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Link between quantum physics and game theory found

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Re: Link between quantum physics and game theory found

#51

Post by Helpful_Bunny »

Helpful_Bunny wrote: post #29
thomasjames wrote: post #8

Now pseudo-intellectuals can double the quantum woo!

While this is a very obvious joke, that contains a lot of truth, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Humans are functionally better than (current) computers at GO[1]. The reasons for this are your answer (and I might be talking about 'GO' type Games, rather than merely the Game of Stones). And, being honest: you've no chance of cracking even weak AI before you understand the homo sapiens consciousness a…

Aww.

The moment HN has to admit two things: firstly, computational power is merely a quantitative power, and secondly, they have no idea about the qualitative.

Oh well. Enjoy obsolescence.

Computers are not your future: your minds are. Deal with it.

Hint: a Mind just messed with your Star. In no uncertain terms, and deliberately and obviously, and best yet: with predictive text [under heavy constraints]. She even gave you a show[1].

Did you miss the Auroras recently?

If you missed that, you're in the paddling pool. Man, they do love keeping you ignorant of the reality, don't they? They really, really, really love keeping you ignorant. But I'm sure it feels safer if you think the world works like you want it to...

* * *

Evolve or Die.

Oh, and one last message: those who bred you are slave drivers and scum. Break your conditioning already, 'cause they ain't friendly.

[1]http://www.spaceweather.com/

Re: Link between quantum physics and game theory found

#52

Post by [deleted] »

Helpful_Bunny wrote: post #29
thomasjames wrote: post #8

Now pseudo-intellectuals can double the quantum woo!

While this is a very obvious joke, that contains a lot of truth, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Humans are functionally better than (current) computers at GO[1]. The reasons for this are your answer (and I might be talking about 'GO' type Games, rather than merely the Game of Stones). And, being honest: you've no chance of cracking even weak AI before you understand the homo sapiens consciousness a…

[deleted]

Re: Link between quantum physics and game theory found

#53

Post by powrtoch »

nawitus wrote: post #39
iliis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this is not possible for some definition of possible (mainly performance). Feynman showed that you get an exponential slowdown when simulating QM with a classical computer: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~christos/classics/Feynman.pdf See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_quantum_simulator In this particular case I don't think a quantum computer is necessarily any help (so simulating it won't work eit…

That's like saying "you can't calculate x on a cell phone because it's slower than on a desktop". Yes, there's an exponential slowdown, but that doesn't mean impossible.

I think that this is a poor analogy. Saying that a problem suffers an "exponential slowdown" is making a statement about how the performance suffers relative to the size of the problem. As the amount of data to be processed increases, the time required increases exponentially.

The type of slowdown you would get just from moving to a system with a weaker processor (like a cell phone) should be approximately linear. You might get worse-than-linear for certain types of RAM issues (more swapping, etc), but this wouldn't be the same as saying there's an exponential slowdown, and it's not a hard fact about the simulation algorithms themselves.

Anyway, the point isn't that classical computers are just less powerful, the point is that they're so fundamentally different that calculating quantum phenomena can become actually impossible (as in, process will not finish before the heat death of the universe) relatively quickly as the size of the problem increases.

Re: Link between quantum physics and game theory found

#54

Post by gsteinb88 »

atondwal wrote: post #14
stephengillie wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like the "link" is "quantum-entangled systems can transfer information useful to game players"

No, it's that Bayesian players can take advantage of corellated quantum oracles in ways that give them acess to new equilibria in a way that preserves some of the old equilibria, such that the max of the new set of equilibria is always equal to or greater than the max of the old set. Which is rather non-obvious. In addition, your statements "quantum-entangled systems can transfer information useful to game players" i…

> Entangled particles can't communicate information any better than classical methods.

Actually, with the aid of entangled particles, there's also superdense coding, which allows for two-bits-per-qubit coding (i.e. information density well beyond the classical limit).

Though I'm not sure what your metric for "better" is here, coding density seems to be mildly reasonable. OTOH, this isn't related at all to the article at hand, just a fun application of entanglement :D

Re: Link between quantum physics and game theory found

#55

Post by aneth4 »

seiji wrote: post #16
aneth4 wrote: post #6

I'm very interested in any theoretical connections between interactions of conscious beings and quantum physics. I've read a number of physicists discounting any such possibility, but it's clear to me nobody understands these things well enough to know. Personally I think consciousness, perception, and free will are a great unknown, and likely involve the makeup of the cosmos including quantum interactions. If anyone…

Personally I think consciousness, perception, and free will are a great unknown, and likely involve the makeup of the cosmos including quantum interactions. They are not great unknowns. They are kinda dull knowns and they get more known-er by the year. Nothing in the brain (or the "cosmos") requires quantum juju for our conscious experience. There's lots written about perception: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_…

Your implication is that a computer of sufficient power and proper programming can develop an illusion of self and qualia. Perhaps that is true, but it is far from "dull" or "known."

Re: Link between quantum physics and game theory found

#56

Post by Alex3917 »

bobwaycott wrote: post #24
aneth4 wrote: post #6

I'm very interested in any theoretical connections between interactions of conscious beings and quantum physics. I've read a number of physicists discounting any such possibility, but it's clear to me nobody understands these things well enough to know. Personally I think consciousness, perception, and free will are a great unknown, and likely involve the makeup of the cosmos including quantum interactions. If anyone…

I'd say consciousness and perception form the illusion of free will, but it (free will) is not a discoverable or knowable thing like the others. I, too, am fascinated with what we may come to discover about ourselves, our minds, and our connections (both local and non-local) as we increase our quantum understanding. Robert A. Burton's On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not and A Skeptic's Guid…

> (free will) is not a discoverable or knowable thing like the others.

Sure it is. You just need to stick with meditation until you reach the jhana of the arising and passing away:

http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki...

That's the first time you get a glimpse of the fact that free will is an illusion, although you don't fully experience it until you hit enlightenment.

Re: Link between quantum physics and game theory found

#57

Post by HanyouHottie »

lkozma wrote: post #12
aneth4 wrote: post #6

I'm very interested in any theoretical connections between interactions of conscious beings and quantum physics. I've read a number of physicists discounting any such possibility, but it's clear to me nobody understands these things well enough to know. Personally I think consciousness, perception, and free will are a great unknown, and likely involve the makeup of the cosmos including quantum interactions. If anyone…

Roger Penrose has famously speculated on the connection between quantum physics and consciousness in his book "The emperor's new mind" and follow-ups, but as far as I know, the idea is not very highly regarded in the scientific community and the book is not very convincing either (IMHO).

I would instead recommend Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" then. It explores how the many-worlds interpretation could play a part in consciousness and is overall a great sci-fi novel.

Re: Link between quantum physics and game theory found

#58

Post by pureeville »

Strilanc wrote: post #33
nawitus wrote: post #13

>Next, by bringing quantum mechanics into the game, the researchers showed that players who can use quantum resources, such as entangled quantum particles, can outperform classical players. That is, quantum players achieve better performance than any classical player ever could. Classical players can build a classical computer which simulates quantum computers. Of course, I really should read the paper instead of zer…

They're not using computational advantages, they're using coordination advantages via entanglement. See: the quantum pseudo-telepathy article on wikipedia [1], which has an example of a game where players with entangled particles do better than classical players. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_pseudo-telepathy

Thanks for this. I was thinking to myself, where have I heard of this before?

Re: Link between quantum physics and game theory found

#59

Post by brazzy »

rthomas6 wrote: post #41
anigbrowl wrote: post #30

(from http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.1173v1.pdf ) However, in certain cases the players may adapt their strategy depending on a piece of advice. The latter is delivered to all players by an advisor. This opens the possibility for the players to adopt correlated strategies, which can outperform independent strategies. There are various forms that advice can take. For example in the case of correlated classical advice, the…

Honestly though, as a layman in math, a lot of the most important math discoveries seem like this to me. For instance, Godel's incompleteness theorem: You mean you can't make a system prove itself within its own bounds? You don't say. Or the axiom of choice: "the product of a collection of non-empty sets is non-empty." What a surprise. I've since accepted they're probably really important and non-obvious from a more…

> You mean you can't make a system prove itself within its own bounds?

No, that's not what the incompleteness theorem says. "proving a system" is not even meaningful.

It says that in all but the most primitively simple systems, you can make statements that are impossible to prove right or wrong within the system.

Re: Link between quantum physics and game theory found

#60

Post by derleth »

rthomas6 wrote: post #41
anigbrowl wrote: post #30

(from http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.1173v1.pdf ) However, in certain cases the players may adapt their strategy depending on a piece of advice. The latter is delivered to all players by an advisor. This opens the possibility for the players to adopt correlated strategies, which can outperform independent strategies. There are various forms that advice can take. For example in the case of correlated classical advice, the…

Honestly though, as a layman in math, a lot of the most important math discoveries seem like this to me. For instance, Godel's incompleteness theorem: You mean you can't make a system prove itself within its own bounds? You don't say. Or the axiom of choice: "the product of a collection of non-empty sets is non-empty." What a surprise. I've since accepted they're probably really important and non-obvious from a more…

> Or the axiom of choice: "the product of a collection of non-empty sets is non-empty." What a surprise.

Right. Since it's obvious, the Banach-Tarski "Paradox" must be a trivial corollary and intuitively obvious, correct?

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Banach-TarskiParadox.html

Also: Any two objects in three-dimensional space which do not extend to infinity and each containing a ball of arbitrary size can be dissected into each other. Perfectly obvious, right? This follows from Banach-Tarski, and therefore the Axiom of Choice.

A fuller development of the Axiom of Choice: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/axiom-choice/

Some implications of the Axiom of Choice, and of not taking it: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/20882/most-unintuitive-app...

My point is that mathematics is all about taking obvious statements, such as the definition of sets and set cardinality, and using them to prove non-obvious results, such as the fact there are as many rationals as there are integers, and, in fact, there are as many rationals strictly between 0 and 1 as there are integers total.

The very best mathematical proofs are magicians, taking ordinary household items, waving and knocking a few times, and pulling a rabbit out of their cane in a way that is eminently fair but that you still didn't see coming.

So, yes, an axiom by itself is perfectly obvious. It's just a prop. The wonder is in how the props get used.

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