Classic von Neumann: "You insist that there is something a machine cannot do. If you will tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that!"
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Yea, here is the full context which is more aligned with that view. http://www.med.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/hanley/bios601/GaussianModel/JaynesProbabilityTheory.pdf … You were anticipated by E.T Jaynes,
@michael_nielsen!pic.twitter.com/k3J8M88BKs
Not for the first time! I made an argument in a similar style to von Neumann's, though for quite a different purpose, in an old essay. The core snippet:pic.twitter.com/NDoQlYDyVd
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(Nitpicking alert) In this case, can't we precisely describe what a quantum computer does but not in "simple concrete terms" which are a function of natural language that is grounded in "non-spooky" observations? Aren't those two different things?
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Of course - that's why the snippet above is careful to restrict itself to "simple concrete explanations".
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We can use conventional computers to simulate quantum computers though. Here's an example: http://www.quantumplayground.net/#/home The problem is simulating quantum algorithms on classical computers doesn't scale well.
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This is discussed in the essay. It's hard to see in the excerpt I quoted, since the work is being done by qualifiers ("simple, direct", "intractable" etc) that are explained elsewhere. http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/quantum-computing-for-everyone/ …
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Something is not right about this argument. We can describe very precisely how various algorithms work, but that doesn't make them any faster; a conceptual understanding doesn't translate to faster execution. I think the same should be the case with quantum computation.
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