My Phenom II 955 will even do 3.6GHz on the stock cooler now, probably even a lower thermal envelope than the P4's of the time. And the Core i7's (I'm too cheap for a full system replacement) are faster and cooler still.
To add to my sibling post, the P4 was supposed to be at ~10GHz by now. Intel's projections based on further technology shrinks, and further extended pipelines, was pretty reasonable from a transistor speed and clock speed/IPC tradeoff perspective. They failed to account for an explosion in leakage current in smaller technology nodes, and for a market shift towards performance/watt or performance/(watt*$) as the metrics of choice. That's what doomed the architecture.
Of course, with cores per chip varying widely just saying you have a DP/2P machine says little these days.
Naw, it's just been transmuted to mean processor sockets. Which from a system architecture standpoint is the more meaningful way to do it. You can put anything from a single-core to a six-core processor in a given socket (assuming they all exist in the necessary package), but you can't change the number of sockets in your motherboard. So "2P server" tells you that there are two sockets which you could potentially populate with 2, 4, or 6 core processors.
Or just think of "processor" as all the stuff in the package, and that a "processor" could have multiple "cores", and it works just fine.
I bet not one person that I work with has even heard of Alan Turing or the ENIGMA machine.
Maybe not, but on the other hand, I thought one of the coolest things ever was when my (completely non-techie) father named his basement band Difference Engine, after the machine built by Charles Babbage.
He may or may not have ever heard of Alan Turing (it's never come up), or know why people might want the British government to apologize to him posthumously, and maybe he's simply never had the opportunity to.
So yeah, you're right, there's a lot of people who don't know a lot of basic history (I'm not afraid to raise my hand for that), but that doesn't mean they aren't interested. There's a stereotype of people who don't know about science not caring about science, but that isn't always true. Which means that a lot of good can come from raising awareness about a historical figure like Alan Turing.
As I understand it the God of the Gaps argument is along the lines of "I have a wonderful scientific theory that explains absolutely everything, with a few small exceptions, such as how birds fly and why apples fall to earth. However, I can resolve these apparent problems by asserting that God directly intervenes in the physical universe to manifest all phenomena not directly accounted for my my theory. Therefore my theory is perfect". There's an obvious fallacy there.
"God of the Gaps" isn't about fixing a scientific theory. It's about fundamentalists who want to ascribe God an active and necessary role in running the Universe, because by requiring a God to make the universe work it aids in their arguments that God must exist. However this is an increasing challenge because everything that used to be an obvious "God did it!" moment, from lightning to conception, has now been largely explained by science with no need for a God at all. Scientific knowledge however is incomplete, and it is these ever-shrinking gaps that the fundamentalist points to and says "See, science has no answer! God must have done it!" When that phenomenon is explained, they move on to another, and continue to say that you can't explain physical reality without a -- their -- God.
You know, rather than accepting that a universe created by God and the universe described by science are not contradictory, and that the universe as described by science is elegant, beautiful, and a testament to God's amazing creation.
While not (necessarily) operating under the blindness of dogma, I feel this case is somewhat similar. Find an area that science has not yet ruled to be strictly deterministic, and point to that and say that's where free will lives.
I'll admit that I'm getting a little out of my depth here, but isn't this the Schrodinger's Cat case? The cat may have died three weeks ago, but it remains alive and dead in the box until someone bothers to find out which is, in fact, the case. The time of the event is not necessarily the time of the waveform's collapse. Or is that too simplistic?
Um, well, S's Cat is a thought experiment, and it was never intended to directly imply that the cat was actually both alive and dead at any point, but rather to point out that the limits of understanding of QM at the time could not distinguish, because what we knew was that waveforms collapsed upon "measurement", but that was a poorly defined term. A simultaneously dead/alive cat was supposed to be a ridiculous outcome pointing out how the theory was incomplete. It was definitely never the intention to imply that the cat was alive and dead until someone performed a measurement. It was already established experimentally at the time that you didn't need a person to cause a waveform to collapse.
Think of it this way: Instead of opening the box and checking on the cat to see if it was alive or dead, imagine you had a monitor attached to the cat that checked its heart rate. The monitor constitutes a measurement, and causes the waveform to collapse. The result of that measurement can then be used to perform whatever macroscopic actions you want, and the result will not be a superposition of quantum states without any humans in the loop. Use it to launch a nuclear missile (against the evil culture who conducts such experiments), and the nuke is either launched or it isn't, it isn't in a launched/not-launched state until someone checks the box for the cat, or sees the nuke, or whatever.
Superposition of states has noticeable effects. We've even seen macroscopic superposition and it has a characteristic interference pattern. Which gives us a definitive way of knowing if the superposition is still holding. And it's a fragile thing, and does not require a person to look at it to change the measurement of superposition. It takes a lot of care to ensure no measurement of the waveform itself is taking place via any of the experimental apparatus.
like trying to hold a conversation with a 9/11 Truther or Intelligent Design proponent - I'd rather have root canal surgery.
That's only because you're afraid of the truth, which is that some supernatural entity, that sure may be the God of Abraham but might not be too, caused a special task force of the U.S. government to appear to evolve into a man-machine combination that exceeds the capabilities of both in order to plot the destruction of the Twin Towers!
However, physicists currently have this model of particles being particles. Now if a solid, frozen substance under the head of a pin, however, is detecting the structures of "most common region of covalent bonding" as actual "stick like" structures -- when in all rights, the interference of the probe should be pushing the electron around it -- then maybe we need to rethink this concept of particles.
My own belief, and I'm likely to get slammed for this on Slashdot by folks who think about physics and chemistry all day -- is that EVERYTHING is a field. Particles are fields with pinpoint connections to other dimensions and that exhibit mass. But what you would expect, from a field, touching a field, is that the "domains" of the electron bonding, would appear solid.
If Atoms were really very tiny particles, we would SOMETIMES see a structure and sometimes not -- because the probe's electron and the sampled atom's electron would not be occupying the same location most of the time.
I'm not going to tell you your belief isn't true. I mean, protons seem to have a "size" but they're made of quarks and who knows what smaller particles quarks may be made of and what binds them together. All I know is that matter is energy, so maybe "matter" is just some energy contained in a field that makes it act like a particle.
The thing is, this image really doesn't help us distinguish. What we do know is that electrons and protons emit electric fields due to their charge, and it's the electrostatic force that the AFM is measuring. So the results are still consistent with a tiny particle that's flying around another particle, as is the van der Waals forces problem they had to work around. The force created when the probe's electron and the atom's electron are far away is enough to destroy the sample if they don't try to compensate for it, but at the same time the instrument isn't precise enough to measure that force occurring for the instant that it does. The average force over the interval that the probe is sensitive to looks like that in the photo, and as expected has a bright region of high probability of electron presence that fades off to less. So, this is not the proof you're looking for.
And a lot of otherwise smart people just can't spell very well. But if they had to improve at only one thing, which of these would you prefer?
1. Spelling
2. Using paragraphs
False dichotomy, if you aren't a moron who is deliberately stubborn about insisting your inaccuracies are really okay because "language evolves", then you can learn both over time. It's as simple as accepting spelling mistakes as spelling mistakes -- do you shake your fist in rage at your spellchecker? -- and taking good advice about organizing paragraphs.
How you could have a mentality where learning one was critically important, but the other completely unimportant and not even worth trying to learn, is beyond me. I don't think people actually interested in becoming better communicators think that way.
My problems is with people who aren't simply prioritizing, but people who think there is no mistake at all.
There are writing skills that are a lot more important than spelling and your so-called prescriptive "grammar," period.
Like people who think "language evolves" means they can spell however they fucking feel like are interested in learning those skills. Please. If you really think writing skills are important, and are trying to be a good writer, knowing how to spell is part of that, and you aren't going to act like your spelling mistakes aren't mistakes. You might not be mortified that you made a typo (boo fucking hoo who doesn't make typos right?) but you aren't going to act like you didn't make a typo unless you're actually an ignorant asshole.
I think I just have a hard time describing the tree I'm barking up. A person has language problems in their rant about language? Oh, how ironic!
Banishing prescriptivism from grammar doesn't mean that anybody is entitled to talk write however the hell they want in every context.
Yes, thank you! I am not a grammar nazi, I agree that a lot of rules that what you call "prescriptivists" prescribe are archaic and out of touch. Because English has evolved. Yet at the same time, that doesn't mean any god-damned thing you type is correct just because you invoke the name of "evolution".
I.e., a lot of what people ordinarily call "grammar" is really style, a way of choosing linguistic variants to convey implicit messages about oneself and one's social standing.
Within fairly wide limits, yes. Yet there are common rules for language that go beyond style. There are the accepted rules of the day, and many of them cross all cultural groups. For example, if you are speaking English but put the adjectives after the noun, then your "style" had better be poetry or you're not doing it right. "Style" is one thing. "Error in properly executing the style you were aiming for" is another.
The thing is that "good grammar" in the prescriptivist sense is just one more style among others in our society. It's a style that is associated with educated upper-middle class white-collar professionals
Uh-huh, well I'm not talking about this privileged white "prescriptivism" you're talking about. There is no "style" from Harlem to South Central, other than flat ignorance, where "lose", as in "to misplace, or fail in a competition", is spelled "loose". When someone spells it "loose", that is a mistake, not a deliberate execution of a particular style.
"Evolution" is not a magic phrase for making spelling and grammar mistakes turn into correct usage. That's my point.
What this amounts to is that there should be one and only one linguistic style that everybody should conform to, which spells words in one particular way. Why?
No, it's the same damn thing you said above: Just because there isn't a Board of Official Language Correctness doesn't mean you aren't wrong when you say something incorrect in a given style, context, or situation. There are lots of styles, there are lots of ways to use language incorrectly for any given style, or even for all styles.
"Linguistic error" and "more than one linguistic style" are not mutually exclusive concepts!
The best answer is probably along the lines of this: "because people who have power over you will tend to discount you if you do not"; There's no more to it.
Kno, zats bulplop. Best aswer be is most somery do words any speak want isn't wide blue mark yolen seeby. Me be smrt most ungulingly quiet. Engrsh be best, sum stile.
I think complaints about the abuse of English has been around forever. I can remember reading about the publishing of an Ebonics bible (back in the '80s I think). For some reason, certain people were quite upset about that.
I guess I'm not really complaining about abuse of the language, i.e. mistakes, but rather people who make one then say "Oh I'm just evolving the language." That's just a big pile of horse shit. I'm not saying I don't make a lot of mistakes, or that some of my misconceptions about English might not eventually become the accepted standard. I'm saying that when I make a mistake, I don't act like it's not. A mistake that might not be a mistake in some hypothetical future is still a mistake right now, is all I'm saying. So I hate when someone acts like they're really smart and a great linguist when they make an error -- because they made that error -- by appealing to the fact that lots of other people make the same error. It's just kinda stupid.
TLDR version: A: "Dude, we're totally going to loose this game." B: "That's 'lose', loser." A: "Shut up bitch I spelled it right." B: "The game is something we 'lose'. Your mom is something that's 'loose'." A: "Whatever, language evolves, dude!"
A is full of shit because 'lose' is still how it's spelled today.
Also B is full of shit because I know for a fact A's mom is tight. Ooooh!
I'm not bitching about what was at one point a misspelling becoming the correct spelling over time. That is in fact just how languages evolve, and sometimes it's for the better as we get rid of difficult or inefficient parts of language (and the "doughnut/donut" example strikes me as appropriate, because personally I think 'ough' constructs should be on their way out).
What I'm bitching about is when someone makes what is in fact an error by the standards of the day, but refuses to admit this by saying "language evolves" as if their particular typo is the driving force behind this evolution, as if any spelling they choose to use is automatically correct because "language is defined by usage", and they decided to "use" language in some fucked up way, and therefore that's the way it's supposed to be used.
Language changes. Spelling changes. That does not mean you can spelling anything you like however you like and it's never wrong. That is all.
Natural evolution is mutations weather they are wanted or not.
Yes but that mutation is in fact a mutation, i.e. an aberration, unless and until it spreads throughout the population and becomes, statistically, the norm. And when we're talking about natural evolution of language, 'mutations' must similarly be accepted as correct by a large enough portion of the population.
What I'm saying is that natural evolution of language is not some jackass deciding that they don't want to admit that they made a mistake when they spell "school" with seven 'h's and a silent 'q', by declaring that to be the natural evolution of language.
At what point do we determine that is?
Not at the point where you make a mistake regarding then-current spelling/grammar, someone corrects it, and you decide to play the "natural evolution" card and say that's the new, correct spelling!
I mean can you specifically pick a time between the 1500 to 1700s where people stopped using "thee" and "thou"?
Why difference does that make as to knowing whether "thee" was correct in 1400? None.
And if I decide to not only use the word "thee" today, but I also decide to spell it "tnshaoeusthaoeustnhaoeusnthaoeusnthaoeusr", I do not get to just declare that the new, correct spelling of "you". That spelling is wrong.
Either way you can say its wrong all you'd like and people are still going to do it. Eventually it will change. That is the point the linguists are trying to put across. A million Grammar teachers are screaming out in anguish but not much anyone can do about it.
And the point I'm trying to get across is that "things will eventually change" does not mean "anything you decide to write is correct, and there is no such thing as errors since languages evolve naturally".
Okay? Languages change. That doesn't mean they change because you decide to be a language pioneer and elevate your typos to the status of 'natural evolution'.
No it doesn't, you suck at reading comprehension just as you do at logic, thinking, and admitting that you have no clue what you're talking about when you get called out on your asinine ass-spew.
And please try and make them more strenuous than 'you do not have a PhD'.
Try reading some other comments, and not being a deliberately obtuse retard thinking that will help you be proven correct.
Okay, I'm done playing "tease the tard" now, you can have the last word and be on your blissfully ignorant merry way.:)
The thing is, I don't see it just as a matter of existing models being incompatible free will. I don't see how any model of the universe, whether deterministic or probabilistic, supports the idea of free will.
So I can certainly see your point that the current model may be wrong, and that we may simply not be using the right language to describe the universe, but my question is, how do you introduce that language to expand the models that can be expressed to include those that allow free will? And don't just say "will-full mechanisms", tell me what that means and how it can be useful scientifically.
As Epicurus (one of the fathers of the modern scientific method) advised, "if several theories are consistent with the observed data, retain them all."
A very poignant observation, and exactly why we keep both GR and QM despite being certain that they are in some ways contradictory.
Except there isn't exactly a theory of free will, outside of my Descartian observation "I have free will because I have it" which I am certainly not going to elevate to the level of "theory". It's more of an axiom that I'm comfortable with.
So I think the problem is much deeper than the problem of finding a unifying theory for relativity and quantum mechanics.
Or maybe just pointing out that there's room for free will in the quantum model. I know the idea is unpopular among physicists, but I didn't think anything had emerged that made it significantly less likely than any other interpretation.
I don't like the idea of taking some poorly understood part of the universe, speculating that "consciousness" might be involved because it isn't explicitly excluded by current understanding, and saying that's where free will lies. It sounds like wishful thinking to me, or a variant of the "God of the gaps". If your faith in God depends entirely on requiring God to explain some aspect of the physical universe, then you're fighting a losing battle to keep that faith. Similarly, if your belief in free will is dependent on being able to point to the unknown and say "the source of free will lies there", then what happens when we figure that part out and it doesn't? Find the next unknown and hope that justifies the belief? I don't like it.
There's also a real question of what constitutes "measurement" in the absence of conciousness. You can placing a ruler on a desk to measure a line, but in the absence of intention and perception, there's nothing to distinguish such an occurrence from any other collision between two pieces of wood.
There's a real question of what constitutes measurement, but it's not really a matter of consciousness. We can and have conducted experiments where the time of the collapse of a wave function, as measured by instrumentation, must have necessarily preceded the observation by an observer, i.e. when the ruler was placed on the desk, not when a human eye looks at it. That's what I meant by it being based on puns -- "measurement" does not have to be something seen by a person, so while the definition is iffy, it does not imply that a measurer must be around, but that's kind of what you're implying by saying it's unclear "in the absence of consciousness". There are connotations to these words that create that connection in your mind, but they aren't necessarily relevant to the science. Science reasoning based on nuances of human language is bad reasoning.
Good call:) Personally, I think free will and determinism are merely useful models of reality. Determinism works well if you're designing an engine. Free will works better for things on a personal and social level. I suspect neither is entirely true in objective terms.
Well part of my point was that even a non-deterministic universe still doesn't mean you have free will. The model of waveform collapse as a truly random event is non-deterministic, but no more conducive to causing "free will" than a deterministic universe.
But yes, much like "I think therefore I am", "free will" is a concept more useful at a personal level, not at the level of physics. We can't even define terms like "free will" or "sentient" or "consciousness" or "intelligence" in a rigorous scientific manner. So I'm more than happy saying I have "free will", whatever that means, simply due to perceiving that I do (whatever "perception" means).:)
Yeah, but since you're an idiot who thought you could "call into question" the results without the benefit of having even read the article much less possessing any knowledge on the subject (an aspect of the criticism your response indicated you missed), I disrespectfully don't see your disagreement as being anything but brainless and stubborn. You're a prat who deserved the criticism you got but can't just admit it and shut up. Oh well, who cares. HAND.
Free will is a sham. Of course, believe whatever you will. It's not like you have a choice.
Dude, if you were counting on the non-determinism of quantum entanglement to save the concept of free will, then you were out on a limb to begin with. How is randomly following the rules of the universe any more a matter of "will" than deterministically following them?
You could try to rely on a seriously weird and unlikely interpretation of QM which is basically a pun (measurement -> observation -> observer -> sentient observer), but then you're using the concept of sentience/free will influencing quantum events to explain how sentience/free will is possible in the first place. Maybe it's possible, but it's quite a long shot to be basing your whole concept of self awareness on.
I have free will because as far as I can tell I exercise it. In a pure philosophical sense you could never prove you have it even if we somehow did show that QM is influenced by "observers". But that act of faith has worked well enough for me. I'm certainly going to live my life as though I have free will, and if I'm only "automatically" making that choice, then so be it.
In linguistics, we discussed how the older generations always think the young people are ruining the language. How language is always in a state of devolution from when the one pondering it remembers their youth. So, ever since the first speakers, language has devolved.
That's great, as long as morons don't take that to mean "... and therefore your horrible grammar and spelling errors aren't actually errors, but the natural evolution of language." I've seen a lot of people who seem to think the fact that language evolves means that they are the instruments of said evolution, rather than semi-literate tards.
To them I say: Someday, "loose" may be the correct spelling of "lose". Until that future day, you still need to learn the difference because you're wrong.
Most people don't know that there's a difference between an encryption protocol and an encryption algorithm (somewhat understandable, in the broadest sense both are algorithms). Why don't more people explain? Don't know.
And more importantly, and worse!, why do manufacturers get it wrong?
Don't get me wrong, I like Nintendo, this all just seems like a Cash Grab, and they've discovered they've got enough fanbase for it to work. The only things I ever want to see with a Wii are a Nun-chuck and the wii-fit board.
Yeah pretty much. They usually try to make quick bucks selling cheap add-ons, but the sheer volume is surprising and the number that fall in the nearly useless category usually reserved for 3rd parties, though at least not equally crappy. You pretty much named the two accessories that are worth something. Well and I guess the Motion Plus. The common theme? They contain actual functionality, rather than just a grip.:P
A perfect implementation with a mathematically secure algorithm can be broken over time.
You're absolutely right, over an arbitrary amount of time it can be broken. But you can make make mathematical statements about the average complexity of doing so. You can then get a good idea of what key size you need to make it secure in the long term for whatever definition of "long term" suits your purpose, just by making a few basic assumptions such as...
You can't be sure that the government doesn't have a quantum computer ready to crack your shit. You can't be sure the space aliens aren't monitoring you.
Or that the government has doesn't psychics reading the password from my mind. Or that I don't live in The Matrix. Or that I'm not already dead!
But seriously, there's very little chance the government is sitting on giant quantum computers. The Manhatten Project was long ago. The government may still be a place where projects guilt built that push the envelope of technology, but it's really just combining existing tech with a large budget. The state of the art in materials science, fabrication, and computing technology is in private industry and universities, as is the engineering required. It's not a matter of budget or will that's keeping quantum computers big enough to rapidly crack the best public key crypto from being built tomorrow; mega-cheese is already being spent on the problem. There's just going to be a lot of time going into this research.
So, if I could mathematically guarantee it'll take on average thousands of years with today's technology to break some encryption even assuming continuing exponential growth, would you say that encryption is secure against that technology? It make only take decades for the next quantum leap (ironic pun because quantums are small) in technology to come around, but what secret are you keeping that someone will have snooped on and then kept around for 20 years hoping quantum computers would come around to let them read it, yet that you're sending over the internet so it gets snooped in the first place. Hell even national security/political secrets aren't that sensitive and they at least exercise physical security as well. Since we already know of algorithms that are similarly secure against quantum computers, isn't having however many years or decades of knowing your secret is safe enough when you can switch as soon as it is necessary?
Let me put it this way: I may not be able to guarantee in the sense of ensure, but I would be happy to insure the security of certain algorithms for a reasonable monthly premium.:)
You can't even be sure your hat is made of genuine tin foil!
Oh, but now there you're just wrong. I have ensured that my hat is genuine tin foil through neural-quantum scanning ('psychic transmutation' for laymen). And here, I mean my tinfoil hat is genuine both in the sense of being absolutely pure elemental tin and in the sense of being extremely sincere.
If the government could defeat that... Well then believe me, they would not be trying so hard to find and stop me, nor would they be failing so badly.
Slashdot Mirror
My Phenom II 955 will even do 3.6GHz on the stock cooler now, probably even a lower thermal envelope than the P4's of the time. And the Core i7's (I'm too cheap for a full system replacement) are faster and cooler still.
To add to my sibling post, the P4 was supposed to be at ~10GHz by now. Intel's projections based on further technology shrinks, and further extended pipelines, was pretty reasonable from a transistor speed and clock speed/IPC tradeoff perspective. They failed to account for an explosion in leakage current in smaller technology nodes, and for a market shift towards performance/watt or performance/(watt*$) as the metrics of choice. That's what doomed the architecture.
(you could use "home made" if you like, but that sounds like you're talking about pie, not weaponry).
If you're talking about a pie made by me, then there's not a whole lot of difference.
Someday I really should release my autobiographical NIN-parody, Terrible Pie.
Of course, with cores per chip varying widely just saying you have a DP/2P machine says little these days.
Naw, it's just been transmuted to mean processor sockets. Which from a system architecture standpoint is the more meaningful way to do it. You can put anything from a single-core to a six-core processor in a given socket (assuming they all exist in the necessary package), but you can't change the number of sockets in your motherboard. So "2P server" tells you that there are two sockets which you could potentially populate with 2, 4, or 6 core processors.
Or just think of "processor" as all the stuff in the package, and that a "processor" could have multiple "cores", and it works just fine.
I bet not one person that I work with has even heard of Alan Turing or the ENIGMA machine.
Maybe not, but on the other hand, I thought one of the coolest things ever was when my (completely non-techie) father named his basement band Difference Engine, after the machine built by Charles Babbage.
He may or may not have ever heard of Alan Turing (it's never come up), or know why people might want the British government to apologize to him posthumously, and maybe he's simply never had the opportunity to.
So yeah, you're right, there's a lot of people who don't know a lot of basic history (I'm not afraid to raise my hand for that), but that doesn't mean they aren't interested. There's a stereotype of people who don't know about science not caring about science, but that isn't always true. Which means that a lot of good can come from raising awareness about a historical figure like Alan Turing.
As I understand it the God of the Gaps argument is along the lines of "I have a wonderful scientific theory that explains absolutely everything, with a few small exceptions, such as how birds fly and why apples fall to earth. However, I can resolve these apparent problems by asserting that God directly intervenes in the physical universe to manifest all phenomena not directly accounted for my my theory. Therefore my theory is perfect". There's an obvious fallacy there.
"God of the Gaps" isn't about fixing a scientific theory. It's about fundamentalists who want to ascribe God an active and necessary role in running the Universe, because by requiring a God to make the universe work it aids in their arguments that God must exist. However this is an increasing challenge because everything that used to be an obvious "God did it!" moment, from lightning to conception, has now been largely explained by science with no need for a God at all. Scientific knowledge however is incomplete, and it is these ever-shrinking gaps that the fundamentalist points to and says "See, science has no answer! God must have done it!" When that phenomenon is explained, they move on to another, and continue to say that you can't explain physical reality without a -- their -- God.
You know, rather than accepting that a universe created by God and the universe described by science are not contradictory, and that the universe as described by science is elegant, beautiful, and a testament to God's amazing creation.
While not (necessarily) operating under the blindness of dogma, I feel this case is somewhat similar. Find an area that science has not yet ruled to be strictly deterministic, and point to that and say that's where free will lives.
I'll admit that I'm getting a little out of my depth here, but isn't this the Schrodinger's Cat case? The cat may have died three weeks ago, but it remains alive and dead in the box until someone bothers to find out which is, in fact, the case. The time of the event is not necessarily the time of the waveform's collapse. Or is that too simplistic?
Um, well, S's Cat is a thought experiment, and it was never intended to directly imply that the cat was actually both alive and dead at any point, but rather to point out that the limits of understanding of QM at the time could not distinguish, because what we knew was that waveforms collapsed upon "measurement", but that was a poorly defined term. A simultaneously dead/alive cat was supposed to be a ridiculous outcome pointing out how the theory was incomplete. It was definitely never the intention to imply that the cat was alive and dead until someone performed a measurement. It was already established experimentally at the time that you didn't need a person to cause a waveform to collapse.
Think of it this way: Instead of opening the box and checking on the cat to see if it was alive or dead, imagine you had a monitor attached to the cat that checked its heart rate. The monitor constitutes a measurement, and causes the waveform to collapse. The result of that measurement can then be used to perform whatever macroscopic actions you want, and the result will not be a superposition of quantum states without any humans in the loop. Use it to launch a nuclear missile (against the evil culture who conducts such experiments), and the nuke is either launched or it isn't, it isn't in a launched/not-launched state until someone checks the box for the cat, or sees the nuke, or whatever.
Superposition of states has noticeable effects. We've even seen macroscopic superposition and it has a characteristic interference pattern. Which gives us a definitive way of knowing if the superposition is still holding. And it's a fragile thing, and does not require a person to look at it to change the measurement of superposition. It takes a lot of care to ensure no measurement of the waveform itself is taking place via any of the experimental apparatus.
Quantum computer
like trying to hold a conversation with a 9/11 Truther or Intelligent Design proponent - I'd rather have root canal surgery.
That's only because you're afraid of the truth, which is that some supernatural entity, that sure may be the God of Abraham but might not be too, caused a special task force of the U.S. government to appear to evolve into a man-machine combination that exceeds the capabilities of both in order to plot the destruction of the Twin Towers!
However, physicists currently have this model of particles being particles. Now if a solid, frozen substance under the head of a pin, however, is detecting the structures of "most common region of covalent bonding" as actual "stick like" structures -- when in all rights, the interference of the probe should be pushing the electron around it -- then maybe we need to rethink this concept of particles.
My own belief, and I'm likely to get slammed for this on Slashdot by folks who think about physics and chemistry all day -- is that EVERYTHING is a field. Particles are fields with pinpoint connections to other dimensions and that exhibit mass. But what you would expect, from a field, touching a field, is that the "domains" of the electron bonding, would appear solid.
If Atoms were really very tiny particles, we would SOMETIMES see a structure and sometimes not -- because the probe's electron and the sampled atom's electron would not be occupying the same location most of the time.
I'm not going to tell you your belief isn't true. I mean, protons seem to have a "size" but they're made of quarks and who knows what smaller particles quarks may be made of and what binds them together. All I know is that matter is energy, so maybe "matter" is just some energy contained in a field that makes it act like a particle.
The thing is, this image really doesn't help us distinguish. What we do know is that electrons and protons emit electric fields due to their charge, and it's the electrostatic force that the AFM is measuring. So the results are still consistent with a tiny particle that's flying around another particle, as is the van der Waals forces problem they had to work around. The force created when the probe's electron and the atom's electron are far away is enough to destroy the sample if they don't try to compensate for it, but at the same time the instrument isn't precise enough to measure that force occurring for the instant that it does. The average force over the interval that the probe is sensitive to looks like that in the photo, and as expected has a bright region of high probability of electron presence that fades off to less. So, this is not the proof you're looking for.
And a lot of otherwise smart people just can't spell very well. But if they had to improve at only one thing, which of these would you prefer?
1. Spelling
2. Using paragraphs
False dichotomy, if you aren't a moron who is deliberately stubborn about insisting your inaccuracies are really okay because "language evolves", then you can learn both over time. It's as simple as accepting spelling mistakes as spelling mistakes -- do you shake your fist in rage at your spellchecker? -- and taking good advice about organizing paragraphs.
How you could have a mentality where learning one was critically important, but the other completely unimportant and not even worth trying to learn, is beyond me. I don't think people actually interested in becoming better communicators think that way.
My problems is with people who aren't simply prioritizing, but people who think there is no mistake at all.
There are writing skills that are a lot more important than spelling and your so-called prescriptive "grammar," period.
Like people who think "language evolves" means they can spell however they fucking feel like are interested in learning those skills. Please. If you really think writing skills are important, and are trying to be a good writer, knowing how to spell is part of that, and you aren't going to act like your spelling mistakes aren't mistakes. You might not be mortified that you made a typo (boo fucking hoo who doesn't make typos right?) but you aren't going to act like you didn't make a typo unless you're actually an ignorant asshole.
I think you're barking up the wrong tree here.
I think I just have a hard time describing the tree I'm barking up. A person has language problems in their rant about language? Oh, how ironic!
Banishing prescriptivism from grammar doesn't mean that anybody is entitled to talk write however the hell they want in every context.
Yes, thank you! I am not a grammar nazi, I agree that a lot of rules that what you call "prescriptivists" prescribe are archaic and out of touch. Because English has evolved. Yet at the same time, that doesn't mean any god-damned thing you type is correct just because you invoke the name of "evolution".
I.e., a lot of what people ordinarily call "grammar" is really style, a way of choosing linguistic variants to convey implicit messages about oneself and one's social standing.
Within fairly wide limits, yes. Yet there are common rules for language that go beyond style. There are the accepted rules of the day, and many of them cross all cultural groups. For example, if you are speaking English but put the adjectives after the noun, then your "style" had better be poetry or you're not doing it right. "Style" is one thing. "Error in properly executing the style you were aiming for" is another.
The thing is that "good grammar" in the prescriptivist sense is just one more style among others in our society. It's a style that is associated with educated upper-middle class white-collar professionals
Uh-huh, well I'm not talking about this privileged white "prescriptivism" you're talking about. There is no "style" from Harlem to South Central, other than flat ignorance, where "lose", as in "to misplace, or fail in a competition", is spelled "loose". When someone spells it "loose", that is a mistake, not a deliberate execution of a particular style.
"Evolution" is not a magic phrase for making spelling and grammar mistakes turn into correct usage. That's my point.
What this amounts to is that there should be one and only one linguistic style that everybody should conform to, which spells words in one particular way. Why?
No, it's the same damn thing you said above: Just because there isn't a Board of Official Language Correctness doesn't mean you aren't wrong when you say something incorrect in a given style, context, or situation. There are lots of styles, there are lots of ways to use language incorrectly for any given style, or even for all styles.
"Linguistic error" and "more than one linguistic style" are not mutually exclusive concepts!
The best answer is probably along the lines of this: "because people who have power over you will tend to discount you if you do not"; There's no more to it.
Kno, zats bulplop. Best aswer be is most somery do words any speak want isn't wide blue mark yolen seeby. Me be smrt most ungulingly quiet. Engrsh be best, sum stile.
I think complaints about the abuse of English has been around forever. I can remember reading about the publishing of an Ebonics bible (back in the '80s I think). For some reason, certain people were quite upset about that.
I guess I'm not really complaining about abuse of the language, i.e. mistakes, but rather people who make one then say "Oh I'm just evolving the language." That's just a big pile of horse shit. I'm not saying I don't make a lot of mistakes, or that some of my misconceptions about English might not eventually become the accepted standard. I'm saying that when I make a mistake, I don't act like it's not. A mistake that might not be a mistake in some hypothetical future is still a mistake right now, is all I'm saying. So I hate when someone acts like they're really smart and a great linguist when they make an error -- because they made that error -- by appealing to the fact that lots of other people make the same error. It's just kinda stupid.
TLDR version:
A: "Dude, we're totally going to loose this game."
B: "That's 'lose', loser."
A: "Shut up bitch I spelled it right."
B: "The game is something we 'lose'. Your mom is something that's 'loose'."
A: "Whatever, language evolves, dude!"
A is full of shit because 'lose' is still how it's spelled today.
Also B is full of shit because I know for a fact A's mom is tight. Ooooh!
I just want to be clear what I'm bitching about.
I'm not bitching about what was at one point a misspelling becoming the correct spelling over time. That is in fact just how languages evolve, and sometimes it's for the better as we get rid of difficult or inefficient parts of language (and the "doughnut/donut" example strikes me as appropriate, because personally I think 'ough' constructs should be on their way out).
What I'm bitching about is when someone makes what is in fact an error by the standards of the day, but refuses to admit this by saying "language evolves" as if their particular typo is the driving force behind this evolution, as if any spelling they choose to use is automatically correct because "language is defined by usage", and they decided to "use" language in some fucked up way, and therefore that's the way it's supposed to be used.
Language changes. Spelling changes. That does not mean you can spelling anything you like however you like and it's never wrong. That is all.
Natural evolution is mutations weather they are wanted or not.
Yes but that mutation is in fact a mutation, i.e. an aberration, unless and until it spreads throughout the population and becomes, statistically, the norm. And when we're talking about natural evolution of language, 'mutations' must similarly be accepted as correct by a large enough portion of the population.
What I'm saying is that natural evolution of language is not some jackass deciding that they don't want to admit that they made a mistake when they spell "school" with seven 'h's and a silent 'q', by declaring that to be the natural evolution of language.
At what point do we determine that is?
Not at the point where you make a mistake regarding then-current spelling/grammar, someone corrects it, and you decide to play the "natural evolution" card and say that's the new, correct spelling!
I mean can you specifically pick a time between the 1500 to 1700s where people stopped using "thee" and "thou"?
Why difference does that make as to knowing whether "thee" was correct in 1400? None.
And if I decide to not only use the word "thee" today, but I also decide to spell it "tnshaoeusthaoeustnhaoeusnthaoeusnthaoeusr", I do not get to just declare that the new, correct spelling of "you". That spelling is wrong.
Either way you can say its wrong all you'd like and people are still going to do it. Eventually it will change. That is the point the linguists are trying to put across. A million Grammar teachers are screaming out in anguish but not much anyone can do about it.
And the point I'm trying to get across is that "things will eventually change" does not mean "anything you decide to write is correct, and there is no such thing as errors since languages evolve naturally".
Okay? Languages change. That doesn't mean they change because you decide to be a language pioneer and elevate your typos to the status of 'natural evolution'.
This, in fact, directly refutes that possibility.
No it doesn't, you suck at reading comprehension just as you do at logic, thinking, and admitting that you have no clue what you're talking about when you get called out on your asinine ass-spew.
And please try and make them more strenuous than 'you do not have a PhD'.
Try reading some other comments, and not being a deliberately obtuse retard thinking that will help you be proven correct.
Okay, I'm done playing "tease the tard" now, you can have the last word and be on your blissfully ignorant merry way. :)
The thing is, I don't see it just as a matter of existing models being incompatible free will. I don't see how any model of the universe, whether deterministic or probabilistic, supports the idea of free will.
So I can certainly see your point that the current model may be wrong, and that we may simply not be using the right language to describe the universe, but my question is, how do you introduce that language to expand the models that can be expressed to include those that allow free will? And don't just say "will-full mechanisms", tell me what that means and how it can be useful scientifically.
As Epicurus (one of the fathers of the modern scientific method) advised, "if several theories are consistent with the observed data, retain them all."
A very poignant observation, and exactly why we keep both GR and QM despite being certain that they are in some ways contradictory.
Except there isn't exactly a theory of free will, outside of my Descartian observation "I have free will because I have it" which I am certainly not going to elevate to the level of "theory". It's more of an axiom that I'm comfortable with.
So I think the problem is much deeper than the problem of finding a unifying theory for relativity and quantum mechanics.
Or maybe just pointing out that there's room for free will in the quantum model. I know the idea is unpopular among physicists, but I didn't think anything had emerged that made it significantly less likely than any other interpretation.
I don't like the idea of taking some poorly understood part of the universe, speculating that "consciousness" might be involved because it isn't explicitly excluded by current understanding, and saying that's where free will lies. It sounds like wishful thinking to me, or a variant of the "God of the gaps". If your faith in God depends entirely on requiring God to explain some aspect of the physical universe, then you're fighting a losing battle to keep that faith. Similarly, if your belief in free will is dependent on being able to point to the unknown and say "the source of free will lies there", then what happens when we figure that part out and it doesn't? Find the next unknown and hope that justifies the belief? I don't like it.
There's also a real question of what constitutes "measurement" in the absence of conciousness. You can placing a ruler on a desk to measure a line, but in the absence of intention and perception, there's nothing to distinguish such an occurrence from any other collision between two pieces of wood.
There's a real question of what constitutes measurement, but it's not really a matter of consciousness. We can and have conducted experiments where the time of the collapse of a wave function, as measured by instrumentation, must have necessarily preceded the observation by an observer, i.e. when the ruler was placed on the desk, not when a human eye looks at it. That's what I meant by it being based on puns -- "measurement" does not have to be something seen by a person, so while the definition is iffy, it does not imply that a measurer must be around, but that's kind of what you're implying by saying it's unclear "in the absence of consciousness". There are connotations to these words that create that connection in your mind, but they aren't necessarily relevant to the science. Science reasoning based on nuances of human language is bad reasoning.
Good call :) Personally, I think free will and determinism are merely useful models of reality. Determinism works well if you're designing an engine. Free will works better for things on a personal and social level. I suspect neither is entirely true in objective terms.
Well part of my point was that even a non-deterministic universe still doesn't mean you have free will. The model of waveform collapse as a truly random event is non-deterministic, but no more conducive to causing "free will" than a deterministic universe.
But yes, much like "I think therefore I am", "free will" is a concept more useful at a personal level, not at the level of physics. We can't even define terms like "free will" or "sentient" or "consciousness" or "intelligence" in a rigorous scientific manner. So I'm more than happy saying I have "free will", whatever that means, simply due to perceiving that I do (whatever "perception" means). :)
Yeah, but since you're an idiot who thought you could "call into question" the results without the benefit of having even read the article much less possessing any knowledge on the subject (an aspect of the criticism your response indicated you missed), I disrespectfully don't see your disagreement as being anything but brainless and stubborn. You're a prat who deserved the criticism you got but can't just admit it and shut up. Oh well, who cares. HAND.
I once had a dream where a snake bit me on the ass and held on, so I bit its tail and held on right back.
No great insights into the physical world resulted. :(
No, the criticism was spot on, and the only thing asinine was your original post.
I deliberately included that colloquialism, just for you. :)
Free will is a sham. Of course, believe whatever you will. It's not like you have a choice.
Dude, if you were counting on the non-determinism of quantum entanglement to save the concept of free will, then you were out on a limb to begin with. How is randomly following the rules of the universe any more a matter of "will" than deterministically following them?
You could try to rely on a seriously weird and unlikely interpretation of QM which is basically a pun (measurement -> observation -> observer -> sentient observer), but then you're using the concept of sentience/free will influencing quantum events to explain how sentience/free will is possible in the first place. Maybe it's possible, but it's quite a long shot to be basing your whole concept of self awareness on.
I have free will because as far as I can tell I exercise it. In a pure philosophical sense you could never prove you have it even if we somehow did show that QM is influenced by "observers". But that act of faith has worked well enough for me. I'm certainly going to live my life as though I have free will, and if I'm only "automatically" making that choice, then so be it.
In linguistics, we discussed how the older generations always think the young people are ruining the language. How language is always in a state of devolution from when the one pondering it remembers their youth. So, ever since the first speakers, language has devolved.
That's great, as long as morons don't take that to mean "... and therefore your horrible grammar and spelling errors aren't actually errors, but the natural evolution of language." I've seen a lot of people who seem to think the fact that language evolves means that they are the instruments of said evolution, rather than semi-literate tards.
To them I say: Someday, "loose" may be the correct spelling of "lose". Until that future day, you still need to learn the difference because you're wrong.
NO, this is actually proof, that there were forests on the moon!
That makes no sense, we've observed the moon heavily and we've never seen any other evidence that there were forests... on... the... moon...
Wait... Forest? Moon?
OMG! Apollo 11 actually went to Endor!
How is this hard to understand or explain?
Most people don't know that there's a difference between an encryption protocol and an encryption algorithm (somewhat understandable, in the broadest sense both are algorithms). Why don't more people explain? Don't know.
And more importantly, and worse!, why do manufacturers get it wrong?
I blame marketing. :)
Don't get me wrong, I like Nintendo, this all just seems like a Cash Grab, and they've discovered they've got enough fanbase for it to work. The only things I ever want to see with a Wii are a Nun-chuck and the wii-fit board.
Yeah pretty much. They usually try to make quick bucks selling cheap add-ons, but the sheer volume is surprising and the number that fall in the nearly useless category usually reserved for 3rd parties, though at least not equally crappy. You pretty much named the two accessories that are worth something. Well and I guess the Motion Plus. The common theme? They contain actual functionality, rather than just a grip. :P
No, you can't guarantee it's secure.
I meant what I said and I said what I meant.
A perfect implementation with a mathematically secure algorithm can be broken over time.
You're absolutely right, over an arbitrary amount of time it can be broken. But you can make make mathematical statements about the average complexity of doing so. You can then get a good idea of what key size you need to make it secure in the long term for whatever definition of "long term" suits your purpose, just by making a few basic assumptions such as...
You can't be sure that the government doesn't have a quantum computer ready to crack your shit. You can't be sure the space aliens aren't monitoring you.
Or that the government has doesn't psychics reading the password from my mind. Or that I don't live in The Matrix. Or that I'm not already dead!
But seriously, there's very little chance the government is sitting on giant quantum computers. The Manhatten Project was long ago. The government may still be a place where projects guilt built that push the envelope of technology, but it's really just combining existing tech with a large budget. The state of the art in materials science, fabrication, and computing technology is in private industry and universities, as is the engineering required. It's not a matter of budget or will that's keeping quantum computers big enough to rapidly crack the best public key crypto from being built tomorrow; mega-cheese is already being spent on the problem. There's just going to be a lot of time going into this research.
So, if I could mathematically guarantee it'll take on average thousands of years with today's technology to break some encryption even assuming continuing exponential growth, would you say that encryption is secure against that technology? It make only take decades for the next quantum leap (ironic pun because quantums are small) in technology to come around, but what secret are you keeping that someone will have snooped on and then kept around for 20 years hoping quantum computers would come around to let them read it, yet that you're sending over the internet so it gets snooped in the first place. Hell even national security/political secrets aren't that sensitive and they at least exercise physical security as well. Since we already know of algorithms that are similarly secure against quantum computers, isn't having however many years or decades of knowing your secret is safe enough when you can switch as soon as it is necessary?
Let me put it this way: I may not be able to guarantee in the sense of ensure, but I would be happy to insure the security of certain algorithms for a reasonable monthly premium. :)
You can't even be sure your hat is made of genuine tin foil!
Oh, but now there you're just wrong. I have ensured that my hat is genuine tin foil through neural-quantum scanning ('psychic transmutation' for laymen). And here, I mean my tinfoil hat is genuine both in the sense of being absolutely pure elemental tin and in the sense of being extremely sincere.
If the government could defeat that... Well then believe me, they would not be trying so hard to find and stop me, nor would they be failing so badly.