A time machine that could actually deliver and tell us who would win mythical match ups... Is it more of a reality than we think?!

[Bundana]

its kind of a hard concept to grasp. Whether one thinks it is plausible or not...It is very difficult to explain. It has little to do with computer data in the conventional sense. But its not about feeding data from every second of a fighter's life. Here is the best way I can explain it: knowledge can be looked at as the outcome of some cause. Every effect has a probability of occuring. The more you rank different probabilities, the more probabilities you can consider in a conclusion, the more accurate you will be. Given enough information and the ability to process the information a computer could theoretically predict a "clash of heads." The most likely scenario comes from taking many many probabilities and ranking all of them and making a conclusion. We are talking a lot of data here... Many times more than a computer can do conventionally.

Most people are thinking backwards when asking how a computer could predict an anomolie like a shoulder injury? the real question is how much information would a computer need to realistically rank such an occurance? There might well be an answer to that question. I don't know this but I do know that as we study Artificial Intelligence, Quantum theory and game theory, it isn't hard to see computers able to teach themselves very fast.

Just to give you an analogy: you have a standard analog computer that wants to predict the toss of a roulette wheel number. This has been done by calculating the machine dynamics, the friction of the wheel, the characteristics of the tosser, etc. but those are not really about artificial intelligence, more about meaningful data. A Quantum computer could watch a series of tosses, teach itself more and more about the odds of a toss, and eventually evolve to predict the right number every time... How much farther can it go in predicting outcomes with no restraints on data amount?

You know, what initially made me react to this thread, were the first two words in your opening post: Quantum computers. That made me sit up and take notice, as I figured this might develop into something interesting!

I'm a bit of a science freak (though by no means an expert in any area), and watch with interest the many, many educational videos on YouTube, about quantum physics, quantum computers, etc. (as well as the many aspects of space exploration in general). I'm especially interested in the subject of quantum entanglement - which I'm sure you know, was a hot topic in debates between Bohr and Einstein many years ago. I do not pretend to know/understand the math behind this theory - but I find it mindbogglingly (to say the least!) weird and interesting!

So when you talk about the capabilities of these future quantum computers, I have at least a vague idea, what you mean. But what comes out of these computers must necessarily be based on the information put into them.

So what would happen, if we one day in the future feed everything that is known about everything (I mean, everything known to man about EVERYTHING) into such a computer, and ask it to answer this question: Is there a God? And what if it comes up with the answer, that there most likely isn't? Would that make us even a little bit wiser? An atheist would say, that he didn't really need a computer to tell him that - while a theist would completely reject the validity of the computer's findings.

[Eff Pandas]

Some eras are compatible, some, not so much. I think you can compare based on preclassical up until the time of Dempsey (classical). So naturally we want to compare when we can.... Human Nature. Come on Eff Panda! wouldn't you love to see Louis against Ali? or even Frazier? (more interesting fight probably). Come on! (puts a piece of perfectly roasted spare rib under your nose tempting you to try the rest of the buffet).

LOL nah man I don't even care about fantasy Joe Louis vs fantasy Muhammad Ali. This is like the who wins the 72 Dolphins vs the 84 49ers on steroids to me & even those NFL people who fantasize about who's the goat don't seem as dedicated as some boxing fan do on their fantasy events.

[Willie Pep 229]

Can we compute why boxing fans are so obsessed with who beats who from different eras? Thats a question that confuses me to no end & I've never heard a answer that made much sense to me.

It is fun ! - What other fun can one have with historical knowledge other than to play 'what if' ?

What if the Fench had the good sense not to behead Marie Antoinette but instead put a kitten on her lap and sent her home to Vienna. Would Austria have attacked Paris; would have they joined a coalition with Great Britain; would Berlin follow Vienna's lead and leave France alone; would Austria and Prussia allow Russia to cross its territory to assist Britain to attack France?

Would not killing the pointless, clueless little girl have resulted in Napoleon Bonaparte never rising to power? No international coalition attacking France; no collapse of the French Repunlic; no Napoleon.

See fun - imgaine if there was no 'color line' ? We would never have heard of Jack Johnson.

P.S. Unless you are a hater and want to demean fighters from the past; you can do that too. But that's not fun, just mean.

[QueensburyRules]

- -Shush now, he shan't ever know it's quantum that decides if it's gonna be Kerouac or Ginsberg in the soft clay of his moment.

[Eff Pandas]

It is fun ! - What other fun can one have with historical knowledge other than to play 'what if' ?

What if the Fench had the good sense not to behead Marie Antoinette but instead put a kitten on her lap and sent her home to Vienna. Would Austria have attacked Paris; would have they joined a coalition with Great Britain; would Berlin follow Vienna's lead and leave France alone; would Austria and Prussia allow Russia to cross its territory to assist Britain to attack France?

Would not killing the pointless, clueless little girl have resulted in Napoleon Bonaparte never rising to power? No international coalition attacking France; no collapse of the French Repunlic; no Napoleon.

See fun - imgaine if there was no 'color line' ? We would never have heard of Jack Johnson.

P.S. Unless you are a hater and want to demean fighters from the past; you can do that too. But that's not fun, just mean.

There is a what if history reddit forum I like to read sometimes to be fair, but to me thats interesting cuz of the butterfly effect more than the what if of it all. Most of the Ali vs Louis guys just wanna know who would win a fight & there isn't much speculation beyond the who wins part.

To me it actually feels like its attempting to demean great fighters by diminishing their greatness in their own timeline & putting them in this new fantasy timeline where they are disregarded as a KO2 victim, for example, to some guy who fought 50yrs before or after them.

[Citizen Koba]

It would only be as reliable as the data entered by humans. We all know how unreliable that can be. Especially if math nerds who aren’t boxing fans are entering said data. The intangibles and nuances of each fighter could never be fully captured.

I think much of the direction AIs going in now is via machine learning - you kinda give the machine only the most basic of starting parameters and let it in effect work out for itself which information best solves the problems:



In this case it'd involve setting it lose on a database of all the fight footage ever recorded as well as databases of other fights, fighter stats - even possibly personal data about fighters - and so on and allowing it to seek out the patterns itself. I remain sceptical that you'd ever get total accuracy just cos of random unknowable factors or the general chaos of the universe but the results this method has got in other fields is pretty remarkable.

[Bundana]

I think much of the direction AIs going in now is via machine learning - you kinda give the machine only the most basic of starting parameters and let it in effect work out for itself which information best solves the problems:



In this case it'd involve setting it lose on a database of all the fight footage ever recorded as well as databases of other fights, fighter stats - even possibly personal data about fighters - and so on and allowing it to seek out the patterns itself. I remain sceptical that you'd ever get total accuracy just cos of random unknowable factors or the general chaos of the universe but the results this method has got in other fields is pretty remarkable.

It's an incredibly fascinating subject (at least in my opinion)!

Now let's say, as you suggest, that we feed everything that has ever happened related to boxing, into this self-learning super-computer. The entire BoxRec database (of course!), every fight we have footage of, every article ever written anywhere about boxing/boxers, etc. These are not in any way related to opinion - they are FACTUAL things that have actually happened (fights that have taken place, articles that have been written, etc.).

With all this information, I wonder what our computer will make of, for example, John L. Sullivan? It will not have been able to watch any fight footage of him - but it will have gone through hundreds and hundreds af contemporary articles, where reporters were waxing eloquently about his greatness, like:

“He can strike out with either right or left and knock a man down with as much ease and grace as an accomplished lady can gently and languidly open an opera fan”.

"The arm straightens out and the blow is with a suddenness which seems paralysing to the spectators, to say nothing of the man in front of him".

“The superiority of Sullivan lies in his extraordinary nervous force and altogether incomparable skill as a boxer. In what does this extraordinary skill consist? In hitting as straight and almost as rapid as light, in the variety and rediness of his blows, in standing firmly on his feet and driving his whole weight and nervous force at the end of his fist- a very rare and high quality in a boxer, in movements as quick and purposeful as the leap of a lion”.

“He can strike more heavy blows in ten seconds than any other man in a minute and watches with self possession and calculation".

The computer could be excused for thinking, that this may possibly be the greatest fighter who ever lived! So what do we do? Do we tell the computer, that these descriptions should be taken with a grain of salt - since they were made by oldtimers, who had seen nothing yet? But if we do that, we interject our own personal OPINION - which kind of defeats the whole purpose of computer self-learning.

[billeau2]

You know, what initially made me react to this thread, were the first two words in your opening post: Quantum computers. That made me sit up and take notice, as I figured this might develop into something interesting!

I'm a bit of a science freak (though by no means an expert in any area), and watch with interest the many, many educational videos on YouTube, about quantum physics, quantum computers, etc. (as well as the many aspects of space exploration in general). I'm especially interested in the subject of quantum entanglement - which I'm sure you know, was a hot topic in debates between Bohr and Einstein many years ago. I do not pretend to know/understand the math behind this theory - but I find it mindbogglingly (to say the least!) weird and interesting!

So when you talk about the capabilities of these future quantum computers, I have at least a vague idea, what you mean. But what comes out of these computers must necessarily be based on the information put into them.

So what would happen, if we one day in the future feed everything that is known about everything (I mean, everything known to man about EVERYTHING) into such a computer, and ask it to answer this question: Is there a God? And what if it comes up with the answer, that there most likely isn't? Would that make us even a little bit wiser? An atheist would say, that he didn't really need a computer to tell him that - while a theist would completely reject the validity of the computer's findings.

Im a big fan of Quantum Mechanics...Yes Einstein was scared of certain aspects of the theory, because it was so crazy...and Bohr was trying to explain the behavoir of electrons. Entanglement is what they still are debating to this day lol. Yes Weird and intersting.

Regarding the second point: Probatilistic thinking is a very easy technique and it would be easy for a computer capable of going the speed that these computers will be able to go, to do an incredible amount of processing. It also allows a computer to learn, as it becomes aware (Aware? Lol, best word I could think of) of various probabilities it can compute other probabilities... In essence evolving, teaching itself to be able to predict more and more outcome. What really scares me about this is that our own learning depends a lot on this same process! We like to think we predict and understand things based on logic when many times it is because we have gained experience to know the possability of an occurance. For example, I may not go across the street because I am attacked going home that way... I might tell you "See? I am street wise and we had to know the streets and have the intelligence to see potential danger." In fact, the reason I know not to go across the street is: "there is a great probability that i might get attacked, greater than if I take another route home." I construct my "logic" Post Priori, or... after the fact, meaning that in fact, the computer is learning much like I am! And can do so a hell of a lot faster!

Third paragraph. The Questionof God is not based on probability because we don't know what experienced, actions, proof fufill the criteria for determining such a question. Kind of like the question: Is there life in all the infinite that there is? We are incapable of understanding infiniti in this way because it is beyond probability. Its a great question your asking. I guess that would be the one thing the computer could not do... For probability to work, we need at least a chance for something to occur.

[billeau2]

Yes, I get that Bill means a computer far into the future, far more advanced than anything we can even imagine today. But even so, how can there ever be computer, that can predict how two fighters will react, and what will happen, once they face each other in the ring?

Could such a computer be used to identify, who are the 'true' ATGs - based on what it determines to be the most LIKELY results of fantasy matches? Could it end the 'old vs new' debate? You know, where some people believe boxing has advanced/evolved over the years... while others (like Mike Silver) see today's boxers as pampered sissies, who are far inferior to the brave warriers of goneby years. Could a quantum computer, many years into the future, resolve that question? I don't see, how that would be possible!

Thats an interesting point. There are questions of subjective judgement which have little to do with experience in a direct way that is predictive. Like "Computer, that lime green polka dotted shirt with polyester lining Bill is wearing...is it nice?" Of course the real adrenaline rush would happen if someone backtests and the computer finds a way to learn and therefore discount bad data etc... and accept good data and much like a human, look at more data and determine probabilities, and start to get the outcome of fights correct.

[billeau2]

- -Crickets...

Really? you would not make a very good quantum computer... LOL.