On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, Jonathan Scott Duff wrote:
: On Tue, Oct 29, 2002 at 10:13:39AM +0200, Markus Laire wrote:
: > Also the idea of allways using 'function' style for something so
: > basic like superpositions doesn't appeal to me.
:
: Superpositions are "basic" in a fabric-of-the-universe kind of way, but
: they are hardly basic in the everyone-learns-them-in-grade-school kind
: of way. I think the latter is more important for huffman coding of
: operators for the unwashed masses. But I'm willing change my mind if we
: start teaching everyone superpositions in grade school :-)
That won't happen, because they don't *have* to be taught in grade
school. You learn any() and all() as part of language before you
ever get to grade school. What kindergartener can't understand a
logically entangled list of nouns?
I want a tricycle or a video game or a teddy bear for Christmas.
I want a tricycle and a video game and a teddy bear for Christmas.
That's no different from:
$self.want($tricycle | $video_game | $teddy_bear);
$self.want($tricycle & $video_game & $teddy_bear);
Logically entangle nouns *are* more basic than grade school. Kids are
even sophisticated enough to disambiguate "xor" from "or" by context,
despite the fact that English has no "xor" operator:
Which do you want? A popsicle or a Mickey Mouse hat?
That's something like:
$you.pick($popsicle X $hat);
: Or if someone can show that they aren't really something new and
: amazing, but something old and comfortable but with a funny name and
: more power.
Well, "quantum superpositions" really is a very funny name. I've been
reducing that to "super" lately, but even that's misleading, because
it's hard to think of something "super" as basic. I prefer to think
of them as logically related nouns like we use all the time in English.
Logic for nouns rather than verbs. Something a toddler can understand.
So I would look favorably on finding a replacement for "superposition".
Larry
