From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Nov 18 1997 - 06:05:45 MST
>1) Can somebody explain how these quantum systems stay coherent long
>enough to perform a useful computation?
>
>(As far as I know the current proposals for artificial quantum computers
>are to be working at very low temperatures to keep the system coherent
>long enough. )
Exactly. Paul Davies has pointed out that the ambient heat noise in a
brain would instantly decohere such putative effects. Danah Zohar and Ian
Marshall and other fans of Bose condensates in neural structures seem to me
to be engaging in hand-waving of the most noxious kind.
On the other hand, moderate-temperature superconductors were once thought
impossible in principle.
Damien Broderick
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