From: Krekoski Ross (rosskrekoski@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Feb 10 2009 - 01:35:56 MST
They're two different issues.
I am going to be as simple and as succinct as possible:
Given any arbitrary real-universe system, I posit that there is no other
real-universe system that is completely isomorphic down to an arbitrary
level of specificity. Specificity may include information such as
entanglement, quantum states, etc.
1) For fermions, Pauli's exclusion principle essentially shows this, so I
dont know why we're quibbling about atoms. As I've said before, I'm not
stating there is something inherent in the atoms themselves that makes them
indistinguishable, only the information regarding their states. As I said in
my previous post, I mentioned that I operated under the assumption that it
was the teleportation of non-baryonic matter.
2) For bosons, while they are, in principle, indistinguishable, my
contention with the thought experiment that started this discussion was that
any bosons in question in the thought experiment would still exist not by
themselves, but in relation to other particles, therefore factors such as
their vector, position, entangled state, (in fact I believe we ONLY need
entanglement here to differentiate their individual instantiation, but I'm
not completely certain) would provide an objective means of distinguishing
each one from each other.
In theory we can talk about particles in isolation, but this is only an
abstraction. Abstractions fail when they do not encapsulate a relevant
feature of that which they abstract-- in this case, interaction with the
rest of the universe-- which is why I gave the caveat that while we may have
a complete isomorphism in a simulation or in an abstraction, that the
representation of the information in the substrate abstracting it (for
example, the electrons flowing through the cables in my computer that
display a 1 and a 0 on my screen) would still be distinguishable for the
above two reasons.
On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 3:33 PM, John K Clark <johnkclark@fastmail.fm>wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 "Krekoski Ross"
> <rosskrekoski@gmail.com> said:
>
> > That is incorrect. With complete information
> > about the system, any two atoms are distinguishable.
>
> Bullshit, and I didn't just give a thought experiment as an example, I
> showed you an experiment that was actually performed in a lab and
> described in one of the most highly regarded science publications on
> this planet. It described how an atom had been teleported over a
> distance of one meter; it demonstrated that nothing in the scientific
> method can discern any difference between it and the atom that existed a
> fraction of a second ago one meter away.
>
> You remarked "the atoms themselves weren't teleported", I guess you
> figure the atom's soul stayed put because I can't think of what the
> hell else you could be talking about. If you can't get over these
> medieval beliefs you have no chance, the Singularity will kill you dead
> dead dead. It will probably kill me too but at least I have a chance.
>
> John K Clark
> --
> John K Clark
> johnkclark@fastmail.fm
>
> --
> http://www.fastmail.fm - Accessible with your email software
> or over the web
>
>
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