( Originally re Turing machines) AKA For whom the Bell tolls.

[Michael Rogers]

In <29...@bbn.COM> mes...@bbn.com states:

> seem--to the uninformed eye--random and unpredictable. But given the
> proper information [note I don't say observational powers and thus avoid
> the Uncertainty Principle], one can exactly predict the paths that the
> ball will take.
> but the principle is still the same. We may never have enough
> information to exactly predict events in the universe, or even a
> reasonable subregion thereof. But the inability to make the exact
> calculation doesn't mean that the universe isn't exactly, completely
> deterministic.

This seems to me to be flagrantly illogical. *How* can one obtain
the proper information without using one's observational powers?
Forgive me restating, but I am worried that I am missing some
extremely simple point, probably due to this late hour of the night :-)
*If* one can't predict events in a subregion, and will never be
able to, and will get paradox's if one trys, then *how* can the Universe
be thus deterministic. One would need to have ( shudder ) hidden variables.
But then in comes Bell's wonderful theorem.
There may indeed be hidden variables, but they are as well hid as
the luminiferous aether or the Central Fire.
I shall have to sleep over this.
--
Mike Rogers, ...!{seismo,ihnp4,decvax}!mcvax!ukc!tcdmath!mike
39.16 Trinity College,
Dublin University, ...staccato signals of constant information...
Dublin 2, Ireland. Simon.