[OT] "Pre-announcement" of Python-based "computing appliance" project.

[Ville Vainio]

>>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Shannon <jeff at ccvcorp.com> writes:

    Jeff> Ville Vainio wrote:
    >>>>>>> "Richard" == Richard Hanson <me at privacy.net> writes:
    >>>>>>> 
    >> 
    Richard> undecidable things left unsaid for now. It is a commonly
    Richard> accepted thesis that the universe is evolving following
    Richard> some, possibly ultimately unknowable, immutable set of
    Richard> laws. Humans *do* seem to do
    >> 
    >> Is it? For some reason or another, many seem to believe that quantum
    >> mechanics provides some blissfull exit from the immutable set of laws
    >> (and deterministic universe). It's a place where God throws dice every
    >> time a particle hits another.
    >> 

    Jeff> Ah, but quantum mechanics are still a (supposedly) immutable
    Jeff> set of laws -- they are nondeterministic laws, to be sure,
    Jeff> but that doesn't prevent them from being laws.  Quantum
    Jeff> uncertainty follows a specific set of rules, even if we
    Jeff> haven't figured out what all of those rules are, and even if
    Jeff> those rules are expressed in probabilities.  If one

But aren't they probabilities just because we haven't understood them?
A thing like "probability" just can't exist in the ultimate
Reality. No lab equipment can prove the absence of further mechanisms
directing the phenomena that have been observed and "proved" to be
nondeterministic.

    Jeff> were to believe that the universe did not follow an
    Jeff> immutable (or nearly so) set of laws, then one would also

Of course the "fundamental" laws are immutable, unlike the derived
laws that have been observed and we know about.

    Jeff> the universe operates.  God may throw dice, but if we're
    Jeff> careful we can reconstruct the rules of the game He's
    Jeff> playing.  :)

Not very likely, considering that the fundamental laws are quite
probably well beyond time, space and all the other cozy stuff ;-).

-- 
Ville Vainio   http://tinyurl.com/2prnb