Hello, here I step in.
Ideas, are abstract things.
Words, are simple representations of things.
Concepts are polished, unambiguous things.
Grammar is the glue and operator.
Semantics are the bricks.
We are repositories and builders.
Language is a serialization of ideas.

Btw. I am actually writing a book over those themes!.

Laura Patterson - Jan 5, 2012:

So if a quantum state is determined at the time of observation, then it would be safe to theorize that the matter that comprises our universe is in constant flux and therefore only exists by direct observation?

schrodinger’s cat…. ..some have even argued that objective reality doesn’t exist… .but merely in the mind of a conscious being.  A view I find pretty extreme.. but -has been- the subject of a few good sci-fi movies.
I feel a brand new thread is in order at this point!!

Victor Shulist - Jan 5, 2012:

CR: Fascinating stuff - heisenberg uncertainty principle pretty much right?- you make me want to go back to school and really drill into that stuff…. now I’m tempted to get lost in Wikipedia articles about the topic and be up half the night.

Eh, not exactly, though both are weird properties of quantum mechanics. And they both are important when discussing phenomena like the EPR paradox.

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle (HUP) states that there are fundamental limits to the extent which we can know the value of certain states. These are not limits in our experimental techniques or introduced by any sort of conquerable source of uncertainty or inaccuracy. These limits are built into the theory of quantum mechanics itself.

That is to say, one can never use quantum theory to calculate an exact value for a certain state. So which states are we talking about here? For example, one can never precisely know both where an object is and how fast/what direction it is traveling. Quantum mechanics can’t give both values precisely. If you measure one twice as accurately (say, position) then you know the other half as accurately (say, speed*). Pairs of states that share this property of mutual uncertainty are called ‘conjugate pairs’. Another example of a conjugate pair is energy and time. So the more accurately you know an object’s energy, the less accurately you know when it had that energy. Pretty freaky stuff.

So the next natural question is, does the universe really work that way? Do objects really not have a precise position and momentum?? This is still an open question, though most physicists take the agnostic approach: quantum mechanics is a mathematical framework whose results replicate observed phenomena. Beyond that is the stuff for philosophers.**

Though not completely. I mentioned the EPR paradox (the E is for Einstein). One consequence of the uncertainty principle is that if you measure one state of an entangled pair, you know precisely the state you measured, but very imprecisely its conjugate state. This also holds for the member of the pair you did not directly measure. (If you know one spin state is ‘up’, you know the other is ‘down’, as in the example I gave before.) Einstein and collaborators noted that this quantum entanglement property works instantaneously—you could potentially alter the state of a particle faster than the speed of light, if the particles were separated by a great enough distance.

This is what they had the biggest problem with, not the HUP itself, but this sort of weird action-at-a-distance. They thought that the state of a particle should be a local property. Quantum mechanics, they argued, is incomplete. Perhaps a statistical approximation of some bigger, better theory. If this is true, then perhaps the particle has some other variable that quantum mechanics cannot access (a “hidden” variable) that gives the precise information of the conjugate state which quantum mechanics could not tell you.

There are measurable consequences if this is true. And people to this day perform what are called “Bell’s inequality” experiments to determine if a particle has some local hidden variable. So far, QM has held. However there are some ideas floating around that a non-local hidden variable theory might still be possible. (Locality just means only a particle’s immediate surroundings can influence it—no event can influence it if the event’s ‘effects’ travel faster than the speed of light.) Non-local hidden variable theories are pretty fringe stuff, but have fun googling around about them if you like.

One last point: If one actually could use entanglement to send information, then that would mean instantaneous data transmission, even across distances as wide as the universe itself. Big causality violations there. But it would sure make chatting with satellites easier…

*Momentum actually. Momentum is defined as an object’s mass times its speed, with the property of also telling you the direction it is travelling in.

**Though not for the first generation of physicists to encounter quantum mechanics. The question of what QM means for the nature of reality was very important to these guys, giving birth to questions such as those raised by EPR. But people die, and the next generation raised with the weirdness of QM were not so affronted by it and QM became the workhorse of modern physics it is today. You don’t have to understand the nature of wood and steel to use a hammer after all.

Laura Patterson - Jan 5, 2012:

CR, without re-quoting your entire post, I will agree with you on several points.

Thanks? These aren’t my ideas here. This is pretty fundamental stuff we’re discussing.

Laura Patterson - Jan 5, 2012:

however, I was speaking from a theoretical point of view since we do not totally understand the quantum world only what we have been able to observe. So if a quantum state is determined at the time of observation, then it would be safe to theorize that the matter that comprises our universe is in constant flux and therefore only exists by direct observation?

No, one cannot make any safe theoretical statements about the nature of the particle between observations. Or at least, none follow from quantum theory. Quantum mechanics says nothing about what state an object is ‘really’ in when it is not being interacted with. The state of an object is defined according to what interacts with it. So from quantum mechanics we can learn that “if I interact with object A with mechanism B then I will measure state x with probability X, state y with probability Y, etc.” Without knowing the method of interaction (mechanism B, or equivalently, what you’re trying to measure), quantum mechanics has nothing to say about an object.

A similar problem that many new students have with quantum mechanics is taking the form of the mathematical equations too much to heart. The Schroedinger formalism treats state information as though it were the amplitude of a wave. (The Schroedinger equation itself is a (heavily) modified form of the same equation the describes an ocean wave.) However there is nothing necessarily wave-like about a quantum mechanical state. The Heisenberg representation—completely equivalent to Schroedinger’s in every way—does away with anything remotely wavelike. In this formalism, it’s all matrices and vectors.

So try not to confuse the movie for the dvd its printed on, if you will. QM tells you certain things about reality (the movie), but the mathematics (the dvd) is just one way to deliver it to you. Movies aren’t discs.

Laura Patterson - Jan 5, 2012:

Biological circuits have a defined purpose, however their paths are determined by the interaction of other biological agents. So like the quantum world, they are in a state of flux and are also undetermined.

No. When we say that something is uncertain in quantum mechanics, this has a precise mathematical meaning. It is a different type of uncertainty than that which arises simply because an object interacts with its surroundings in a complex way. We are talking about mathematically different phenomena that cannot be directly compared. This is a fallacious analogy.

Laura Patterson - Jan 5, 2012:

Communication is not pre-determined as well, only when facilitated by language or other means of entanglement where there is an actual link that exists between them. Where I am going with all of this gibberish is explained with the Unified Field Theory. UFT is the fabric that binds the quantum states and facilitates communication between the particles.

Field theories have nothing to do with language, which has nothing to do with entanglement. Realize that when you use these words, to some people they are not just wishy-washy terms of speech. They have precise mathematical meanings, as I said above. What you are saying truly is gibberish. It is all fun and games to play around with what the idea of “entanglement” means to you, but you simply cannot imply that your vague notions of these terms in other contexts has anything to do with well-understood, precisely defined physical properties.

I’m sorry if I’m coming off as abrasive. I played the same fun mental what-if games before I actually started studying this stuff. But at some point, we all must put away childish things, as it were. I’m sure if someone came to you with the movie ‘Hackers’ and said this was totally what programming was like, you’d tear your hair out too.

C R Hunt - Jan 5, 2012:

I’m sure if someone came to you with the movie ‘Hackers’ and said this was totally what programming was like, you’d tear your hair out too.

lmao… yeah…except for perhaps “dumpster diving” (to look for passwords, or hints that can help you deduce passwords) that movie was an insult to the art of “hacking” (as Hollywood calls ‘cracking’ , ‘hacking’).  True hacking is quite different from “cracking”.  Actually trying to get a computer to understand a conversation, something computers were never really intended to do, is actually a very good example of true hacking.  Guessing passwords & dumpster diving is cracking.  Sword Fish was a *bit* better, at least they you some half decent terms in that movie, and for the most part used them properly.

So yeah, you got to love it when Hollywood makes up its own names for things.  Just like they consider any form of malware, including worms, all put under the heading “virus”.

Andres - looking forward to it, that should be a good read.

Victor Shulist - Jan 4, 2012:

So,
“concept” is a word , correct, but
*what-is-refered-to-as”  concept, is not a word.

And yet, “what-is-referred-to-as concept” are words.

If you know C, it is like a variable,  say myvar;  say its an integer “int myvar = 5;”
then…

int myvar= 5;
int*  myvar_p = &myvar;

so, a “word” would be like “myvar_p” (a pointer or reference to the ‘real thing’), and the actual thing refered to by the word would be the variable itself, myvar;

“int”, “myvar”, “=”, “5”, “int*”, “myvar_p”, “&myvar;” are words. Where is the concept that isn’t a word in this example?

I think my point of view comes out of de Saussure’s sign: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_(semiotics). There’s a quotation attributed to Peirce on that page that I think I agree with: “all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs”. Words are signs…

AI and the movie “The Time Machine”—I love the idea of AI, for sure.  But a world where humans become useless “vegetables”.  For example, the idea that we shouldn’t even both teaching children how to do basic math because calculators are dirt cheap and everywhere is appalling to me.  I hope AI makes not only machines smarter, but humans also, not stupider.  I want to go for a drive an READ the signs myself… in written language.. not have the computer take control and read my mind and just drive me there!

My vision is to have AI be all things to all people. If I want to drive, I can do it in simulation. So if I drive drunk, I can only hurt holograms…

Robert Mitchell - Jan 5, 2012:

Victor Shulist - Jan 4, 2012:

  So,
  “concept” is a word , correct, but
    *what-is-refered-to-as”  concept, is not a word. 

    And yet, “what-is-referred-to-as concept” are words.

Actually, if you want, you can argue that they are not words.  What you are looking at right now on your monitor is particles of light hitting your eyes.  Anyway, if you didn’t get the concept I was trying to convey, I won’t attempt to re-phrase it.  The idea I was trying to convey is pretty much summed up here—> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding—there are terms (== words) and then there grounded meaning (which is what I meant by *what-is-refered-to-as*).

Robert Mitchell - Jan 5, 2012:

“int”, “myvar”, “=”, “5”, “int*”, “myvar_p”, “&myvar;” are words. Where is the concept that isn’t a word in this example?

I have no idea what you mean here.  Again, try reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_grounding to get a feel for what I was trying to convey.

The problem is: you can’t provide an example of a concept that isn’t a word.

From http://tecfa.unige.ch/~tognotti/staf2x/saussure.html#role

Pour Saussure, la chose semble limpide : ” abstraction faite de son expression par les mots, notre pensée n’est qu’une masse amorphe et indistincte ” (p.155). Il s’explique en disant que ” philosophes et linguistes se sont toujours accordés à reconnaître que, sans le secours des signes, nous serions incapables de distinguer deux idées d’une façon claire et constante” et il ajoute : ” prise en elle-même, la pensée est comme une nébuleuse où rien n’est nécessairement délimité. Il n’y a pas d’idées préétablies, et rien n’est distinct avant l’apparition de la langue ” (ibid.)

which google translate translates as (I’ve corrected a couple things):

For Saussure, it seems clear: “apart from its expression in words, our thought is an amorphous and indistinct mass” (p.155). He explained by saying that “philosophers and linguists have always agreed that, without the aid of signs, we would be unable to distinguish between two ideas in a clear and consistent fashion” and adds, “taken by itself thought is like a nebula where nothing is necessarily bounded. There are no predetermined ideas, and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language “(ibid.)

For Saussure, language is a system where signs are defined in terms of each other. So the symbol grounding problem isn’t a problem. Meaning appears from the relations.

Or, from http://www.criticism.com/md/the_sign.html :

The contrasts that form between signs of the same nature in a network of relationships is how signs derive their meaning. As the translator of Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics, Roy Harris, puts it:

“The essential feature of Saussure’s linguistic sign is that, being intrinsically arbitrary, it can be identified only by contrast with coexisting signs of the same nature, which together constitute a structured system” (p. x).

CR, I was actually expecting the response that I received from you and you were absolutely justified in doing so. I am not a physicist, but just someone with a creative imagination. I understand computers and programming, but when it comes to topics like quantum mechanics, I am way out of my area of expertise.

Thanks for your clarification and comments in setting me straight.

Robert Mitchell - Jan 5, 2012:

The problem is: you can’t provide an example of a concept that isn’t a word.

Hum… which certainly illustrates the importance of words.

Robert Mitchell - Jan 5, 2012:

The problem is: you can’t provide an example of a concept that isn’t a word.

Dave: The word you’re looking for is “nom nom nom”.

Laura Patterson - Jan 6, 2012:

CR, I was actually expecting the response that I received from you and you were absolutely justified in doing so. I am not a physicist, but just someone with a creative imagination. I understand computers and programming, but when it comes to topics like quantum mechanics, I am way out of my area of expertise.

Thanks for your clarification and comments in setting me straight.

I have a lot of fun talking about this stuff. Someone mentions physics and I get into ramble mode… Anyway, a creative imagination is probably one of the core qualifications for both physics and programming—especially in hairy areas like chatbot development!

Dave….. DOH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Thanks!!

CR. Have any of you heard of Quantum Analogical Modelling ?
Is read several good papers on NLP using this to solvente intelligent guesses
If interested, have the papers, can give them to any of you, I could not implementar the algorithms efficiently!