Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site fortune.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!fortune!rpw3 From: rpw3@fortune.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Quantum mechanics and free will... - (nf) Message-ID: <2739@fortune.UUCP> Date: Sun, 11-Mar-84 04:06:24 EST Article-I.D.: fortune.2739 Posted: Sun Mar 11 04:06:24 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 12-Mar-84 04:56:41 EST Sender: notes@fortune.UUCP Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA Lines: 48 #R:umcp-cs:-571900:fortune:21900013:000:2194 fortune!rpw3 Mar 10 20:17:00 1984 Let's see: "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. There is no way (even theoretically) to avoid it. "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. 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.). As was so nicely pointed out in an editorial in Analog magazine (April 1984), the most one can ever hope for is a statistical description of likelihoods. The actual behaviour of an individual can only be discovered by examination (observation). ("O.k., cat, time to open the box!") (This article goes into considerable detail on the appropriate and inappropriate use of statistical techniques when dealing with humans. While most of the article is concerned with classical mechanics [human populations vs. "ideal gases"], the author does touch on the question of quantum effects towards the end.) Rob Warnock UUCP: {sri-unix,amd70,hpda,harpo,ihnp4,allegra}!fortune!rpw3 DDD: (415)595-8444 USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065