Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!harpo!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!speaker From: speaker@umcp-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Quantum mechanics and free will... - (nf) Message-ID: <5921@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 14-Mar-84 18:16:12 EST Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.5921 Posted: Wed Mar 14 18:16:12 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 15-Mar-84 07:19:29 EST References: <2739@fortune.UUCP> Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 73 "STABLE computing environment"? Maybe you misunderstood or I wasn't clear enough. The uncertainty problem with synchronizers is NOT a matter of bad design, it is inherent in ANY digital system that must communicate with an "outside" (asynchronous) world. I didn't say it WAS bad design! My point was that the functionality of a computer is totally deterministic, because the underlying software is deterministic. I specified a STABLE computing envronment to exclude this hardware-oriented random-crash stuff. Computing devices (in their cleanest sense) DO NOT rely on randomness. There is no way (even theoretically) to avoid it. Turing machines are clearly deterministic and do not rely on randomness for their operation. You'll also have a hard time convincing us that a DFA (a computing model) is in anyway non-deterministic. Not only devices on paper... but devices that function in everday life. You will NOT find a synchroninzer in the definition of the Turing Machine. Nor will you find a synchronizer in a cash register. You claim that ALL digital devices rely on randomness, but does your hand (the first digital computer) rely on randomness or synchronizers? Of course not... because the implementation is far above the quantum level. "making random decisions...hot tea on the CPU". The problem is not that a "random" decision gets made. A random decision could be tolerated and is in fact expected (that's why the synchronizer is there). It's that NO decisions (or sometimes MULTIPLE "decisions") get made, and the logic then does any number of non-deterministic things, like execute NO code, multiple codes, mixtures of codes, or worse. The microscopic quantum effects can and do cause macroscopic system crashes. No, no, no... my point is that functional decisions cannot be made by introducing randomness into the implementation (e.i. hardware). As far as human thought goes, again I am not talking about "random", but "non-deterministic" (which is why I mentioned the "S. Cat"). Since neurons are subject to the same problems as any other synchronizers, no matter how complete our model of the brain becomes, we will not be able to predict its behaviour completely, since the completeness of our model is in fact limited by quantum effects. Such effects ARE significant at the macro level wherever binary decisions (neuron firings) are made from either asynchronous digital inputs (other neurons) or analog inputs (perceptions, hormone levels, sugar level, etc.). This says that neurons (and other objects) will display non-deterministic behavior because they are subject to non-deterministic quantum events. That's like saying the cannon-ball will "fall up" once every thousand years or so. Neurons are not similar to semiconductor devices since the behavior of semiconductors is more dependent upon the atomic structure of the semiconductor. You might very well expect to see some aggregate effects in this kind of crystal. Neurons involve more complex chemical reactions... not processes related only to the atomic structure of the material. Small-scale quantum effects will probably be totally overshadowed by the larger chemical reactions. Besides... I AGREED with you on that point (assuming that neurons DO fire non-deterministically). -- Debbie does Daleks - Speaker