7 ms·
> essentially god's programming language That metaphor seems to confuse people more than it clarifies. Did you perhaps mean "nature's programming language"?
by jonny_eh 8y ago
> essentially god's programming language
That metaphor seems to confuse people more than it clarifies. Did you perhaps mean "nature's programming language"?
- pluto9 8y agoWhat's confusing about it?
- redmaple 8y agothat there is no God. Hail Satan!
- stochastic_monk 8y agoWhat is a deity from the perspective of quantum computing? It seems to be forcing one’s own opinions on essentially an imagined character.
- zaarn 8y agoA debugger. It can change state arbitrarily, introspect all the data and step forward in execution.
- squirrelicus 8y agoAll abstraction is imagined. When someone uses the word God in this context, it's obvious the abstraction is about the root forces that cause reality to manifest. There is no controversy here.
- Retra 8y agoIf there is no controversy, then there is nothing being said.
- coldtea 8y agoThat's controversial. If there's no controversy, you can still say tautologies :-)
- squirrelicus 8y agoWat We can say things that aren't disagreements. We can even disagree without controversy.
- smhost 8y agoClearly, the controversy is about whether reality needs a cause in order to manifest.
- coldtea 8y agoWhy wouldn't it? Everything else does...
- smhost 8y agoWhy would it? "Everything else" may behave the way it does because it's embedded within reality. But reality in itself isn't "in" anything, so it may or may not have the same properties as ordinary objects. So it may or may not be legitimate to carry out that final inductive step. Who knows. Who cares.
- coldtea 8y agoReality though consists of many tons of "everything else".
- smhost 8y agoBut in order to carry out the final inductive step, you have to invoke something outside of nature that causes nature to exist. And the problem is that we don't even know whether reason can be applied to things outside of nature. I mean, our rules of reasoning about objects realiably break down when we try to apply induction to objects even at the fringes of our ability to observe. What makes you so sure that we can reach the supernatural realm with reason?
- coldtea 8y ago>But in order to carry out the final inductive step, you have to invoke something outside of nature that causes nature to exist. And the problem is that we don't even know whether reason can be applied to things outside of nature. In terms of proof, we also don't know whether reason can be applied to things within nature -- it's still depending on axioms. But we still believe it to be true and to be applicable everywhere inside nature regardless of specific context, and I see no reason (pun intended) not to extend this belief even outside nature.
- pluto9 8y agoDo you ask that question when you hear Einstein's quote, "God doesn't play dice"? I suspect not, because everyone understands that it's a poetic way of expressing the belief that the universe isn't random. So why do you have such a pedantic and uncharitable interpretation of GP's comment, which obviously uses the word "God" in a similar way? You seem to be having a knee-jerk reaction to the word "God". Your personal preference for the most secular language possible is not a valid reason to pick apart GP's phrasing.
- stochastic_monk 8y agoFirst, he was wrong, and second, he said that in a very different culture. This isn’t the 1920s.
- pluto9 8y agoWow, this discussion is going nowhere fast. > First, he was wrong I agree. And that's completely and totally irrelevant. I have no idea why you even mention it. Obviously what matters is that his meaning is clear. > Second, he said that in a very different culture. This isn't the 1920s. So your objection to GP's phrasing, in spite of it being completely inoffensive and having a perfectly clear meaning, is "because it's $CURRENT_YEAR".
- akvadrako 8y agoTotally irrelevant but I wouldn’t agree Einstein was wrong. QM without collapse is actually a fully deterministic theory. And it makes sense that the universe doesn’t play dice - because there is no source of randomness available. It’s a functional language.
- pluto9 8y agoYes, I suppose saying Einstein was wrong is too strong. It's more correct to say there's no evidence (so far) that he was right. Quantum collapse certainly appears random, but if we eventually find a deterministic cause, Einstein will be vindicated. It's impossible to prove that a process is random. > there is no source of randomness available I think that's going beyond what we can be sure of. We have no evidence that there is randomness, be we also have no evidence that there isn't. QM may be fully deterministic if we disregard collapse, but as far as I'm aware, we can't do that. Collapse is still something we have to contend with given the current state of our knowledge.
- qubex 8y agoI’m an atheist and even I get what his meaning and am I unperturbed by his choice of terminology.
- repsilat 8y agoProbably, though it could also be a way to say "The language in which algorithms from 'The Book'[1] are written." It would be fun if quantum computing were equivalent to classical (less fun -- probabilistic) models with comparable complexity, just more intuitive. I guess lots of complexity conjectures can be phrased that way, though -- P vs NP for sure. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofs_from_THE_BOOK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofs_from_THE_BOOK
- Retra 8y agoThere isn't any compelling reason to favor one person's fiction over another's. We can invoke memetic references to magic mechanisms all day long and accomplish little.
- repsilat 8y agoErm, that's a little abstract for me, but I guess you're saying that aesthetic judgements of programs aren't worth much from a theoretical perspective? If so, I'd say, - It didn't really seem like anyone in the comment thread was trying to make a "compelling" argument for anything -- we're just chatting here. - If we were interested in that sort of thing, we might note that minimal program size is a good measure of language complexity/information, and that "algorithms from the book" and different models of computation that might make programs easier to write are both "objectively interesting" from an information-theoretic standpoint. EDIT: oh wait, I get it, you weren't being constructive, you just came here to make fun of a religion nobody was talking about. Never mind.
- kybernetikos 8y agoI think 'nature' would be confusing here, since we also use it for the concrete, manifest nature. As used here, and in many other phrasings, and by analogy with religon, 'god' is probably meant to be the principles and forces underlying manifest nature.
- akvadrako 8y agoAnd if nature was a programmer, I don’t see how that’s different from god.
- qubex 8y agoIn your paradigm ”nature” is what ”god” ”programmed” with his ”quantum language”.
- akvadrako 8y agoNot really. I think nature = universe = god. Again, a bit speculative.
- PinkMilkshake 8y agoDeepak Chopra, is that you?
- extralego 8y agoI’d assert that nature == universe == god is an incredibly sober rationalization. As a literary interpretation, it’s acute.
- jonnybgood 8y agoMore like Baruch Spinoza: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza
- 8y ago
- QML 8y agoPerhaps they meant it in the sense that the Higgs Boson particle is sometimes referenced as the “god” particle. It works in the comparison that quantum computing often sensationalized by media.