Schroedinger's Cat -- Again

The film becomes the observer, so the cat is doomed. When we view the film doesn't matter. A chemical change takes place, so the event is 'seen' by the camera.

The big bang thing is supposition, a theory only. Future events can only change our opinion of the past, or our interpretation of it. The actual past is often different from what we now call history, fables, or legend.

Suppose there is a blind person in the room with the box, and if the cat is alive, he makes no sound,same as if dead.

When the box is opened, what is the state of the cat? Fixed or still in superposition?

If I understand the experiment properly, the raw data has to be observed to become real,so the image on the film itself is in a state of superposition until viewed.

What I am trying to do is determine if a sentient being has to be aware of the measurement to collapse the superposition of the cat. If so, then reality is merely an illusion created by our senses:past,present,future are one,like looking backward,forward,or left or right,but only one view at a time can be processed.

I think the crux of the experiment hinges on observation. This Hellen Keller scientist invalidates the experiment. In my opinion, the camera qualifies as an observer. I have a web cam that can detect motion, pretty smart device.

Read Carlos Castenada for some real mind twisting, if you like that stuff.

The question was not really about the cat, it was whether the radioactive atom radiated or not. The atom has dual states, particle and probability, which state depends on whether you look or not. When you look, it becomes a particle and the probability of radiation becomes action or not action.

Not very well explained, I'm afraid. We need an expert.

I had a class that discussed this at length... nearly ad nauseam. The broader principle that is IMO more important here is that even in the most intelligent and clever design experiments (in regards to particle physics), there really is no such thing as an objective observer... as a scientist observing things it will be subjective, because simply looking at the experiment alters it.

Surprised you replied to this until I read your reply.

"Concurred " .

Never took part in any "LSD parties" (or anything of the like), which is where such discussions belong...

Schro himself wrote: "One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device..." *Exactly!!!* Ridiculous!

Whereas Heisenberg did a pretty good job defining ('his') conundrum , Schro dragged discussion into the proverbial 'terlet'.

Too many semantics-puzzles with this poor analogy.

No cat will ever exist in the same box both 'alive' and 'dead', nor can it be "neither".

Nor does the act of observing to see WHICH state it is in "seal the cats fate".

The state of the cat is what it is irrespective of our observation.

The only thing that our observation changes is OUR understanding of the 'truth'.

The only 'truth' you'll find playing-with-cats is that human skin is no match for claws

If this boxed cat falls over (in a forest) will it make a sound? ffej

I haven't studied this adequately, but I doubt that observation (especially "conscious" observation) is really what matters--unless "observation" is defined so loosely as to include all physical interactions.

Hen before the egg?

Frog in a well?

Cat in a box?

Time before light?

An experiment before result? (^{?tluser erofeb tnemirepxe})

Would not other dimensions come into play?

Conundrums are dealt with but hardly ever solved.

the cat can continue to exist in two states... (and forever.) Who's counting?

Ky.

Ok, here's another twist to the plot:Assume the cat is in a glass box,but no one is around to observe for at least one light year distance.An observer, with a very powerful telescope one light year away sees the status of the box,(and hence, the state of decay).Does the effect of observation occur immediatley, or will it take another year for the results to occur at the box? (just love twisting that cat's tail ).

Seems like this is a case of spooky action to me.

Being 1 light year away and using a very powerful telescope ... you will still be looking at the event after 1 lightyear in time... the time it took the photons to reach your eye does not care about the size of your telescope... So back to square One.

Obviously, I did not explain myself very well.The POINT I was making is that the status of the cat was NOT viewed for 1 year.The question was:Did the cat's status "solidify" when you viewed the event,or did it take another year for the information(That you viewed the event) to travel back to the box and collapse the probability into reality.If it happens as soon as you view it through the telescope, then the information about you viewing it traveled faster than light,(spooky action at a distance) otherwise, it would take another year for the information(that the status has been measured,or viewed) to reach the box and cat.

If on the other hand the information travels at the speed of light,it would actually take 2 years from the time the particle in the box decayed, (or not), to be known and collapse into reality.

See, simple question.

I need to give my brain a break... maybe I'll go read Roger Pink's stuff again.

You really are a glutton for punishment.

Assume no one opens a thread, is it exisiting?

Has anyone ever considered what the wave function of a cat must look like?

"Yes"...

see Feline Wave Function at mid-page...(< link)...

Oh, and one more thing. You don't need the camera to know if the cat is dead. The stench will indicate the state of the cat.

This is silly, at least to my simple mind.

Cheers.

I agree with lynch because an event is not observed doesn't mean it didn't happen or it wouldn't have happened because it wasn't observed it is what you believe it to be in your minds eye thats the reality.Iam realy glad I only took one hit of acid when I was growing up.

The observation doesn't seem to need to be by a sentient being as shown in one of my previous threads.

I have a question for you: "If a man speaks in the forest where no woman can hear, is he still wrong?"

StandardsGuy wrote: "The observation doesn't seem to need to be by a sentient being as shown in one of my previous threads."

I just want to echo and reinforce this statement. In the reading I've been doing lately (on the general subjects of relativity and advanced physics), I finally found an explanation of the Heisenberg (sp?) Uncertainty Principle (HUP) that seemed to make some sense to me at an intuitive level.

That understanding is this (and I forget, atm, where I found this explanation, but I suspect it was on wikipedia) (and I'm paraphrasing (from memory) and perhaps extending what I read):

• to observe something, it must emit or reflect light
• light consists of one or more photons
• photons carry energy / momentum
• thus, when an observation occurs, photons must be emitted from or reflected by what is being observed, which results in some amount of energy (momentum) being transferred
• with specific reference to the HUP, this means that an observation imparts a change in momentum, which is either a change in position or velocity, which leads to the uncertainty
• further, I extrapolate (not quite the word I want--theorize, or maybe "my understanding / guess is") that the result of the observation (the photon traveling back to the observer) cannot know the exact effect it has on the observed particle

Similarly, I can extrapolate (again, not quite the word I want--see previous note), that this impartation of energy serves to collapse the (probablility) wave function of the particle (not the cat) under observation.

With this understanding (and other comments made in this thread--like the one by ChaoticIntellect reminding us that "the original experiment is about radioactive decay" (the cat's life was determined not by the observation, but by the results of the observation on the radioactive decay of the (elementary?) particle being observed, I can make sense of all the seeming anomalies presented in this thread. (Or, at least I think I can ;-)

"If a man speaks in the forest where no woman can hear, is he still wrong?"
RAOFPMSL
Del

As the theory has been explained to me, it is more about a kind of 'superposition'. A particle can only be in one place at a given moment of time, so set up an experiment with an expected result. Using the '2-slit' experiment, we can close off one of the slits, and since there is only one slit left, that is where we will "observe" a particle. Now open the previously closed slit, (and close off the other previously opened one), and you still "observe" a particle at the open slit. With both slits open, the probability of "observing" at either slit is described by the wave function of the particle. The wave function exists both before the slits AND AFTER travelling through the slits. The wave function collapsed only to travel through one or the other slits as a particle, but the wave function sort of 're-integrated' itself on the output side of the slits. Think of the slits as individual observers if you must.

I hope this helps, but it really seem to be a really hard concept to grasp in our macroscopic world.