[OPE-L:3292] Re: Re: Re: Re: starting points

From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Tue May 23 2000 - 05:55:26 EDT


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>
>Well, there seems to be an interesting analogy from value to quantum
>measurements in terms of the exact meaningless of what is being measured
>except as it is defined by the process of measuring it.
>
>Has anyone ever made it before? Or is my poor understanding of physics
>obvious here?

There is a difference here. Light in a full description is a super position of
orthogonal polarisation states. Certain operations can reduce the amplitude
of some of those states leaving the amplitude of others unaffected.

This is not a useful formal analogy with commodity prices unless you were
to reformulate all of the theory of value in terms of Hilbert space, or at
least in terms of a classical or real valued projection of Hilbert space.
I have toyed with the idea of doing this, but you should not underestimate
the theoretical labour involved.

I dont thing much is to be gained at the level of theoretical understanding
at the vague analogies that you are making. The problem is that these
do not distinguish between subjective uncertainty about prices and the
objective superposition that exists in quantum theory.



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