Cat In The Box - Thought Experiments

[Malintent]

There is frozen water, so why not frozen red?

Hey you can't win all the time!
EB

.. only some of the time is red? Anti-time is indeed red... the redshift proves this... the further back we look, the redder the shift. therefore, positive time is blue. Frozen red must represent the now.. (when? just then? now? no, you just missed it? damn.)

 

[Malintent]

Hey you can't win all the time!
EB

.. only some of the time is red? Anti-time is indeed red... the redshift proves this... the further back we look, the redder the shift. therefore, positive time is blue. Frozen red must represent the now.. (when? just then? now? no, you just missed it? damn.)

Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We're at now now.
Dark Helmet: Go back to then.
Colonel Sandurz: When?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: Now?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: I can't.
Dark Helmet: Why?
Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now.
Dark Helmet: When will then be now?
Colonel Sandurz: Soon.
Dark Helmet: How soon?

 

[ryan]

So, imagine a similar experiment to Schrodinger's except we have 2 bombs where there is a 50% bomb A goes off and a 50% bomb B goes off. Either way it's the end for the brave scientist. 6:00pm is when the radioactivity determines which bomb goes off.

If the scientist doesn't blow up at 6:00pm, then does his past self die at 6:00pm when his present self discovers which bomb was suppose to explode? If the latter is how he dies, then who opened the box?

Presumably the history that forms through retro-causality (if that is the case), is not self contradictory and so preserves past, present and future coherence.

Are you saying that there are 3 universes in this case, namely where bomb A explodes, bomb B explodes and the universe that continues until the scientist checks which bomb exploded?

This is essential the grandfather paradox, without using relativity.

 

[Malintent]

Presumably the history that forms through retro-causality (if that is the case), is not self contradictory and so preserves past, present and future coherence.

Are you saying that there are 3 universes in this case, namely where bomb A explodes, bomb B explodes and the universe that continues until the scientist checks which bomb exploded?

This is essential the grandfather paradox, without using relativity.

Well, the sum of histories hypothesis says there are an infinite number of universes... one where the bomb goes off, one where the cat defuses the bomb, one where the scientist burps and sets the bomb off before it goes in the box.....

 

[ryan]

Are you saying that there are 3 universes in this case, namely where bomb A explodes, bomb B explodes and the universe that continues until the scientist checks which bomb exploded?

This is essential the grandfather paradox, without using relativity.

Well, the sum of histories hypothesis says there are an infinite number of universes... one where the bomb goes off, one where the cat defuses the bomb, one where the scientist burps and sets the bomb off before it goes in the box.....

Does the universe where the scientist checks if bomb A explodes or bomb B discontinue? In other words, when the scientist checks the cat's condition, does that universe end?

 

[bilby]

It's not entirely clear that you are refering to me talking about parallel universes but anyway I shall try to provide some details.

Quantum physics doesn't talk of parallel universes, or possible worlds etc. The suggestion rather is that every probable outcome in a quantum event is realised so that in Schroedinger's thought experiment there's a dead cat and there a cat still alive and since these two shall never meet again each will exist in a separate "universe", for want of a better word. Those two universes are initially identical except for the state of the cat. As the state of a whole cat is not a reversible processs, the two universes will remain separate ad eternam and diverge further in term of events. Call that "universes" or not is not the point. People in any such locations will take it as a proper universe and blissfully ignore the others. These places are not just supposed to be "possible" but actual. Not all QM scientists seem to agree on this interpretation but it does have the support of minority of them (the last time I read something about this) based on some specific experiment.
EB

So are Trump supporters in some sort of quantum flux where they live in our universe but experience the events of a parallel universe?

Of course. Hence the common phrase "Donald Trump and his supporters can go flux themselves".

 

[DBT]

Presumably the history that forms through retro-causality (if that is the case), is not self contradictory and so preserves past, present and future coherence.

Are you saying that there are 3 universes in this case, namely where bomb A explodes, bomb B explodes and the universe that continues until the scientist checks which bomb exploded?

This is essential the grandfather paradox, without using relativity.

Not multiple universes, retro-causality would presumably form a history for an observed/collapsed wave/particle that does not permit a paradox to form. Like the science fiction idea that a time traveller would somehow be thwarted by fate if he should try to kill his grandpa.

The gun may jam, he may get hit by a car on his way to kill his grandpa...something would happen to prevent the action, the killing of his grandfather before his father was born, that did not occur in his timeline.

 

[ryan]

Are you saying that there are 3 universes in this case, namely where bomb A explodes, bomb B explodes and the universe that continues until the scientist checks which bomb exploded?

This is essential the grandfather paradox, without using relativity.

Not multiple universes, retro-causality would presumably form a history for an observed/collapsed wave/particle that does not permit a paradox to form. Like the science fiction idea that a time traveller would somehow be thwarted by fate if he should try to kill his grandpa.

I don't see how the many worlds interpretation can be avoided.

Imagine that your friend, we will call Joe, goes into the box with the cat with a gas mask. The cat will either be alive or dead at 6:00pm from Joe's observation, but you will not check until 6:15pm. Joe sees the cat survive at 6:00pm. But, at 6:15, the cat might be dead, and you will see a sad Joe.

Why should your reality be the ultimate reality over Joes reality with the cat alive?

 

[DBT]

Not multiple universes, retro-causality would presumably form a history for an observed/collapsed wave/particle that does not permit a paradox to form. Like the science fiction idea that a time traveller would somehow be thwarted by fate if he should try to kill his grandpa.

I don't see how the many worlds interpretation can be avoided.

Imagine that your friend, we will call Joe, goes into the box with the cat with a gas mask. The cat will either be alive or dead at 6:00pm from Joe's observation, but you will not check until 6:15pm. Joe sees the cat survive at 6:00pm. But, at 6:15, the cat might be dead, and you will see a sad Joe.

Why should your reality be the ultimate reality over Joes reality with the cat alive?

Once observed, wave function has collapsed, with particles being in a definite state for all observers. All observers are able to see what Joe himself sees. Macro scale causality is preserved over time.

 

[fromderinside]

I don't see how the many worlds interpretation can be avoided.

Imagine that your friend, we will call Joe, goes into the box with the cat with a gas mask. The cat will either be alive or dead at 6:00pm from Joe's observation, but you will not check until 6:15pm. Joe sees the cat survive at 6:00pm. But, at 6:15, the cat might be dead, and you will see a sad Joe.

Why should your reality be the ultimate reality over Joes reality with the cat alive?

Once observed, wave function has collapsed, with particles being in a definite state for all observers. All observers are able to see what Joe himself sees. Macro scale causality is preserved over time.

A pretty silly way to insert time into quantum problem. We all know that when we see the cat it will be dead but it was alive along with a lethal condition when it was put in the box. Just as we know that when expecting to see waves we'll see particles until we expect to see particles.

 

[ryan]

I don't see how the many worlds interpretation can be avoided.

Imagine that your friend, we will call Joe, goes into the box with the cat with a gas mask. The cat will either be alive or dead at 6:00pm from Joe's observation, but you will not check until 6:15pm. Joe sees the cat survive at 6:00pm. But, at 6:15, the cat might be dead, and you will see a sad Joe.

Why should your reality be the ultimate reality over Joes reality with the cat alive?

Once observed, wave function has collapsed, with particles being in a definite state for all observers. All observers are able to see what Joe himself sees.

But the experiment has a collapsed wave function before the observer looks in the box, at 6:00pm, but only inside the box. 6:00pm is when the outcome of the radioactivity is determined. Assuming nothing from the outside of the box interferes with anything inside the box (decoherence), then everything macro or micro depends on the original 50/50 chance of poison. This is how the original experiment goes. See, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjaAxUO6-Uw .

So just like the cat, Joe's reality is also split relative to you. But inside the box he will see one outcome or another. And then when you open the box, you may see a Joe that observed the other fate than the fate he observed before you opened the box.

This leads me to my original issue. If Joe could have seen both outcomes, then how can the many worlds interpretation be avoided?

Macro scale causality is preserved over time.

Except that the original experiment actually has a macro object, the cat, in a suspended state of uncertainty. The cat is a macro reaction to both outcomes of the radioactivity, but only to an observer that is not in any physical contact. From the cat's point of view, it actually is either dead or alive.

As we know with quantum computing, it is possible to isolate such an experiment so that nothing interferes with it. Even heat can cause decoherence, so that's why quantum computers like the one D-Wave built has to be as close to absolute zero as possible.

 

[DBT]

Except that the original experiment actually has a macro object, the cat, in a suspended state of uncertainty. The cat is a macro reaction to both outcomes of the radioactivity, but only to an observer that is not in any physical contact. From the cat's point of view, it actually is either dead or alive.

Schrodinger's cat was not meant as a literal macro scale cat, but a metaphorical cat which represents observer/superposition/probability wave function. But once collapsed, aka Copenhagen, the metaphorical cat/probability wave function turned particle state is the same for all observers. Anyone who sees the cat, sees the cat in the same state, either alive or dead, one or the other, but not in a state of superposition. If collapsed wave function is a cat that is alive, all observers see a live cat.

 

[ryan]

Except that the original experiment actually has a macro object, the cat, in a suspended state of uncertainty. The cat is a macro reaction to both outcomes of the radioactivity, but only to an observer that is not in any physical contact. From the cat's point of view, it actually is either dead or alive.

Schrodinger's cat was not meant as a literal macro scale cat, but a metaphorical cat which represents observer/superposition/probability wave function. But once collapsed, aka Copenhagen, the metaphorical cat/probability wave function turned particle state is the same for all observers. Anyone who sees the cat, sees the cat in the same state, either alive or dead, one or the other, but not in a state of superposition. If collapsed wave function is a cat that is alive, all observers see a live cat.

I think you are forgetting that the experiment is about what happens after the poison is released or not released.

Watch the video that I put a link for in my last post to you.

 

[DBT]

Schrodinger's cat was not meant as a literal macro scale cat, but a metaphorical cat which represents observer/superposition/probability wave function. But once collapsed, aka Copenhagen, the metaphorical cat/probability wave function turned particle state is the same for all observers. Anyone who sees the cat, sees the cat in the same state, either alive or dead, one or the other, but not in a state of superposition. If collapsed wave function is a cat that is alive, all observers see a live cat.

I think you are forgetting that the experiment is about what happens after the poison is released or not released.

Watch the video that I put a link for in my last post to you.

I've hardly got time to do a few brief comments, yet alone watch videos. Maybe you can explain what you mean in your own words.

 

[ryan]

I think you are forgetting that the experiment is about what happens after the poison is released or not released.

Watch the video that I put a link for in my last post to you.

I've hardly got time to do a few brief comments, yet alone watch videos. Maybe you can explain what you mean in your own words.

All you need to see is from 10 seconds in to 50 seconds, so 40 seconds in total, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjaAxUO6-Uw .

It says that the poison either kills the cat or doesn't. And even after that happens, the cat is still in a superposition until the box is opened.

 

[DBT]

I've hardly got time to do a few brief comments, yet alone watch videos. Maybe you can explain what you mean in your own words.

All you need to see is from 10 seconds in to 50 seconds, so 40 seconds in total, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjaAxUO6-Uw .

It says that the poison either kills the cat or doesn't. And even after that happens, the cat is still in a superposition until the box is opened.

That is the point of the Copenhagen interpretation, and what I've already been saying about the observer/probability wave collapse relationship. Be that through entanglement between the means of perception/observation as the particles of a brain (information processor), or other means, some currently not understood relationship.

 

[ryan]

All you need to see is from 10 seconds in to 50 seconds, so 40 seconds in total, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjaAxUO6-Uw .

It says that the poison either kills the cat or doesn't. And even after that happens, the cat is still in a superposition until the box is opened.

That is the point of the Copenhagen interpretation, and what I've already been saying about the observer/probability wave collapse relationship. Be that through entanglement between the means of perception/observation as the particles of a brain (information processor), or other means, some currently not understood relationship.

Okay, so let me get something straight by getting your answer to this. Are you saying that if a human, named Tom, were in the box instead of the cat, then Tom would not be in a superposition until Joe opens the box?

 

[DBT]

That is the point of the Copenhagen interpretation, and what I've already been saying about the observer/probability wave collapse relationship. Be that through entanglement between the means of perception/observation as the particles of a brain (information processor), or other means, some currently not understood relationship.

Okay, so let me get something straight by getting your answer to this. Are you saying that if a human, named Tom, were in the box instead of the cat, then Tom would not be in a superposition until Joe opens the box?

If, like Schroedinger's cat, Tom the human being is a metaphor for probability wave function and not an actual person, an observer himself (collapsed wave/particle state), then yes, Tom is in a state of superposition until the box is opened, observed and wave function collapsed, aka, Copenhagen.

That Tom is a human being with a history and presumably in a definite state before getting into the box renders the Schroedinger cat example meaningless, which itself is just a metaphor for probability wave function and its weirdness.

 

[ryan]

Okay, so let me get something straight by getting your answer to this. Are you saying that if a human, named Tom, were in the box instead of the cat, then Tom would not be in a superposition until Joe opens the box?

If, like Schroedinger's cat, Tom the human being is a metaphor for probability wave function and not an actual person, an observer himself (collapsed wave/particle state), then yes, Tom is in a state of superposition until the box is opened, observed and wave function collapsed, aka, Copenhagen.

That Tom is a human being with a history and presumably in a definite state before getting into the box renders the Schroedinger cat example meaningless, which itself is just a metaphor for probability wave function and its weirdness.

I have never read that the cat is a metaphor. Are you sure about your source? Here's a source that seems to agree with me, http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/ardlouis/dissipative/Schrcat.html .

 

[DBT]

If, like Schroedinger's cat, Tom the human being is a metaphor for probability wave function and not an actual person, an observer himself (collapsed wave/particle state), then yes, Tom is in a state of superposition until the box is opened, observed and wave function collapsed, aka, Copenhagen.

That Tom is a human being with a history and presumably in a definite state before getting into the box renders the Schroedinger cat example meaningless, which itself is just a metaphor for probability wave function and its weirdness.

I have never read that the cat is a metaphor. Are you sure about your source? Here's a source that seems to agree with me, http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/ardlouis/dissipative/Schrcat.html .

Quote;
''Of course, Schrödinger claimed, that was ridiculous. Quantum superposition could not work with large objects such as cats, because it is impossible for an organism to be simultaneously alive and dead.''

''While it is true that modern experiments have revealed that while quantum superposition does work for tiny things like electrons, larger objects must be regarded differently.''