3 ms·

It's really not. There's no probability field (unless you count booleans as a scalar), no complex numbers, and no entanglement. It's just constraint propogatio

It's really not. There's no probability field (unless you count booleans as a scalar), no complex numbers, and no entanglement. It's just constraint propogation, optimized for certain conditions and given a fancy name. I guess you could call it a markov random field, but I don't think it does unbiased sampling.

doubleunplussed 8y ago
There kind of is entanglement though! You 'measure' one cell, and then all the other ones 'collapse' to values consistent with the result, because they have a hidden relationship with the cell you measured. That's what happens in quantum mechanics. When you measure one thing, all the other things its entangled with collapse somewhat too - but not necessarily completely, it depends on the entanglement they had with the measured system. It's a metaphor, I'm just saying it's very apt, not that it's mathematically equivalent.
gus_massa 8y ago
I agree. My main objection of the QM metaphor is that in QM you can have interference. For example in version more similar to QM if you have a 2x2 map like this 1) X ? 2) X Y 3) X ? 4) X Y ? ? ? ? Z ? Z ? The probability of some particular tile in the bottom right corner may be bigger in 2) and 3) because somehow Y and Z make this tile more probable, but perhaps in 4) the probability decrease. The trick is that you must calculate amplitudes, not probabilities. For example, Y may contribute an amplitude of .5 to the bottom right corner , and the probability is (.5)^2=.25. And Z may contribute an amplitude of -.3 to the bottom right corner , and the probability is (-.3)^2=.09. But when both are there the amplitudes must be added and the probability is (.5-.3)^2=.04. This is a case of destructive interference that reduces the probability of a particular tile when both are present, but if both have the same sign it can be a constructive interference and increase the probability of that tile. This type of interference is what produce the weird interference lines in the double slit experiment (and even in the single slit experiment). This project just add probabilities, without squaring the numbers, so it's more difficult to have quantum-like weird things. Anyway, I like the result very much. Nice project. Nice name.

doubleunplussed 8y ago

There kind of is entanglement though! You 'measure' one cell, and then all the other ones 'collapse' to values consistent with the result, because they have a hidden relationship with the cell you measured. That's what happens in quantum mechanics. When you measure one thing, all the other things its entangled with collapse somewhat too - but not necessarily completely, it depends on the entanglement they had with the measured system. It's a metaphor, I'm just saying it's very apt, not that it's mathematically equivalent.

gus_massa 8y ago

I agree. My main objection of the QM metaphor is that in QM you can have interference. For example in version more similar to QM if you have a 2x2 map like this 1) X ? 2) X Y 3) X ? 4) X Y ? ? ? ? Z ? Z ? The probability of some particular tile in the bottom right corner may be bigger in 2) and 3) because somehow Y and Z make this tile more probable, but perhaps in 4) the probability decrease. The trick is that you must calculate amplitudes, not probabilities. For example, Y may contribute an amplitude of .5 to the bottom right corner , and the probability is (.5)^2=.25. And Z may contribute an amplitude of -.3 to the bottom right corner , and the probability is (-.3)^2=.09. But when both are there the amplitudes must be added and the probability is (.5-.3)^2=.04. This is a case of destructive interference that reduces the probability of a particular tile when both are present, but if both have the same sign it can be a constructive interference and increase the probability of that tile. This type of interference is what produce the weird interference lines in the double slit experiment (and even in the single slit experiment). This project just add probabilities, without squaring the numbers, so it's more difficult to have quantum-like weird things. Anyway, I like the result very much. Nice project. Nice name.