TWAIN IT: cracking Quantum code and Semantics
Barry Robson very recently wrote on a group thread: “@Twain: You are not only the great integrator, you are a true “Renaissance Man”.
This is an amazing compliment and I’m really humbled because Barry’s background is that he’s CEO of the Dirac Foundation, St Mary’s Hospital Imperial College London; a Council Member of IBM’s Deep Computing Institute and Strategic Advisor at IBM’s TJ Watson Research Center; previously Professorial Lecturer at Mount Sinai Medical Center and also lectured at Stanford University Medical School. His full bio is here: http://www.research.ibm.com/people/r/robson/ and he’s been involved with genuinely ground-breaking projects.
For non-scientists, the Dirac Foundation continues the work of Paul Dirac who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933 (when he was only 31!!!) alongside Erwin Schrödinger, the genius behind the infamous “Schrödinger’s Cat” paradox. Dirac is credited with originating equations that describe the behavior of fermions and the potential existence of…..anti-matter.
It’s even more amazing because this discussion group comprises, arguably, some of the smartest AI and Natural Language Programming (NLP) computer scientists in the world; people who graduated with PhDs and Professorships decades before I was even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes and who’ve been dedicated to developing intelligent systems for over 3 decades more than me. I’m an unknowing novice by comparison to these super, super-clever people who share and spark knowhow in very contextual and relevant ways; and whom I admire, respect and aspire to emulate along my knowhow adventures and evolution.
So what caused Barry’s compliment? Well……….I “twained” three seemingly mutually exclusive approaches to code coherency and interoperability:
(1.) Cultural and perceptual calibration a priori to processing;
(2.) NLP statement structuring for verification of lexicon anomalies; and
(3.) Quantum Mechanics notation.
Here’s how the thread took shape; part of my contribution’s at the top:
I also threw in a solution to resolve Hamiltonian issues (these arose from Einstein’s original Quantum theories and are specifically about time-time capture, btw). It simply made sense in my mind to reconfigure subjunctive tenses from Latinate languages and to re-imagine it as computational code that would fit into double integrations for context mapping as well as differentials for transitional time-position capture.
Originally, when Barry introduced QM code and Hermitian operators into our discussion on “Can we compute the answer to any question?” following a video by Stephen Wolfram of Wolfram Alpha that indicated we would be able to, I have to admit that it was relatively new to me (or to crack a physicist’s joke…….it was µ relativity, ha ha). Anyway, Barry wrote:
For practical purposes that basically means that in standard i-complex QM you rotate the square root of minus one to the hyperbolic number (square root of plus one), and write your relators (verbs prepositions etc. ) as Hermitian operators.
Now for anyone without a maths / astrophysics degree all of this would read like gobbledy-gook with the exception of the words “For practical purposes that basically means” and “verbs prepositions etc.”. For someone like me I home in on “i-complex” and become interested because I’ve had a long held belief in trying to fuse matrix maths with DNA paths and linguistics to try and arrive at genuine semantics.
Naturally, when faced with something I know less than I should about, I like to ask questions so that I can construct frames of reference for myself and also sanity-check the theories and process themselves for comprehension and coherency. My grandmother did say I was a “curious child and asked so many questions!” — LOL.
My questions stemmed along lines of construct and substitution for ensuring code consistency and coherency and Barry was kind enough to explain and provide examples of what he means by QM, Hermitian operators and twister notation. Here’s his explanation:
Using QM notation such as <subject| verb | object> as analogous to <A operator |B> in QM, operators can be products of operators, so adverbs that qualify them belong between the “|” symbols. Adjectives are actually quite subtle. They could be regarded as Hermitian operators that are completely symmetric as in <grass| green | grass>, but that is unwieldy and I tend to think of them in orthodata to metadata as in <grass:=green| or arguably <green_things:=grass|. QM often ignores the “:=” bit. What they mean is <momentum:=2.3 mass-velocity units | position:= 3 Angstroms>
Time, subjunctive etc belong as verb qualifying operators, unless like in Japanese you want a time tense adjective. Time suggests considering the CPT operations of physics, which I am trying, rather than simpy add a new mindless dimension to the thesaurus. Subjunctive seems to me to have a probabilistic-conditional aspect about it, though one can appeal to the twistor forms (see below) as in <|| wish that | <I| am | correct> >.
The article could be held to have adjectival force, but ultimately belongs I think in between the “|” with the verbs as a matter of categorical relationship. It is more natural to write
<some cats| are | black> = <cats| may be| black> (existential qualification for the general case)
<cats| are |mammals> (universal qualification for the general case)
<Aristotle| is |a man> (universal qualification for the incidence case)
<The philosopher| is |a man> (universal qualification for the incidence case)
<A philosopher| is |a man> (existential qualification for the incidence case)
After about 10 seconds I grasped this notation convention, so I proposed these transformations:
A-ha, thanks, Barry. So it seems to me that even optimally QM and its Hermitian operators (at the moment) work along an equivalent functional way to how logic questions work in IQ tests of the type:
- All cats have tails. Some cats are black. Chester has a black tail.
Can we tell what color Chester is? Or whether Chester is a cat or in fact a dog?
There are 2 Hermitian operator applications of particular interest.
(1.) When you write “I tend to think of them in orthodata to metadata as in <grass:=green| or arguably <green_things:=grass|”, would it be possible to adjust it to these scenarios?
- <green_things:=naive|
In English there is a phrase “green about the gills” which indicates someone fresh and naive.
- <green_things:=new|
Universally, the color green is associated with growth and new shoots.
- <green_things:=prosperous|
In Chinese, the homophone for the word for color green is the word for prosperity and happiness.
- <green_things:=fresh|
In Italian, the word verde for green also has connotations with verdura (vegetables which are fresh).
(2.) You also wrote, “Subjunctive seems to me to have a probabilistic-conditional aspect about it, though one can appeal to the twistor forms (see below) as in <|| wish that | <I| am | correct> >.”
The subjunctive tense is deployed in French, Italian and Spanish when expressing:
* events which are uncertain/doubtful to happen;
* emotions (hopes, fears, etc.);
* opinions rather than facts (subjectivity involved); and
* beliefs.
Time-wise, these are then sub-categorized into future subjunctive, present subjunctive, imperfect subjunctive, past perfect subjunctive and present perfect subjunctive. So…..could the “twistor” notation look something like this:
<|would || wish that | <I| am | correct> >
<|might || wish that | <I| am | correct> >
<|did || wish that | <I| am | correct> >
<|had || wish that | <I| am | correct> >
<have had || wish that | <I| am | correct> >
OR could it look something of the form:
<|time || wish that | <I| am | correct> >
I thought about this a little more, in amongst putting together the Startup Shuttle initiative (more in another post), and had one of my “Twain Synergy Epiphany” moments (TSE which will henceforth become some kind of energy or force unit like Joules or Newtons and be pronounced as “T-see”, LOL). It started to distill, crystallize and map in my mind how QM could work with NL and perception capture a priori, so that’s what I shared and that’s what caused Barry Robson to write:
“@Twain: You are not only the great integrator, you are a true “Renaissance Man”.
Readers should be aware that one of my personal heroes is Leonardo da Vinci and never am I more grateful that it’s the likes of him rather than Barbie that my parents taught me to appreciate. For sure, without their grounding and early orientation on the world’s most extraordinary talents, I would now not have reference frames or the intelligence to interact with these super, super-clever people whom I admire and respect.
So now having been suitably impressed and inspired by Barry Robson I’m going to apply to IBM’s SmartCamp competition:
* http://www-05.ibm.com/ie/smarterplanet/smartcamp/index.html
Hopefully, my friend David Price of debategraph.org is reading this post and will also apply since debategraph definitely would contribute to a Smarter Planet as IBM envisions, :*).
Additionally, readers should watch out for IBM testing their Watson machine on ‘Jeopardy’ soon. It was originally announced back in April 2009 and has been scheduled to happen soon (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20Computer-t.html):
