Tim Tyler  wrote in
news:c9jnme$2ftf$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org: 

> William Morse  wrote or quoted:
>> john_SPAM{at}wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote in
>> > William Morse  wrote:
>> >> john_SPAM{at}wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote in
> 
>> >> > All data storage in the real world is analogue. [...]
> 
>> >> Umm - whatever happened to your reductionist stance? Unless you
>> >> are denying quantum mechanics, or are arguing for emergent
>> >> properties, it would seem that your only logically consistent
>> >> argument would  be that  all data storage in the real world is
>> >> digital. [...] 
>> >> 
>> > You'll have to explain this to me. All I can see is that if
>> > analogue systems can simulate digital ones (and I don't quite see
>> > what the appeal to QM has to do with this [...]
>> 
>> [...] Last time I looked, a hot topic in computing was quantum 
>> computing, since it is in fact exactly digital, and one of the
>> problems in classic silicon systems was that the circuits were
>> getting small enough that the analog properties were getting jagged.
> 
> The "quantum" in "quantum physics" doesn't mean
that it is wholly
> discrete. 
> 
> It means that *some* things are discrete.  Spin and charge, for
> example. 
> 
> Other aspects of quantum physics may not be discrete - and indeed the
> classical formulations are full of differential equations - and are
> not discrete at all.

Very true. And of course many properties depend on whether the property 
is observed or not, as in the light-slit experiment. In fact I seem to 
recall that someone has demonstrated the equivalent, at a quantum level, 
of the old adage that a watched pot never boils! I was mostly just trying 
to catch Dr. John in a logical inconsistency - since in fact some data 
storage is ultimately digital -  but he refuses to admit it :-)

Yours,

Bill Morse
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