Xref: utzoo comp.ai:2291 sci.physics:4513 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!cs.tcd.ie!tcdmath!mike From: mike@maths.tcd.ie (Michael Rogers) Newsgroups: comp.ai,sci.physics Subject: ( Originally re Turing machines) AKA For whom the Bell tolls. Message-ID: <48@maths.tcd.ie> Date: 23 Sep 88 22:19:51 GMT Reply-To: mike@maths.tcd.ie (Michael Rogers) Organization: Maths Dept., Trinity College, Dublin Lines: 29 In <29891@bbn.COM> mesard@bbn.com states: > seem--to the uninformed eye--random and unpredictable. But given the > proper information [note I don't say observational powers and thus avoid > the Uncertainty Principle], one can exactly predict the paths that the > ball will take. > but the principle is still the same. We may never have enough > information to exactly predict events in the universe, or even a > reasonable subregion thereof. But the inability to make the exact > calculation doesn't mean that the universe isn't exactly, completely > deterministic. This seems to me to be flagrantly illogical. *How* can one obtain the proper information without using one's observational powers? Forgive me restating, but I am worried that I am missing some extremely simple point, probably due to this late hour of the night :-) *If* one can't predict events in a subregion, and will never be able to, and will get paradox's if one trys, then *how* can the Universe be thus deterministic. One would need to have ( shudder ) hidden variables. But then in comes Bell's wonderful theorem. There may indeed be hidden variables, but they are as well hid as the luminiferous aether or the Central Fire. I shall have to sleep over this. -- Mike Rogers, ...!{seismo,ihnp4,decvax}!mcvax!ukc!tcdmath!mike 39.16 Trinity College, Dublin University, ...staccato signals of constant information... Dublin 2, Ireland. Simon.