More Musings on Quantum Mechanics

Say one has a pattern of bits in one location. At a time t=1, if the pattern of bits is at a new location, it doesn't matter whether they were moved there or whether they were conveyed by a ray of light.

Because of the symmetry of state, the exact similarity between a moved pattern and a transmitted pattern, it doesn't matter how they got there. Is there an upper limit to the transmission? Supposedly the speed of light. Also there is this question of wave function collapse.

Is there substantially any difference between an experiment in which the observer is a human and in which the observer is a computer? Worthwhile to describe an experiment in which in addition to positional states, one also has states of mind of the observers. Computing states. What are the bits on the floppy disk? On a computational level it matters who you have making the observation. One if by land, two if by sea only changes the outcome of the battle if you know the code. Jack, John, or the computer. Just as different to have the machine vs another human.

At what point does the information in the experiment become containable? That is, if the information, conveyed out via light ray vs stored, or not stored (lost) does it affect the outcome of the expeiment? And where was the true source of the information? Does a light ray always tell the truth? Signal and noise concerns.

Questions of valid transmission. Is it self-evident that the transmission was clean? Dependence on the experiment. How do you verify this? If it goes from here to there on a simple ray of light, I guess one just has to assume it is valid. That concept of meaning - does this disembodied info really relate?

Implication of reality behind the illussion, behind the surface effects conveyed. Petting the soft fur - does that imply that there is really a cat there?

Boat or Chair?

Two electrons are basically indistiguishable. There is therefore a symmetry to be had. Not the same as if they were distinguishable. Same thing can apply to patterns of bits. One bit is not distinguishable from another, as such. Sets of particles, or a given pattern. Talking about conveying that from here to there. Distinguishing between two of a species. How similar are the entities, really? For the QM effects to kick in. If you have a benzene ring in a boat or chair form, the two are different. But can you tell two boat forms apart? Maybe the energies in the various bonds could distinguish them so they aren't quite the same. Hyperfine levels, etc.

What about the energy levels of the electrons involved? How can the two items be distinguished? Quite difficult to establish symmetries much above the sub-atomic particle level because of these added features. Because of the additional amount of info that is there. That breaks the symmetry. It is much harder for even just a single atom or molecule.

One would like to construct an experiment where instead of talking about a set of particles or a physical object, that we talk about the information contained on a floppy disk. And that the only difference between two floppy disks are the differences in the pattern of bits. And not the noise of the medium (color or surface features of the floppy disk envelope). Uniquely digital effect. Symmetry effects in Digital Computers. Scenario for this is an inter-stellar transmission experiment.

Interstellar Floppy Disk

Say you have two computers, one here on Earth, and one on Alpha-Centauri. If one sends the information contained on a floppy disk from Earth to AC, does it matter that it was sent via DHL or FedEx, or that it was sent via light ray?

When a scientist puts the floppy into the machine, he will not know whether it came via one route or another. Transmission matters not, it is just there. Question - do you get weird quantum effects from the symmetries? Not because of the behavior of an electron or photon, but because one floppy is indist from another?

Analog situations are such that if you look at a fine enough level, you can resolve the difference between two copies. Under digital, floppy disk A is floppy disk B. There is only one, but in two places, much like the electron.

Can one talk about the wavefunction of a floppy disk? Or with respect to the digital information? This is very odd. What it implies is that we may encounter some odd effects due to the symmetries, and is asks questions of the source of the odd effects in Quantum - due perhaps more to symmetry than the medium involved.

What does one means by waves anyway? Waves are superimposed atop a medium, but don't particularly care about it. Could we consider the floppy to just be the medium? How does a standing wave differ from one undergoing transmission?

How much of the QM is due to the small size, and how much is due to symmetries? What would be the analog of Plank's constant?

Mental lab for Quantum Relativity. Computation between the stars. State evolution of your wave functions on an interstellar basis.

Could you get an exact coordination between the many many molecules to form true symmetries?

Question of impure symmetries. How do establish evidence for QM effects here? Do you truly have to have exact analog replicas, or can you simply establish a digital tolerance, and concern yourself with the bits only.

Identifying states, commuting varibles. When we get into the nanoscale for our computing devices, we are going to run into these problems. That question of when and how do our wave functions collapse. What causes the onset of the collapse?

If you perform a computation, that there is a difference between how it done one time vs another. By performing a computation, you are applying a time operator to a given state, and this will be the same on Earth or on AC. On the basis of observer effects. If you don't have QM of floppies, why not? What would it imply? Complex wavefunctions might not be present. And they might not be collapsing. One might want to invent a new approach to computation based on the non-determinism of WF collapse, in order to take advantage of the world found at the nanoscale.