Re: What is a quantum computer?
Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2015 9:05 pm
We need to exercise some caution when we assume that a mathematical principle can be extended to a real-world scenario and infinite divisibility is one such principle. Leibniz was aware of this when he spoke of the philosophy of the calculus, a mathematical tool which can be used to describe the way a physical system tends but not its actual physical state. If we define time as a metric for measuring the rate of change in a physical system then we readily arrive at a definition for a no-further-divisible interval of time. It becomes the briefest possible interval of time in which we can meaningfully say that something has actually happened and in contemporary physics this interval has a value of 5.4 x 10(-44) seconds, an interval known as the Planck interval. Thus we mustn't think of time as passing in a continuous flow but rather as something which passes in a sequence of absurdly brief stuttering Planck steps.
However the truly interesting thing about this from a metaphysical point of view is what I call the elephant in the room of GR. Before the publication of GR it was assumed that time passes at a constant speed for all observers but GR showed this assumption to be false. The speed at which time passes is entirely determined by gravity and this must obtain all the way down to the Planck scale. Photons are quanta of energy which can only change their energy state at the speed of light and because the speed of light is finite we can think of the briefest possible interval of time as the time it takes for a photon to change from one energy state to another. Therefore this too is entirely determined by gravity. The mathematical relationship between time and gravity is inversely logarithmic in its nature, which means that if we specify one we automatically specify the other so time and gravity can be regarded as two different ways of expressing the same phenomenon, which I define as the processing speed of physical reality. This is a very significant unification of concepts because it means that time, gravity and the speed of light can all be quantised equivalently. This is quantum gravity but this interpretation of GR cannot be accommodated within conventional spacetime physics. Quantum mechanics is entirely predicated on SR and not on GR, and SR is a model which ignores gravity because at the time when SR was published the inversely logarithmic relationship between time and gravity was unknown. SR assumes that the speed at which time passes is the same for all observers and is therefore not relativistic enough. GR gets around this problem by introducing the notion of spatial expansion and curvature but this is an action-at-a-distance idea rather than a mechanical construct because space is purely a mathematical object and not a physical one. This leaves QM high and dry because QM is a gravity-less paradigm modelled in the "flat" space of SR, rather than in the "curved" space of GR. In other words QM completely ignores the fact that time does not pass at a constant speed within the atom. This is the fundamental flaw in QM which leads to all the so-called quantum "weirdness" but the root of the problem lies even deeper than that. The root of the problem actually lies in the fact that the universe is not a continuum of time and space at all because space is only an observer effect, as Leibniz, Kant and various others have said all along. The real universe is actually a continuum of time and gravity which the observer merely constructs within his consciousness into a continuum of time and space.
"Collapsing a wave function" is simply a fancy term for making an observation and an observation is an act of cognition. When we make an observation of the physical world what our consciousness is doing is according a spatio-temporal extension to an event which actually has an extension in time alone. We are spatialising an interval of time which has elapsed between ourselves and an event which has previously occurred in our own past. This interpretation accords perfectly with the evidence but not with the current narrative of the evidence. However it makes every single paradox and metaphysical absurdity in contemporary physics simply vanish so in my opinion it simply cannot be false.
Furthermore it is a hypothesis which yields a testable prediction which would unambiguously falsify current theory.
However the truly interesting thing about this from a metaphysical point of view is what I call the elephant in the room of GR. Before the publication of GR it was assumed that time passes at a constant speed for all observers but GR showed this assumption to be false. The speed at which time passes is entirely determined by gravity and this must obtain all the way down to the Planck scale. Photons are quanta of energy which can only change their energy state at the speed of light and because the speed of light is finite we can think of the briefest possible interval of time as the time it takes for a photon to change from one energy state to another. Therefore this too is entirely determined by gravity. The mathematical relationship between time and gravity is inversely logarithmic in its nature, which means that if we specify one we automatically specify the other so time and gravity can be regarded as two different ways of expressing the same phenomenon, which I define as the processing speed of physical reality. This is a very significant unification of concepts because it means that time, gravity and the speed of light can all be quantised equivalently. This is quantum gravity but this interpretation of GR cannot be accommodated within conventional spacetime physics. Quantum mechanics is entirely predicated on SR and not on GR, and SR is a model which ignores gravity because at the time when SR was published the inversely logarithmic relationship between time and gravity was unknown. SR assumes that the speed at which time passes is the same for all observers and is therefore not relativistic enough. GR gets around this problem by introducing the notion of spatial expansion and curvature but this is an action-at-a-distance idea rather than a mechanical construct because space is purely a mathematical object and not a physical one. This leaves QM high and dry because QM is a gravity-less paradigm modelled in the "flat" space of SR, rather than in the "curved" space of GR. In other words QM completely ignores the fact that time does not pass at a constant speed within the atom. This is the fundamental flaw in QM which leads to all the so-called quantum "weirdness" but the root of the problem lies even deeper than that. The root of the problem actually lies in the fact that the universe is not a continuum of time and space at all because space is only an observer effect, as Leibniz, Kant and various others have said all along. The real universe is actually a continuum of time and gravity which the observer merely constructs within his consciousness into a continuum of time and space.
"Collapsing a wave function" is simply a fancy term for making an observation and an observation is an act of cognition. When we make an observation of the physical world what our consciousness is doing is according a spatio-temporal extension to an event which actually has an extension in time alone. We are spatialising an interval of time which has elapsed between ourselves and an event which has previously occurred in our own past. This interpretation accords perfectly with the evidence but not with the current narrative of the evidence. However it makes every single paradox and metaphysical absurdity in contemporary physics simply vanish so in my opinion it simply cannot be false.
Furthermore it is a hypothesis which yields a testable prediction which would unambiguously falsify current theory.