Rodney A. Brooks Quote

I understand, says Schwinger, and I admit that QFT has not solved the causality problem. But at least it has localized the probability aspect to a single event called field collapse-an event that is not covered by the equations of QFT. That is to say (Schwinger's favorite expression), QFT itself is causal, but it only takes us so far. At some point a discontinuous event takes place that is not covered by the theory. It is possible that at some time a theory will be developed for field collapse and it may turn out to be causal after all. On the other hand, it may be that it is a truly probabilistic process, and perhaps God does play dice with the world. Either way, it doesn't detract from what QFT has accomplished.

Rodney A. Brooks

I understand, says Schwinger, and I admit that QFT has not solved the causality problem. But at least it has localized the probability aspect to a single event called field collapse-an event that is not covered by the equations of QFT. That is to say (Schwinger's favorite expression), QFT itself is causal, but it only takes us so far. At some point a discontinuous event takes place that is not covered by the theory. It is possible that at some time a theory will be developed for field collapse and it may turn out to be causal after all. On the other hand, it may be that it is a truly probabilistic process, and perhaps God does play dice with the world. Either way, it doesn't detract from what QFT has accomplished.

Related Quotes

About Rodney A. Brooks

Rodney Allen Brooks (born 30 December 1954) is an Australian roboticist, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, author, and robotics entrepreneur, most known for popularizing the actionist approach to robotics. He was a Panasonic Professor of Robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He is a founder and former Chief Technical Officer of iRobot and co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Technical Officer of Rethink Robotics (formerly Heartland Robotics) and currently is the co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Robust.AI (founded in 2019).