Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!rutgers!att!alberta!calgary!ctycal!ingoldsb
From: ingoldsb@ctycal.COM (Terry Ingoldsby)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Making fires and making minds - the laws of physics prevail
Summary: Physics cant' ...
Message-ID: <286@ctycal.UUCP>
Date: 20 Apr 89 19:20:43 GMT
References: <10992@bcsaic.UUCP> <16878@cup.portal.com> <17374@cup.portal.com>
Organization: The City of Calgary, Ab
Lines: 23

>      Given enough processing power, one could in theory predict the action
> of every particle in the universe, and therefore the behavior of every
> system, whether human or not, in that universe.  And all from the laws of
> 
> Dan Hankins

NO!  Absolutely NOT true.  This is the fundamental mistake that most people
make, generally because all the physics they are familiar with is Classical
Physics.  Classical physics is a good approximation for large numbers of
particles, at non-relativistic speeds.  All physics philosophies attempt to
describe natural phenomena; Quantum physics is closer to the `truth' (please
lets not start a discussion of the meaning of truth - I mean the way things
behave in nature) than is Classical (Newtonian physics).  Quantum physics
cannot predict where one particle passing through a slit is going to go.  Not
with 1, 10 or 100 supercomputers.  All it can do is tell you the probability
of a particle going in a particular direction.

     Terry Ingoldsby
     Land Related Information Systems
     The City of Calgary
     ctycal!ingoldsb@calgary.UUCP
              or
     ...{alberta,ubc-cs,utai}!calgary!ctycal!ingoldsb