[ExI] Do digital computers feel

[Stuart LaForge]

Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:

​<​QM gurus are hereby invited to say more about the dimensionality of the
QM state space - does it allow for an infinite number of interactions as
time goes to infinity?>

John Clark wrote:
​<I'm a pretty poor guru but I will say as its presently constituted QM
says there are only a finite number of states that something can be in,
however that may (or may not) be due to the fact that quantum theory
doesn't include gravity. As it's presently constituted QM can't say what
happens in places smaller than the Planck Length of 1.6*10^-35 meters or
what changes during times shorter than the Planck Time of 5.4*10^-43
seconds. Maybe QM can't say what happens when things get that small or
time gets that short because there is nothing to say about them because
space and time are quantized. Or maybe something does happen but QM
doesn't know what is is because QM doesn't include gravity. There is no
convincing experimental evidence that space or time is or is not grainy,
and until we have a theory of everything it's hard to even make an
educated guess.>

On the contrary, Fermilab found pretty convincing evidence for the
existence of a space-time continuum rather than pixelated space-time. They
found no pixelation down to 10^-48 meters. That's 13 orders of magnitude
*smaller* than the Plank length. That's pretty convincing to me.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/07/06/137634397/physicists-almost-certain-the-universe-is-not-a-hologram

Quote:
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By examining the polarisation of gamma-ray bursts as they reach Earth, we
should be able to detect this graininess, as the polarisation of the
photons that arrive here is affected by the spacetime that they travel
through. The grains should twist them, changing the direction in which
they oscillate so that they arrive with the same polarization. Also,
higher energy gamma rays should be twisted more than lower ones.
However, the satellite detected no such twisting — there were no
differences in the polarization between different energies found to the
accuracy limits of the data, which are 10,000 times better than any
previous readings. That means that any quantum grains that exist would
have to measure 10^-48 meters or smaller.
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Stuart LaForge

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