[FRIAM] invoking quantum woo (was Book publishing advice needed)

[Gary Schiltz]

Roger, I've become rather suspicious of the field of quantum computing for
much the same reasons. Surely *someone* can write an easily understood
basic explanation of how it is supposed to work in principle. Maybe I just
haven't dug deep enough, but everything seems to be either too hand-wavy,
too focused on how that's going to make Google or Microsoft or whoever even
more uber rich, or dismissive of the possibility that the general computing
community could understand it. I would be willing to suspend disbelief long
enough to take it as a given that a qbit could take on two states at the
same time, but then I'd like to see how this fact can be put to practical
use *at an algorithmic level* to solve some problem.

On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 9:13 AM Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org> wrote:

> I actually find most of those explanations weak, given that, according to
> Feynmann, no one understands quantum mechanics.  How does an appeal to
> authority work when you appeal to an authority that does not understand and
> cannot explain?  How does one don the attributes of experts who do not
> understand or explain their expertise?   Where are the solid foundations of
> quantum mechanics?
>
> I suppose it could all be *pro forma* in that none of the participants
> understand that there is no there there to which one could appeal, so the
> appeal becomes nothing but a ritual motion with "quantum woo" taking the
> place of whichever holiest holy worked last week.
>
> But maybe it's exactly the inexplicability which is the secret sauce, that
> there is something ineffable about the quantum physics.
>
> -- rec --
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 9:51 AM ∄ uǝlƃ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> OK. So, maybe y'all have collectively provided an answer. The reason(s)
>> people invoke quantum woo so *often* is because it serves several (perhaps
>> conflatable and ambiguous) purposes.
>>
>> In order of appearance in the thread:
>> 1) justificationist appeals to authority
>> 2) donning attributes others (seem to) have but you don't
>> 3) hearkening to paradigm shifts and longing for solid foundations
>> 4) power (both social and individual)
>> 5) evocation of the shaman/oracle archetype
>>
>> Note, I'm not including ordinary physics, only woo, because that's what
>> irritated me enough to stop reading "Ignorance" for so long. Firestein has
>> lots of other riffs and hooks and it was childish of me to react that way
>> ... but I can't help it. The woo is killing me. By contrast, imagining (and
>> ruling out) an "airfoil" around pond scum in relation to the Purcell paper
>> was NOT irritating at all. Invocations of actual physics are fine.
>> Invocations of mysterious stuff just because it's mysterious flips my
>> triggers.
>>
>> Speaking of the Purcell paper, this popped off the queue this morning:
>>
>> New Clues To ALS And Alzheimer's From Physics
>>
>> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/08/888687912/new-clues-to-als-and-alzheimers-from-physics
>>
>> I'm embarrassed that I didn't notice it sooner.
>>
>> --
>> ☣ uǝlƃ
>>
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