Comments on research!rsc: Traffic Lights and Buridan's Ass

I didn't study the paper carefully, but his basic ...

2008-03-16T22:35:00.000-04:00

I didn't study the paper carefully, but his basic argument in the first section resting on continuity of the ass's trajectory seems flawed. He says the function must be continuous because this follows from physics. But there are plenty of examples in (both classical and quantum) physics where the solutions of the laws are non-continuous functions. For example in fluid dynamics, shocks - surfaces where discontinuities in the fluid occur - can form in finite time. So we can't really demand that the trajectory A(t,x) be continuous. That just seems to be a bogus attempt to promote the artificial abstract problem of an intelligent agent trying to decide between two equal alternatives into a physical problem.

This reminds me of a result that seems to be prett...

2008-03-16T09:51:00.000-04:00

This reminds me of a result that seems to be pretty well known in social psychology, that people have a harder time making a choice (and even choose to make no choice at all) when there are too many options--especially if many of those options are all quite similar.

For example, if you're buying toothpaste and there are 3 choices, $1, $2, and $3, and very clearly labeled as 'economy', 'normal', and 'deluxe' varieties you'll probably have no problem making a choice.

But if there are 15 different choices, all right around $1 and all just indicating basic "fluoride toothpaste" people have a much harder time making a choice.

What I've noticed going on internally in situations like that is a sort of confusion, much like that experienced by Buridan's Ass, as you try to think of a logical reason to choose one variety over another when there really is no good reason.

There is a brief informal article on this topic at APA Online.

In reality, the donkey cannot simultaneously have ...

2008-02-09T17:08:00.000-05:00

In reality, the donkey cannot simultaneously have an absolute position and absolute velocity. Therefore it can never be standing perfectly still between two bales of hay. Instead it will always be in some superposition of being somewhat closer to either bale of hay. As the donkey's state evolves, it will end up in a superposition of eating from both the left and right bales of hay. When the donkey is observed, similar to a famous cat, one will see it eating from either the left or right bale.

This argument probably works even better for semi-conductor arbiters than for donkeys.

@Maht: fixed, thanks.

2008-02-06T17:17:00.000-05:00

@Maht: fixed, thanks.

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2008-02-06T16:51:00.000-05:00

Hi,

v. interesting post

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