RE: duck me!

From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Thu Oct 24 2002 - 10:11:18 MDT


On Thu, 24 Oct 2002, gts wrote:

> Sure. However it is not possible for two objects to exist in the same
> quantum state in the first place, as per the Pauli Exclusion
> Principle.

No. PEP says that no two electrons in an atom (that is, the _same_ atom)
can have identical quantum numbers. This has nothing to do that two or N
different atoms in the same quantum state are indistinguishable.

This is useless for macroscale objects because you can't put them into the
same quantum state. However, we don't think using single quantum states.
Here it is perfectly possible to put discrete systems (say, a computer
simulating a virtual robot arm in a blocks world) in a synchronized state
(state as in information processing state, not quantum state).

Similiarly, you can theoretically synch two recently copied meat people
into same state in regards to cognition (the spatiotemporal pattern of
molecular activity called life), and keep them that way.

It's a tour de force, and hence only useful as a gedanken. It is
considerably easier with discrete deterministic systems, but it's still
mostly useful as a gedanken. I can't see any possible uses for this off
hand.



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