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New proof dramatically compresses space needed for computation

(www.scientificamerican.com)
190 points baruchel | 1 comments | 27 Jun 25 13:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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cyrillite ◴[30 Jun 25 10:11 UTC] No.44421470[source]▶
One of my favourite sci comms YouTubers explained this in great detail https://youtu.be/8JuWdXrCmWg

Highly recommend

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teekert ◴[30 Jun 25 12:48 UTC] No.44422609[source]▶
Yeah, where Hossenfelder is getting more and more dramatic (although I can still appreciate it) she has a refreshingly calm and intelligent tone. Highly recommended indeed.
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eru ◴[30 Jun 25 15:48 UTC] No.44424711[source]▶
Sabine Hossenfelder also has very 'interesting' ideas about determinism.
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teekert ◴[30 Jun 25 16:35 UTC] No.44425217{3}[source]▶
Which I share. It’s haunted me for a long time, but I’ve accepted it. Much like Sabine.

We can’t predict the future but we do not have free will as most people think we have, imho. Many of those separated brain cases seem to confirm this stance.

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hnuser123456 ◴[30 Jun 25 17:04 UTC] No.44425585{4}[source]▶
Sure, but if someone finds themselves feeling incredibly defeated by the thought, then how can we call it productive philosophy? I went too far down this rabbit hole about 8 years ago, and built up a strong mindset of all the things I wanted to be that I couldn't because I wasn't born in the right circumstances. Much better to feel like I can absolutely be those things at least in spirit, and maybe talk to other people about it and find people who are willing to see the unexpected parts of me.

Yes, we have enough accurate theories now that we can predict parts of the future with incredible accuracy in ways that weren't possible 100+ years ago, but we don't have a bulletproof theory of everything, much less a bulletproof theory of everything about humans.

Championing superdeterminism is like being the smart alec who says they can predict anything if you give them enough initial context. Sure, now go make risky investments that will only go up.

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle itself shows that it is not worth fretting too much about superdeterminism.

We will never be able to replace every theory that uses probabilities with ones that don't.

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1. eru ◴[01 Jul 25 12:37 UTC] No.44433311{5}[source]▶
Quantum mechanics itself is actually completely deterministic. It's just certain interpretations, like Copenhagen, that unnecessarily introduce nondeterminism. The Many Worlds interpretation is one that doesn't have that property.

In any case, I don't think determinism and free will have much to do with each other. Eg a classically random fair coin is non-deterministic, but can hardly be said to have free will.

In the other direction, a Turing machine is completely deterministic, but in general you can't predict what it does (without running it.)

If you want to bring up quantum mechanics, I think the no-cloning theorem is more important: no one can learn everything about you in order to 100% simulate and predict you. (Which is what you'd need for the Turing machine. And humans are at least as complicated as Turing machines.)