Subatomic Darwinism

blamanj writes "In the beginning was Darwinism, then there arose Social Darwinism, now physicists are proposing Quantum Darwinism. According to the Nature article: "If, as quantum mechanics says, observing the world tends to change it, how is it that we can agree on anything at all? Why doesn't each person leave a slightly different version of the world for the next person to find? Because, say the researchers, certain special states of a system are promoted above others by a quantum form of natural selection, which they call quantum darwinism. Information about these states proliferates and gets imprinted on the environment. So observers coming along and looking at the environment in order to get a picture of the world tend to see the same 'preferred' states."."

Comments

Bah

[savagedome]

ertain special states of a system are promoted above others by a quantum form of natural selection, which they call quantum darwinism

I don't agree with that.

Re:Bah

[MrLint]

I don't agree with that.

You are choosing a non-objective reality, and there's nothing wrong with that. :)

Re:Bah

[Tackhead]

> > I don't agree with that.
>
>You are choosing a non-objective reality, and there's nothing wrong with that. :)

Hey. Get your hands off his wave function. By posting your observation about him, you're collapsing it for me too!

So then a first post...

[Tebriel]

So maybe a First Post really does matter then.

Wow.

Re:So then a first post...

[SnapShot]

Oh, so THATs why you can't post and moderate on the same article.... it's quantum mechanics at work!

If he only knew

[confusion]

Good ole' Chuck Darwin had no idea the types of things that would bear his name.

Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/

I believe in it

[AtariAmarok]

I belive in subatomic Darwinism. So much, in fact, that I have an emblem of a Darwin fish consuming a proton on the back of my car bumper lid. Go ahead and look: it is microscopic.

(Below this, on the bumper, is a sticker that says "if you can read this, you are too close or you are trying to see my Darwin deck-lid emblem")

Don't tell...

[jacobcaz]

Schrodinger's cat, it's going to be pissed.

Re:Don't tell...

[mfender9]

or will it be both pissed and pleased?

Don't observe this post

[pegr]

It wasn't a troll until you looked at it. Nice going...

i'm confuzzled

[moosesocks]

wow. my head hurts from reading that abstract..

I perfer Terry Pratchett's definition of 'quantum' where scientists label anything too confusing for them to understand as being 'quantum'

"What're quantum mechanics?" - "I don't know. People
who repair quantums, I suppose."

Re:i'm confuzzled

[stratjakt]

That's what string theory is for.

Any cosmic thingamajoo that doesn't fit in with what we're told.... String theory.

Ie; There isn't enough matter in a galaxy to keep it together via gravity. What keeps a galaxy together? String theory and dark matter!

How? You're no astro-quantum dood so you wouldn't understand. It's done with strings. Shut up and sit down.

Of course

[the_2nd_coming]

and now the schools will only teach Quantum Darwinism rather than Quantum creationism.... oh yea of little faith... thinking that something in nature like a Quantum particle is governed by science and not by god. /joke

Darwinism Schwarwinism

[j_heisenberg]

Any idea gets a "Darwinism" tacked to it. It's virulent.

Looking for Grants? try
-Darwinian database design
-Darwinian history of boygroups
-Darwinian recipy selection by opressive moms

Re:Don't forget ...

[SnapShot]

Shit, Kansas just passed a law mandating that colleges teach a graduate-level "sub-atomic Creationism" course.

From the Article...

[Boronx]

Life itself would then be hard to conduct,

Sure glad we avoided that problem.

What's Going On?

[trongey]

Nobody has welcomed our Subatomic Darwinian Overlords yet!
And don't expect me to do it for you.

Re:Don't forget ...

[Surt]

Double blind study for finding out if tcopeland's parents (TPs) love him:

1) Foundational assumptions: people prefer to save the life of someone they love over someone they do not love.

2) Methods: a series of pairs of people will be introduced to TPs, and they will be asked to press a button to save one of the subjects' lives. To avoid conditioned response problems, a series of at least 10 initial pairs will be introduced not containing tcopeland. If TPs fails to press one of the buttons, both subjects will be killed.

3) Theory: when a pair containing tcopeland is introduced, TPs will press his button to save him. tcopeland will be introduced in at least 10 pairings over a course of approximately 1000 total pairings to test against the hypothesis that TPs are choosing buttons randomly.

4) Double blind controls: pairs will be selected randomly by computer, and assigned to random buttons also by computer. Rooms will be soundproofed, and viewing of the pairs by TPs will be through one way mirror. TPs will be isolated from the researchers during the experiment. Researchers performing the experiment will not know which subject is tcopeland, and tcopeland will be kidnapped off the street like all the other subjects so that he will not know that TPs are in charge of the buttons.

See, it's not that hard to design a double blind study to establish that your parents love you.

Getting it past HSB, that's the challenge.

Re:what are they talking

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Quantum darwinism is false! The tree is that way because God made it that way, not because 4 billion years of quantum evolution positioned its particles that way!

We need to stop teaching quantum darwinism in our schools, and teach quantum creatinism! Darwin himself denounced quantum evolution on his deathbed, it's true!

what i hear when i read this stuff

[circletimessquare]

The hollow Time Cube in which the 4
quadrant corners of Earth rotate, equates to
your 4 corner bedroom, or to a 4 corner
classroom which represents the 4 corners
of Earth - in which stupid and evil pedants
teach dumb students 1 corner knowledge.
Each of the 4 corners of Earth is the
beginning and ending of its own separate
24 hour day - all 4 simultaneous days within
a single rotation of Earth. Place 4 different
students in the 4 corners of a classroom and
rotate them 4 corners each. Note that they
rotate simultaneously wthin the same Time
frame as if only one is rotating - just as the
4 different days on Earth rotate. 3D math
applied within this hollow Cube would be
erroneous math, as it would not account
for the 4th corner perspective dimension.
Place a 100 people within this Cubic like
room and they will not increase the number
of corners anymore than 6 billion people on
Earth will increase the 4 corners of Earth.
It is dumb, stupid, evil and unworthy of
life on Earth to claim that this Creation
Cube has 6 sides - or no top and bottom.
Academia equates to a deadly plague.

i am not saying that the argument for quantum darwinism is as crackpot as the timecube guy, what i am saying is that both the timecube guy and the argument for quantum darnwinism are way over my head ;-P

What does it mean?

[Odocoileus]

All I really want to know is if we are any closer to the day when I can alter reality. Without drugs.

Now that explains somethings

[deadline]

...the world would be very unpredictable: different people might see very different versions of it. Life itself would then be hard to conduct, because we would not be able to obtain reliable information about our surroundings... it would typically conflict with what others were experiencing.

Curious, this is how I experienced the US election last November. I'll blame it on TV.

Re:Stephen Hawking

[babyrat]

Of course, such meddling would imply the Great One couldn't design a universe that ran according to The Plan without intervention - such impudence.

TAKE IT BACK!!!! Wayne Gretzky can do ANYTHING!!!!

Re:what are they talking

[miskatonic alumnus]

Quantum Cretinism???

Re:Don't forget ...

[hesiod]

> Love leaves proof.

Don't I know it. Next time, I'm using a condom.