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Parable of Alien Chess

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Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#51

Post by H8crilA »

jackhalford wrote: post #45
konschubert wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still haven't understood why people keep saying that there is randomness in QM. The so-called "wave function collapse" isn't really part of QM, it's duct tape that we have applied to stick together the QM with "Classical Physics" and our pre-existing assumptions about human consciousness. I don't think we should consider it "real" or "true". Without the wave function collapse, there is no randomness in QM.

you have it wrong, QM is the only physical theory that has randomness as an inherent part, as compared to e.g thermodynamics where randomness is due to lack of information. It is proven (see Bell inequalities) that randomness in QM isn't due to lack of information. You can't just wave away the collapse mechanism, what do you make of the double alit experiment? isn't the target "real" enough?

> QM is the only physical theory that has randomness as an inherent part

It's either inherent randomness or just a deep hole in the whole thing (similar to the alien chess thought experiment problem). Personally I choose to believe that the theory is just incomplete because nobody can even define what a "measurement" really is, meaning in which cases what we do is a "measurement" and in which cases it is not a "measurement". I also think that this is what people like Feynman refer to when they say things like "nobody understands QM", it's actually "nobody understands the wave function collapse", the rest is just maths.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#52

Post by slx26 »

subroutine wrote: post #24

The statement, "A machine that allows his alien eyes to see the first move." seems too information-rich for what the author then describes as the alternative model. Perhaps not the point of this thought experiment, but let's assume the aliens can only crudely see the first move: they know how many pieces there are on each side of the board, their color, but otherwise all the pieces look the same. They cannot see the…

Observing the movement of pieces quickly reveals that the board is divided in 64 squares. Squares being black and white or any other set of colors is actually irrelevant. They can basically fully understand the game from this, no need to make things complicated.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#53

Post by konschubert »

H8crilA wrote: post #51
jackhalford wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have it wrong, QM is the only physical theory that has randomness as an inherent part, as compared to e.g thermodynamics where randomness is due to lack of information. It is proven (see Bell inequalities) that randomness in QM isn't due to lack of information. You can't just wave away the collapse mechanism, what do you make of the double alit experiment? isn't the target "real" enough?

> QM is the only physical theory that has randomness as an inherent part It's either inherent randomness or just a deep hole in the whole thing (similar to the alien chess thought experiment problem). Personally I choose to believe that the theory is just incomplete because nobody can even define what a "measurement" really is, meaning in which cases what we do is a "measurement" and in which cases it is not a "measu…

Agreed.

The measurement is the theoretical duct tape between the "quantum world" and the "classical world".

But there is no such thing as a "classical world", it's just a useful approximation.

And therefore, there is also no such thing as a "measurement", it's also an approximation.

(Maybe not even an approximation, but maybe more like a projection...)

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#54

Post by 8note »

H8crilA wrote: post #51
jackhalford wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have it wrong, QM is the only physical theory that has randomness as an inherent part, as compared to e.g thermodynamics where randomness is due to lack of information. It is proven (see Bell inequalities) that randomness in QM isn't due to lack of information. You can't just wave away the collapse mechanism, what do you make of the double alit experiment? isn't the target "real" enough?

> QM is the only physical theory that has randomness as an inherent part It's either inherent randomness or just a deep hole in the whole thing (similar to the alien chess thought experiment problem). Personally I choose to believe that the theory is just incomplete because nobody can even define what a "measurement" really is, meaning in which cases what we do is a "measurement" and in which cases it is not a "measu…

Once you design a turing machine that can solve the halting problem, I'm sure it'll be able to break Bell's inequalities too

Bell's inequalities show that there isn't a local state that can be there.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#55

Post by konschubert »

8note wrote: post #54
H8crilA wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> QM is the only physical theory that has randomness as an inherent part It's either inherent randomness or just a deep hole in the whole thing (similar to the alien chess thought experiment problem). Personally I choose to believe that the theory is just incomplete because nobody can even define what a "measurement" really is, meaning in which cases what we do is a "measurement" and in which cases it is not a "measu…

Once you design a turing machine that can solve the halting problem, I'm sure it'll be able to break Bell's inequalities too Bell's inequalities show that there isn't a local state that can be there.

Bell's inequalities talk about "measurements". But measurement's aren't real.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#56

Post by H8crilA »

8note wrote: post #54
H8crilA wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> QM is the only physical theory that has randomness as an inherent part It's either inherent randomness or just a deep hole in the whole thing (similar to the alien chess thought experiment problem). Personally I choose to believe that the theory is just incomplete because nobody can even define what a "measurement" really is, meaning in which cases what we do is a "measurement" and in which cases it is not a "measu…

Once you design a turing machine that can solve the halting problem, I'm sure it'll be able to break Bell's inequalities too Bell's inequalities show that there isn't a local state that can be there.

Turing machine as an abstract concept is known to not hold a solution to the halting problem. There's no question about that, the only question is how the abstract concept assumptions pertain to the real world (infinite tape? maybe a problem, maybe not?; is the execution speed bounded? or maybe we can somehow count to infinity by exponentially increasing the speed? things like that).

On the other hand nobody has any clue what the quantum measurement / wave function collapse actually is. There are theories/interpretations but no truly satisfying answers in the same way as for example Newton's equations were a satisfying answer to the elliptical movement of planets, even though we later found out in the 20th century that F ~ 1/r^2 was actually an approximation.

We simply don't know, and we have no idea when shall we know.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#57

Post by kristianov »

tikej wrote: post #8

This text mainly shows that author either misunderstands chess, probability and science, likely at the same time, or just wants to critique for critique’s sake. Of course while it’s good to search for alternative models/theories/explanations, unless you can provide something with better with more predictive power than the existing/widely accepted ones, it’s a good idea to hold the critique. EDIT: To clarify: by less…

Every gradient points slightly downward at the local maxima.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#58

Post by 8note »

boldslogan wrote: post #50
Lewton wrote: post #47

The author unironically uses a parable about aliens predicting chess outcomes with a coin flip and how wrong that is, to promote the idea that random fringe ideas without predictive power have value. I severely doubt anyone who isn't already primed to agree with the conclusions would read this and find it convincing (I don't find the idea that science needs ways to escape local maxima particularly controversial, but…

I think the issue arises, when a player who is not good at chess would lose, literally 100% of the time against anyone even close to a top regional level. In other words, chess is not a 50% chance game, it is a variable chance game depending on who you play, so the analogy is hard to follow because the aliens would not come up with this 50% outcome idea.

The other thing being that if both players are very good, it's near guaranteed to be a tie

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#59

Post by ibab »

jackhalford wrote: post #45
konschubert wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still haven't understood why people keep saying that there is randomness in QM. The so-called "wave function collapse" isn't really part of QM, it's duct tape that we have applied to stick together the QM with "Classical Physics" and our pre-existing assumptions about human consciousness. I don't think we should consider it "real" or "true". Without the wave function collapse, there is no randomness in QM.

you have it wrong, QM is the only physical theory that has randomness as an inherent part, as compared to e.g thermodynamics where randomness is due to lack of information. It is proven (see Bell inequalities) that randomness in QM isn't due to lack of information. You can't just wave away the collapse mechanism, what do you make of the double alit experiment? isn't the target "real" enough?

In the Everett/Many Worlds interpretation the appearance of randomness can be explained as an emergent phenomenon resulting from not being able to predict which part of the wave function we will end up in before running an experiment.

Re: Parable of Alien Chess

#60

Post by gampleman »

boldslogan wrote: post #50
Lewton wrote: post #47

The author unironically uses a parable about aliens predicting chess outcomes with a coin flip and how wrong that is, to promote the idea that random fringe ideas without predictive power have value. I severely doubt anyone who isn't already primed to agree with the conclusions would read this and find it convincing (I don't find the idea that science needs ways to escape local maxima particularly controversial, but…

I think the issue arises, when a player who is not good at chess would lose, literally 100% of the time against anyone even close to a top regional level. In other words, chess is not a 50% chance game, it is a variable chance game depending on who you play, so the analogy is hard to follow because the aliens would not come up with this 50% outcome idea.

I think you misunderstand - you don't always play black in chess. So on average white wins 50% of the time (modulo first move advantage and draws as the article states).
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