Getting from cause effect to awareness

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Well okay, I can grasp all of that. But it just seems where the patterns don't overlap that is where the distinction comes in.

Yes. Not only is it where the distinction comes in, the non-overlap is where experimental procedures comes in.

So there would be specific patterns for specific things with overlaps with similar things.

There are specific regions. Patterns change too fast for any tracking techniques we have now.

But it seemed you were saying there was no specific pattern for a specific thing--"dog"

That's right. We don't have specific patterns. Or if we do, they change too fast to matter.

 

[idav]

We can't define what an object is. That's the problem. We cannot program what we cannot formalize (not that we can program everything we can formalize).

Awareness doesn't require language. It just requires language to give meaning to what is being perceived. Doesn't mean the perception isn't there to begin with.

You are assuming it can be more concise. Why?

Cause it already is.

Storage means permanent states. That's fundamental to computer memory.

And Quantum computing would mean that the computer can be in multiple simultaneous states.

 

[Willamena]

Awareness doesn't require language. It just requires language to give meaning to what is being perceived. Doesn't mean the perception isn't there to begin with.

But meaning is "object," and meaning is "define," and meaning is "it is."

It's lovely to have quiet awareness with no language, but it speaks pretty loudly of what you're aware of.

 

[idav]

But meaning is "object," and meaning is "define," and meaning is "it is."

It's lovely to have quiet awareness with no language, but it speaks pretty loudly of what you're aware of.

I look at it as a blank slate, a human being coming into the world for the first time looking around, not really knowing what to call anything. Meaning is great for trying to communicate but meaning gets into intelligence which isn't necessary to perceive the world. The catch 22 seems to be that we can't know if awareness is there without some sort of communication being possible. We just assume that if something is just reacting to stimuli then it must not be aware and just simple cause and effect.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Awareness doesn't require language. It just requires language to give meaning to what is being perceived.

One cannot be aware of what one does not represent as somehow a unity. A car is an object because we decide to think of it as something unified rather than as doors, wheels, widows, steering wheel, etc. The world of sensory experiences is "chunked" just as language is. You do not hear phonemes as phonemes but words and phrases just as you do not see a worlds of colors and depth but as objects, figure/foreground, landmark/trajectory, etc.

Doesn't mean the perception isn't there to begin with.

Perception is meaningful and hence requires an ascription of conceptual content. Otherwise there is no awareness.

Cause it already is.

It isn't. There is nothing that stores concepts. Saying that computers do this is akin to saying books and pictures do. Words on a page are meaningful to us. They aren't meaningful to the page.

And Quantum computing would mean that the computer can be in multiple simultaneous states.

Not memory states. That's processing. As soon as an algorithm on a quantum computer is run whatever the answers are must be stored just like in a regular computer. In fact they are stored on regular computers.

 

[PolyHedral]

I look at it as a blank slate, a human being coming into the world for the first time looking around, not really knowing what to call anything. Meaning is great for trying to communicate but meaning gets into intelligence which isn't necessary to perceive the world. The catch 22 seems to be that we can't know if awareness is there without some sort of communication being possible. We just assume that if something is just reacting to stimuli then it must not be aware and just simple cause and effect.

That's because awareness is cause and effect.

 

[PolyHedral]

Not memory states. That's processing. As soon as an algorithm on a quantum computer is run whatever the answers are must be stored just like in a regular computer. In fact they are stored on regular computers.

There's no physical requirement for that. It's merely very difficult to engineer a stable qubit register.

(Normal service may be resumed when I don't have code to write.)

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That's because awareness is cause and effect.

To a limited extent, anyway.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

There's no physical requirement for that. It's merely very difficult to engineer a stable qubit register.

The physical requirement is the point of quantum computing. The algorithms that we wish to run on quantum computers are run on them because superposition states allow for much faster non-deterministic/probabilistic computing. However, in order to get anything out of such an algorithm we need a final state. Otherwise quantum computing offers nothing.

(Normal service may be resumed when I don't have code to write.)

You don't write code in quantum computing other than transcriptions of the physical system.

 

[PolyHedral]

The physical requirement is the point of quantum computing. The algorithms that we wish to run on quantum computers are run on them because superposition states allow for much faster non-deterministic/probabilistic computing. However, in order to get anything out of such an algorithm we need a final state. Otherwise quantum computing offers nothing.

When you're completely done and want to write something out to an output device, yes. There's no reason why your "RAM" can't store qubits, other than engineering.

You don't write code in quantum computing other than transcriptions of the physical system.

...Why not? Why can't I have a programming language that has quantum objects as data structures?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

When you're completely done and want to write something out to an output device, yes. There's no reason why your "RAM" can't store qubits, other than engineering.


...Why not? Why can't I have a programming language that has quantum objects as data structures?

Do you understand what quantum "computers" are?

 

[PolyHedral]

Do you understand what quantum "computers" are?

Of course.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Of course.

Then can you explain what you are talking about in terms of physical realization?

 

[PolyHedral]

Then can you explain what you are talking about in terms of physical realization?

I'm asking what's impossible in principle about a machine which carries quantum states around in exactly the same way that a modern processor/memory carries around classical states.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Then can you explain what you are talking about in terms of physical realization?

Perhaps it's unfair to ask this without giving a better idea of what I mean. Most books on quantum computing have a section (or many papers in the case of some volumes) on physical realizations of quantum computers. In fact, it's part of the title of one of the first quantum computing books I read, which I've mentioned to you before:

"Quantum mechanics was discovered roughly a century ago. In spite of its long
history, the interpretation of the wave function remains an open question."
Nakahara & Ohmi's Quantum Computing: From Linear Algebra to Physical Realizations

"In an attempt to abstract away from hardware specifics to more general design principles for quantum computers, in 2000 David DiVincenzo published a landmark paper that identified a minimal set of requirements needed for any hardware scheme to be able to implement quantum computation. These have since become known as the “DiVincenzo Criteria” and have been of tremendous value in sharpening thinking on the similarities and differences between different approaches to quantum computation."
Williams, C. P. (2011). Explorations in quantum computing. Springer.

That landmark paper is available for free from arXiv:
DiVincenzo, D. P. (2000). The physical implementation of quantum computation.
Notice that qubits cannot be physically realized like classical bits. Although it would be nice if they could, the reason they can't is also why we want them in the first place. Quantum algorithms exploit the lack of a single state in quantum systems. Yet these systems, whether they are photons or electrons or whatever, are "controlled" the same way quantum systems are in experiments: NMR, ion traps, etc. Quantum computing is not just using quantum mechanics but physically manipulating quantum systems in ways that we can use. Even when we are much more capable of this than we are now, quantum mechanics itself forbids us from storing qubits in some physical realization of "quantum RAM". The whole point of qubits is that they do not have a single state. Yet once they are measured/interfered with they will. Quantum algorithms exploit what quantum systems that cohere can do. As soon as we try to get information from or do anything with the physical quantum system used as a qubit, it is no longer a qubit.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I'm asking what's impossible in principle about a machine which carries quantum states around in exactly the same way that a modern processor/memory carries around classical states.

Coherence. We have quantum algorithms years before the first successful quantum computation. Discussions of quantum algorithms and "circuits" deal with idealizations (which is to be expected; it's the same with classical computing as physical bits in a computer are not, strictly speaking, binary but are made binary in practice). The central problem is that whatever systems are used in quantum computing the only advantage is what makes qubits what they are: quantum bits. This is superposition. However, as we all know, the reason we don't experience a quantum reality is that quantum effects rapidly decohere. In order to investigate quantum phenomena we use extremely sophisticated technologies that allow, for example, the superposition of macroscopic systems, prolonged entanglement, quantum tunneling, quantum dots, etc. Some of these can be used for quantum computing because of the ability they give us to manipulate quantum systems. However, this is only useful if qubits can actually be in one of two possible states. In other words, manipulation isn't the only issue; coherence is just as central. Even imagining that we could implement the physical realizations perfectly, it would only matter for processing not storing information. We can't get the information from a qubit except through processes that would cause it to decohere/collapse into one state. Then we're just using incredibly sophisticated technology to do what computer do now: store information in single states.

 

[PolyHedral]

The whole point of qubits is that they do not have a single state. Yet once they are measured/interfered with they will. Quantum algorithms exploit what quantum systems that cohere can do. As soon as we try to get information from or do anything with the physical quantum system used as a qubit, it is no longer a qubit.

So "store" them without measuring them, e.g. with ion traps. A row of 1000 ion traps, each of which encodes a qubit via some property like spin counts as quantum RAM in my book.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

So "store" them without measuring them, e.g. with ion traps. A row of 1000 ion traps, each of which encodes a qubit via some property like spin counts as quantum RAM in my book.

You aren't storing anything. The whole point of memory is that it stores information that can be recovered. By definition, you lose half the information by accessing this set-up you propose even were it feasible. It's not just that it is incredibly difficult and completely pointless to build such a physical instantiation of "quantum RAM" it's that it isn't actually memory. You know what the A in RAM stands for yet your proposed system cannot be accessed without loosing half the information that doesn't correspond to anything useable anyway since qubits don't work like classical bits except in terms of processing (logic gates, basically). It's not memory when
1) It doesn't store any information because it can't be used to represent data like classical bits
&
2) It can't be accessed accept by losing information by forcing the system to be in one state

 

[PolyHedral]

You aren't storing anything. The whole point of memory is that it stores information that can be recovered. By definition, you lose half the information by accessing this set-up you propose even were it feasible. It's not just that it is incredibly difficult and completely pointless to build such a physical instantiation of "quantum RAM" it's that it isn't actually memory. You know what the A in RAM stands for yet your proposed system cannot be accessed without loosing half the information that doesn't correspond to anything useable anyway since qubits don't work like classical bits except in terms of processing (logic gates, basically). It's not memory when
1) It doesn't store any information because it can't be used to represent data like classical bits
&
2) It can't be accessed accept by losing information by forcing the system to be in one state

You are storing information that can be recovered in this setup. You recover it by either physically transporting the ion out of the trap, or teleporting its state into another part of the machine.

 

[idav]

That landmark paper is available for free from arXiv:
DiVincenzo, D. P. (2000). The physical implementation of quantum computation.
Notice that qubits cannot be physically realized like classical bits. Although it would be nice if they could, the reason they can't is also why we want them in the first place. Quantum algorithms exploit the lack of a single state in quantum systems. Yet these systems, whether they are photons or electrons or whatever, are "controlled" the same way quantum systems are in experiments: NMR, ion traps, etc. Quantum computing is not just using quantum mechanics but physically manipulating quantum systems in ways that we can use. Even when we are much more capable of this than we are now, quantum mechanics itself forbids us from storing qubits in some physical realization of "quantum RAM". The whole point of qubits is that they do not have a single state. Yet once they are measured/interfered with they will. Quantum algorithms exploit what quantum systems that cohere can do. As soon as we try to get information from or do anything with the physical quantum system used as a qubit, it is no longer a qubit.

Having the multiple states gets us to a point where it can be similar to the way our brains memory works, like when we think car all kinds thoughts pertaining come up simultaneously and this would happen in quantum computing. We wouldn't be calculating the answer but the possible answers based on multiple states. Of course once we actually want the answer we measure it, once it has had time to go on a wild goose chase for the answer like the way the mind does.

edit: it makes the computer error prone like the mind and could give the ability for the machine to have imagination which is what allows us to think outside the box which is what makes classical computing too rigid cause it can't normally do other than what its programmed.