Caro Pedro e cari tutti, questa e-mail dell'egregio Hans von Baeyer mi ha stimolato a segnalare, ancora una volta, quanto sia stato anticipatore il mio pensiero scientifico-economico sull'importanza della legge dell'informazione a partire, ad es.,dagli inizi degli anni Ottanta. Sia chiaro, non rivendico nè presumo niente, bensì da poverino esponenziale come mi auto-definisco sento tutto il piacere bambino di portare alla Vostra conoscenza che sul processo di tras-in-form-azione ho scritto e pubblicato più di una dozzina di libri. Qualcuno di essi l'ho inviato al carissimo Pedro che mi auguro continui a tenermi non solo nella mente, ma anche nel cuore. Grazie e saluti augurali nel nome del Signore mio e di tutti, credenti e non credenti. Francesco Rizzo, già professore di Economia e organizzazione aziendale nella Facoltà di Ingegneria di Catania.
2014/1/18 Hans von Baeyer <henrikrit...@gmail.com> > Dear Friends: In keeping with the message of my lecture, that knowledge of > the world is based on the ensemble of individual experiences, more than on > assumed objective, actual properties of an external reality, I will tell > you about my experiences of writing and discussing the New Year Lecture. I > enjoyed the entire process enormously, and wish once more to applaud Pedro > for inventing this new tradition! > > Even as I started this email I learned something that piqued my interest. > Gregory Bateson was quoted: "Kant argued long ago that this piece of chalk > contains a million potential facts (Tatsachen) but that only a very few of > these become truly facts by affecting the behavior of entities capable of > responding to facts." Google.de informed me that Tatsache is probably an > 18th century translation of the English "matter of fact". "Tat" is a deed, > a "factum", something done or performed, while "Sache" means a thing or a > matter. This tenuous etymology connects factuality with action rather than > with some intrinsic essence. Kant's words "affecting", "behavior" and > "responding" are QBist to the core. More and more I realize that philosophy > matters. Chris Fuchs, the chief spokesman for QBism, is among the rare > physicists who give credit to philosophers for the contributions they make > to natural science. In return he hopes that they will listen to physicists > who bring news from the furthest reaches of nature. > > My most intense experience in connection with the New Year Lecture was the > writing of it. The first challenge was brevity: "The letter I have > written today is longer than usual because I lacked the time to make it > shorter" quipped Blaise Pascal. In order to introduce QBism to you, I had > to explain the Q and the B. How to do that within the allotted length? > The distinction between Bayesian and frequentist probability is an old > subject among mathematicians, so I was able to steal from them. ("Schreiben > ist Borgen", writing is borrowing, according to the aphorist G.C. > Lichtenberg.) But in order to talk about the Q, I had to show succinctly > what's so special about quantum mechanics. At this point I was considerably > aided by the GHZ prediction and its fairly recent corroboration, because, > unlike all previous experiments, GHZ is a one-shot deal, rather than a > subtle statistical effect. Like finding a single white raven to falsify the > claim that "all ravens are black." But even so, although I could easily > demonstrate the WRONG classical prediction, I was not able to show those of > you who are not trained in theoretical physics how the correct quantum > mechanical prediction for GHZ comes about. Unfortunately I would need a > semester for that! In any case, by keeping to the prescribed format of the > lecture, I was able to clarify my own thinking and to streamline my > presentation of the unfamiliar topic. > > My timing was very fortunate in that two unusually accessible articles > about QBism appeared in November and December 2013 -- both available for > free at <arxiv.org>. (ID numbers 1311.5253v1 and 1312.7825.) What a > welcome coincidence! It reassured me that the topic I had chosen for my > lecture is emerging from its niche in quantum foundations research and > slowly seeping out into the broader community. > > From the subsequent discussion I discovered several important things that > are new to me. I learned that there is the possibility, by means on > non-Kolmogorovian probabilities, to avoid the troublesome certainty of > probability 0 and 1 -- in particular via Logic in Reality. I learned about > the interesting concept of "feed-forward", in contrast to feedback, which > corrects for disruptions of a system BEFORE the disrupting influence kicks > in. (In order to do that, the mechanism has to make use of an accurate > model of the system's performance, so that it can PREDICT how the system > will react. I think it's an exaggeration to call this maneuver "inverting > the cause-and-effect sequence", but it comes close.) I learned about > instrumentalism, and will try to understand how it relates to pragmatism. > > I was surprised when the conversation on the list veered from probability > and epistemology to communication and information. But I shouldn't have > been. The QBist point of view divides science into two realms. On the one > hand each individual agent assembles the totality of her experiences > (experimenting, reading, talking, calculating...) into a web of probability > assignments that is as coherent and comprehensive as possible. That's the > easy part, and, as usual, physicists have picked it as their domain. But > the hard part is the effort of agents to correlate their private > experiences -- i.e. to communicate with each other in order to develop a > common scientific worldview. Agent A's description of an experience serves > as input for updating B's personal probability assignments via Bayes' law. > And this is done through language as well as math. Niels Bohr more clearly > than any of the other pioneers of quantum mechanics realized the importance > of language -- he was "steeped in language" in the apt phrase of one > biographer. He thought that language is necessary to relate the abstract, > quantum mechanical description of matter to everyday experiences of the > world. QBists would add that it also enables agents to relate to each > other. > > So, my fellow agents, I hope that my lecture has given you a few tidbits > of new information to serve as input for updating some of the probability > estimates you use to make decisions on your own future action. By future > action I mean thinking, talking, reading, writing... Your emails have > certainly caused me to re-think! And, being fundamentally an optimist, I > hope that in infinitesimal ways our worldviews will converge, and improve, > and lead to a better world. That's my New Year's wish for FIS! > > Sincerely, > > Hans Christian von Baeyer > > _______________________________________________ > fis mailing list > fis@listas.unizar.es > https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis > >
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