clipka wrote:
> Patrick Elliott schrieb:
>>>   That may be only true if the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum 
>>> mechanics
>>> is true, which is not an accepted fact.
>>>
>> Isn't that a bit like saying that its not an accepted fact that the 
>> sky is green due to large amounts of trees floating in the clouds? Its 
>> not even "not accepted", its flat out wrong.
> 
> Quote from Wikipedia:
> 
> "According to a poll at a Quantum Mechanics workshop in 1997[7], the 
> Copenhagen interpretation is the most widely-accepted specific 
> interpretation of quantum mechanics"
> 
> So leaving aside that it /is/ apparently quite accepted (if only as a 
> theory instead of a fact), what makes you so sure that it is "flat out 
> wrong"?

The problem isn't the Copenhagen interpretation, its how it gets 
misused. Observer, in the context of quantum physics, means, "What ever 
happens to nudge the particle, causing it to change states." This 
**can't** be a person, unless you can honestly think of some means to 
invent an experiment where a particle(s) is held in a quantum state, and 
you could get some fool to walk through the middle of them. So, no.. A 
quantum instrument doesn't need someone "listening" to it to do 
something. First off, such a thing doesn't exists *as* a device, unless 
you have some mechanism by which you can change states *in* the device. 
If you can do that, then the "observer" is already in the room, and you 
don't need any conscious mind to be there for it to do anything. If it 
lacks this capacity, then you could have one, 50, of 50 million, people 
in the room, and its going to just sit their, doing nothing, because 
"observers", as is commonly used to mean, "Something sufficiently 
conscious to notice, and be aware of noticing, something else.", are not 
even part of the equation. When the quantum tree falls in the forest, if 
still makes a noise, because it hit something, not because something 
where there to see hear it hit, same as a normal tree.

So, no, I am not griping about the Copenhagen interpretation, I am 
griping about the inability of people to grasp that it doesn't mean what 
*most* people interpret the interpretation to imply, vis a vie 
consciousness. That isn't simply not implied by it, its outright 
contradicted by it.

That said, sorry for the confusion. I had assumed that the term being 
used applied to the poor reasoning derived from quantum theory and 
people's misunderstanding of what "observer" meant, not the basic 
principles of quantum physics, which invariably result in people 
thinking that a "person" needs to be in the room for anything to happen.

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void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> invent an experiment where a particle(s) is held in a quantum state, and 
> you could get some fool to walk through the middle of them. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93Einstein_condensate

Note that you can make these bigger than the room the equipment is in, so 
theoretically you could walk thru it. :-)

> So, no.. A 
> quantum instrument doesn't need someone "listening" to it to do 
> something. 

This was, indeed, the whole point of the Schodinger's cat argument. Is the 
cat alive enough to collapse its own waveform?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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>>> Depends which stops. The bass pipes in particular tend to be slow to
>>> speak, as do low diapasons. But reed pipes tend to speak very promptly.
>>>
>> Never thought about that, interesting! So does that mean you have to 
>> take into account when to press the lower keys, that it takes longer 
>> and therefore you have to play them earlier than the higher notes and 
>> have to play quite "irregular" to get a "regular" sound"? That sounds 
>> very difficult to get right! And in fact, that could be a reason, why 
>> it sounds so awful in church sometimes ;).
> 
> In a well-maintained organ, all but the huge pedal pipes speak quite 
> promptly. I'm told you have to play the pedal notes fractionally early 
> (but only fractionally). Most of the other pipes have a delay short 
> enough for it not to matter too much. (It just means that, e.g., if you 
> play *really* fast notes, they don't come out very loud.)

Now, if you want a *real* problem... Try playing an organ where one of 
the ranks of pipes is 200 feet above your head, so there's a split 
second delay between hitting the key and hearing the note. ;-) Now try 
that in a cathedral with a 7 second reverb time...


-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Darren New wrote:
> This was, indeed, the whole point of the Schodinger's cat argument. Is 
> the cat alive enough to collapse its own waveform?
> 

Well, that would seem obvious. Its bigger than a single particle, so 
yes. The point of the thought experiment was to describe the apparent 
weirdness only, not to talk about macro level objects behaving as single 
particles. ;)

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> This was, indeed, the whole point of the Schodinger's cat argument. Is 
>> the cat alive enough to collapse its own waveform?
>>
> 
> Well, that would seem obvious. Its bigger than a single particle, so 
> yes.

Uh, so no. The point was that the result was unobservable from outside the 
box. How does the scientist know whether the waveform was collapsed or not?

> The point of the thought experiment was to describe the apparent 
> weirdness only, not to talk about macro level objects behaving as single 
> particles. ;)

It hasn't anything to do with single particles. The point was that you can 
have an entire collection of particles in superposition. The device 
measuring the radiation goes into superposition. Why doesn't the cat?

(After all, the whole thing behind quantum computing and bose-einstein 
condensates is to get multiple particles in superposition. It's certainly 
*not* limited to a single particle, or there wouldn't be apparent weirdness 
about it brought up by the cat.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New wrote:
> (After all, the whole thing behind quantum computing and bose-einstein 
> condensates is to get multiple particles in superposition. It's 
> certainly *not* limited to a single particle, or there wouldn't be 
> apparent weirdness about it brought up by the cat.)
> 

Hmm. Well, this is true, but the point of such a condensate is that you 
have slowed the motion of all particles, as much as feasible, to the 
point where they **cannot** undergo any sort of transitions, beyond the 
ones they already undertook to reach the state. And, since such a 
state's simplest form is one where all particles are in superposition. I 
suppose, if you froze the cat... but, I think we would tend to agree 
that its alive/dead state would be a mute point after that. ;)

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> that its alive/dead state would be a mute point after that. ;)

Well, the point remains that "observation" is not the same as "interaction 
with another particle." Indeed, figuring out the probabilities of where the 
particle goes is basically calculating all possible interactions the 
particle might have had while you're not looking. There's no fundamental 
reason in the equations that the wave forms should collapse, and there's no 
fundamental reason why any lab equipment you might set up shouldn't be in a 
superposition of states. Indeed, if you look up how a delayed choice quantum 
eraser works, you can see that the particle can be in a superposition of 
states even after it has been measured and recorded, let alone interacting 
with one other particle. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser

(And incidentally, the word is "moot", not "mute." :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New schrieb:
> Well, the point remains that "observation" is not the same as 
> "interaction with another particle."

Actually it is - the observing apparatus (be it a human or a measuring 
equipment) being comprised of particles, and the observation being 
performed by having the particle actually interact.

The interesting thing here being that there is no such thing as an 
outside observer in this entire universe (as, by definition, such an 
observer would obviously have to be not in but outside of it).

I guess it is safe to claim that a flesh-and-blood human being is not an 
outside observer in this sense.


Or, to put it in other words: Observation is an illusion. The only thing 
we have is interaction.

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clipka wrote:

> Or, to put it in other words: Observation is an illusion. The only thing 
> we have is interaction.

That is, indeed, 82% crazy.

It also seems oddly descriptive of my life... Forever observing other 
people, yet almost never actually interacting with them.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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clipka wrote:
> Darren New schrieb:
>> Well, the point remains that "observation" is not the same as 
>> "interaction with another particle."
> 
> Actually it is - the observing apparatus (be it a human or a measuring 
> equipment) being comprised of particles, and the observation being 
> performed by having the particle actually interact.

I was stressing the singular there. An observation doesn't happen when the 
particle interacts with one other particle.  I.e., it's not "we don't know 
what the result will be until the particle interacts with another particle, 
and then the wave function collapses." The particle can interact with 
arbitrary many other particles before the "wave function collapses."

> I guess it is safe to claim that a flesh-and-blood human being is not an 
> outside observer in this sense.

Right.  Or a cat. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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