Monthly Archives: November 2011

I Think Therefore I Might Be

Posted on 2011-11-30 by TJ

Having argued in favour of the ontological commitments entailed by tautologies, it behooves me to say a few words about Descartes’ famous dictum, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes was a profoundly ignorant man, as every man of his time … Continue reading →

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More Pushkin

Posted on 2011-11-23 by TJ

Each interval all logarithmic passes by in equal time: a steady heartbeat, diastolic, with reason but without a rhyme except a slow soft susurration that holds the future’s generation. I’ve waited long enough, bedamned to all who in my way … Continue reading →

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More on the Statistical Interpretation

Posted on 2011-11-19 by TJ

After sleeping on it, the suggestion of Pusey et al that two completely different preparation methods can leave a photon in physically identical states no longer seems quite so improbable, particularly when looked at through the somewhat astigmatic lens of … Continue reading →

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Statistical vs Non-statistical Interpretation of ψ

Posted on 2011-11-19 by TJ

I’ve been seeing references to this rather breathless account of a pre-print recently posted to arxiv.org: “The quantum state cannot be interpreted statistically” by Matthew F. Pusey, Jonathan Barrett and Terry Rudolph, all of respectable schools (scientists are biased… we … Continue reading →

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Honk!

Posted on 2011-11-17 by TJ

That’s the sound of me blowing my own horn. Like any artist I mostly hate my own work, which saves others the trouble of doing it for me. But now and then I write something I like, including this bilingual … Continue reading →

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Nothing New Under the Sun

Posted on 2011-11-15 by TJ

It turns out Stephen Lee has already solved the problem of simulating Joy Christian’s model and found that it does not in fact violate Bell’s Theorem. He claims it doesn’t provide any insight into the problem, which I’m a little … Continue reading →

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General Theory of Money and Credit

Posted on 2011-11-14 by TJ

The nature of money has been a much debated topic for over a hundred years. Descriptive economics says that money has three social functions: as a unit of account, as a medium of exchange, and as a store of value. … Continue reading →

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Pushkin Sonnets: pentametric and tetrametric

Posted on 2011-11-12 by TJ

Pentameter (non-standard): This formulaic stanza has some power despite its tendency to come and go, yielding up a soft and scented flower with sufficient patience: watch it grow into a bloom of rich diversity without engaging in perversity. It varies … Continue reading →

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We Are the Dead

Posted on 2011-11-10 by TJ

We are the dead, we did not “fall” nor are we “lost”. We simply died. Shot through or gassed, blown up or starved or murdered by disease, that favoured weapon of the ignorant. We did not “sacrifice”. No glorious host … Continue reading →

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Verisimilitude and Local Realism

Posted on 2011-11-09 by TJ

In poking around for background on why de Raedt’s model is unlikely to describe reality, I came across this delightful review and recollection by Alain Aspect, whose fundamental work in realizing the experimental conditions for measuring quantum correlations was absolutely … Continue reading →

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