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On the Computational Power of Physical Systems, Undecidability, the Consistency of Phenomena, and the Practical Uses of Paradoxes
Author(s) -
SVOZIL K.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1995.tb39024.x
Subject(s) - consistency (knowledge bases) , computer science , annals , citation , physics , philosophy , library science , classics , artificial intelligence , art
The classical methods used by recursion theory and formal logic to blockparadoxes do not work in quantum information theory. Since quantum informationcan exist as a coherent superposition of the classical ``yes'' and ``no''states, certain tasks which are not conceivable in the classical setting can beperformed in the quantum setting. Classical logical inconsistencies do notarise, since there exist fixed point states of the diagonalization operator. Inparticular, closed timelike curves need not be eliminated in the quantumsetting, since they would not lead to any paradoxical outcome controllability.Quantum information theory can also be subjected to the treatment ofinconsistent information in databases and expert systems. It is suggested thatany two pieces of contradicting information are stored and processed ascoherent superposition. In order to be tractable, this strategy requiresquantum computation.Comment: 10 pages, latex, no figure