the computation" why?

• naasking 10y ago
  Because the computation is just physics too. It's the particles of your brain that moved your hands that typed the program into the computer that will eventually compute the final result by what appears to be a quantum phenomenon localised in space-time, but that really stretches back infinitely.
  • uryga 10y ago
    "just physics", "stretches back infinitely" I feel like You could say this about, well, anything. Afaik, you could take any event and trace its causes all the way back to the Big Bang. But that seems a bit... impractical? Why would we do this with a quantum computer? Am I missing/misunderstanding something?
    • naasking 10y ago
      You're not "doing" anything with a quantum computer. That's just the reality of quantum computation in this conceptual framework. And no, you can't say that about anything. In particular, you can't say that about non-deterministic interpretations of QM (most of them) because causal chains can only be traced back to the most recent non-deterministic event. In fact, pilot wave theories are among the only deterministic interpretations of QM.