BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend

Subject: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 10:34 AM

in Wigner - Scientific America on Wigner's Friend

just when you though quantum weirdness couldn't get any weirder.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 11:43 AM

If I read this correctly (big if), you can be dead and alive at the same time.

That means zombies and vampires might be actual threats.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: leeneia
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 12:12 PM

"What does it feel like to be both alive and dead?"

A virus, which seems to be a multiplying, non-sentient unit of DNA, could probably let you know, but it's not alive enough to show reactions - at least that we can discern.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 01:29 PM

So viruses might be actual threats as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 01:51 PM

EVERYTHING is an actual threat! They really ARE out to get me! I've known it all along!

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 02:59 PM

Viruses!? Being alive is not the same thing as being not dead. But it's good to participate in the discussion, I suppose.

I remember hearing a theory that everything is happening all at once, all the time. Our brains were why we perceived it time as linear, because that's how we HAVE to view things.
I think it comes into play with the dead/not dead scenario. There's a type of radioactive decay that happens so fast ...well, it's one way, then it's the other. I used to keep looking for what it was - it was Kreutxsomething radiation, possibly - but I think it's what they now call "positron emission decay. The main thing, though, is the the change happens with no time involved. As in "first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is".

Which makes me wonder how much perception has to do with ANYthing. But I have to think linearly, because stuff is otherwise too weird. Too zen.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Jos
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 03:19 PM

Jeri, Am I exceptionally dense, or ignorant?

Is "auppoaw" an acronym? If so, for what?

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 03:44 PM

> Being alive is not the same thing as being not dead.

What happens when people "go viral."

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 05:08 PM

I don't see "auppoaw" anywhere in my post.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 07:10 PM

No kidding, I saw it too - somewhere on this page - and now it's gone!

Repeat: no kidding! Not a joke, either!

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 09:20 PM

Wait. It must have been a typo for "suppose," presumably corrected by our hosts.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Aug 20 - 09:26 PM

It's a hazard of being small enough to comment on typos. If it's bad enough to make the comment incomprehensible, it's likely to get fixed by someone who is smart enough to figure it out. (Reviewing all of this post for stupid typos.)

Wigner's typo both exists and doesn't. Weird...

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 04:16 AM

I don't see "auppoaw" anywhere in my post.

Well someone had to say it. It was there/not there till you looked at it!

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 08:25 AM

Thank you Mr. Red for bringing up the calculation accuracy of quantum theroy but how it breaks down wierdly when applied to 'reality'.   I have seen how - retro causality - can explain this and what causes it.    It is because the entire concept of time being linear is WRONG.
Time is actually 3 dimenional or more which is demonstrated by its fuzziness and quantum wierdness when viewed incorrectly as two dimensional.   This truth explains the pilot wave and other phenomena which explains how the future influences the past.

You may ask how I know this. It is by knowledge by other means or as some people are calling it 'indigenous knowledge'. It is as controversial as field theroy used to be. What is unique about consciousness is that some minds are able to percieve the working of 3D time and even use it to their advantage. In most cases retro causality overlaps our personal observation by a very short time.

If this concept is still confusing just think of how 3D time creates an optical illusion of superpositions if viewed as linear while in reality the upness and downess and forward and backward nature of 3D time is what

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 08:34 AM

... causes the wave collapse or wierdness - not a many world fracturing to allow everything possible to happen simultaneously.
Yep thats what wrong with quantum mechanics and why it seems so mind boggleing.
The truth is out there.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 11:42 AM

from:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_philosophy#process metaphysics


"An actual entity is a general philosophical term for an utterly determinate and completely concrete individual particular of the actually existing world or universe of changeable entities considered in terms of singular causality, about which categorical statements can be made. Whitehead's most far-reaching and radical contribution to metaphysics is his invention of a better way of choosing the actual entities. Whitehead chooses a way of defining the actual entities that makes them all alike, qua actual entities, with a single exception."

It...ummm.. goes on from there. My master's thesis was to be an assertion that the free will/determinism issue could only be truly addressed in a system such as Whitehead's. (why? well, that's what I never got around to the final iteration of..)

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 01:31 PM

> The truth is out there.

In the sort of universe decribed in the Scientific American, I doubt it.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 01:36 PM

Somebody tries too hard to sound smart, it usually means they don't understand something.
It's easy to spew gobledegook, and then portray other people are stupid because they don't get it.
It's a lot harder to explain so others understand.
No offense, Bill, but philosophy seems like it's about taking something simple, and making it as convoluted as possible, and nearly impossible to understand. And those guys wonder why they don't get invited to parities...

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 01:44 PM

In 175 years Scientific American Magazine has had many contributions of possible reality concepts. They haven't gotten around to my concepts yet (:^/ >< They must be busy.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 04:48 PM

Jeri.. real, genuine Philosophy is an attempt to make sense of our senses... if that makes sense. Many philosophical 'systems' were rooted in pre-established ideas-- often from religion. Some admit that things like "the Meaning of Life" are not answerable endeavors, but that we need to look to the meaning(s) embedded in our language. The thing that interests me about philosophy is that the very process of asking simple questions about meaning & existence creates a framework... sometimes a VERY convoluted one... that leads to actual insights. Plato.. and especially Aristotle... really affected Western civilization, just as Buddha and Confucius in the East did.
   Some ideas require linguistic terms and carefully defined concepts that they don't expect the average person to untangle... just as theoretical physicists don't expect many to grasp String Theory or the implications of the possibility of multiverses. Even science-fiction authors often weave seemingly weird & complex concepts into stories that later inspire real discoveries.
   All these are just ways to approach 'being' in ways that may be useful..or just moving... like art. Klimpt and Rembrandt and Picasso.. and Corlew... don't do it the same way, thank goodness.
I know that Wittgenstein and Kant and Hegel.. and Whitehead.. made ME conscious of how many diverse ways there are to give meaning to a world where *simplicity* often leads to prejudice and careless judgment.
   I never became a professional philosopher, but being exposed to so many views has really showed me why choosing just one is dangerous. (which is one reason I love folk music... they sing about almost anything!)

gee... I stopped before I got into C.S. Peirce- be thankful.)

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 06:35 PM

There's a million ways to be
you know that there are
If you want to be be free, be free...
Cat Steven's philosophy

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 06:51 PM

That's not exactly a 'philosophy', but more like an attitude.. or a slogan.. which is very close to being a tautology.
Very comforting... but...

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 09:34 PM

Bill, that may be what "genuine Philosphy" is, but an awful lot of folks seem to just like to talk. And then, there's quantum physics. And they come together in some manner. I think I'm better off trying to understand it, and not talking about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Aug 20 - 11:27 PM

About the auppoaw...

Nobody sees the fnords, either.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 08:17 AM

I am prone to think in terms of pattern recognition and organic self preservation, with training I can think in different ways. Sometimes it is conventional and sometimes it isn't. Most annoying is when it feels limited and I don't understand. My brain wants to fill in the gaps which may be the worst thing in terms of conventional pitfalls.   For example we naturally think of SPACE in terms of being volumetric. But we think of time as being a line with only one dimension of a moving length. Now Einstien has us thinking in terms of spacetime. We visualize the combination like a growing cone that expands. I think it is possible that we have conceptually sold time short and it is also volumetric in another way and not just a line with no width.

Throw in something we call gravity and time can slow or even stop just like light. With everything influencing everything else I get stymied by a feeling of expanding complexity that may or may not exist.

AI would not have these feelings of questionable self esteem.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 12:15 PM

Jeri... folks who would rather 'just talk' should, of course, just do so. Serious philosophers don't expect the average person to go to the trouble of sorting thru the arcane language of metaphysics, epistemology and phenomenology...etc. But it is frustrating to hear them dismissing those studies as ".. about taking something simple, and making it as convoluted as possible, and nearly impossible to understand" and calling it names like 'gobbledegook'.
   When I was a graduate teaching fellow for 2 years, our department made every effort to give those who took Philosophy 101 a basis for appreciating the relevance of the questions and the historical significance of the attempts at answers. Entire political systems draw on some of the most complex answers... and just today I saw this article on physics that uses philosophic logic to help answer the more frustrating things about physics... by reducing the number of answers to the 'possible'.
   I once worked in a software company which...briefly... sought to introduce me to programming. I simply could not wrap my head around the jargon, rules and exceptions to the rules... but I learned to be a pretty good operator of software stuff... just as I can drive many types of vehicles while being a total duffer at anything to do with repairing them... I can barely change the oil.

   All I really wish is to reduce the amount of linguistic fuzzing of the word 'philosophy' and the equivocation of the term... just as I hate reducing 'folk' music to mean whatever suits someone's subjective idea.

I guess that, like Sisyphus, I have my own rocks to roll... ;>)

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 03:40 PM

I studied Moral Philosophy at University as one of my 'additional subjects' and found it fascinating. I was only 17 when I arrived, but the lectures (and especially the tutorials) made me think deeply and created questions in my mind which I proceeded to try and answer.
It was so enjoyable discussing with the other half-dozen students what our views, ideas and viewpoints were regarding The'Good', Meaning of Life, Justice, Utilitarianism, Worthiness etc etc etc.
The subject seemed to relate to and clarify many of my other studies (Social Anthropology, Psychology, History of Education and so on)
How lucky I was to have had the opportunity of such an enjoyable and excellent education!

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 04:54 PM

Indeed... those discussions certainly do help to clarify...etc... discussions on other topics. I found it fascinating as a graduate student that I was the only one who had declared a philosophy major at the beginning. The other grad students had started in English, Math, Religion, History and Psychology.... and transferred to philosophy because they felt a need for broader topics & issues than their previous majors provided. There were very few areas forbidden in our department. You just put "Philosophy of" in front of a subject and go at it! (Moral Philosophy just reverses the words... and we automatically included works like Kant's "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals")

Basically, we found that it is often more enlightening to learn how to ask the right questions than to look directly for 'right answers'.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 05:00 PM

The languages of thought are many and varied.
It is good you learned so many disciplines since every discipline has its own language Senofou.

Bill's link says; They will think of reality not as a machine that behaves predictably according to laws of motion, but as a cosmic ocean full of resources capable of being transformed by an appropriate constructor. It would be a reality defined by possibility rather than destiny.

HAHA that also must include the possibilty that time has a destiney aspect to it. Earlier I mentioned the pilot wave that traces a future course and motion - the total opposite of the wake behind a boat.
pilot waves you can see

Another view over time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmC0ygr08tE

If you will, we are a surfing in an ocean of time.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 05:16 PM

15 years ago I posted here the original French experiment that showed this simulation of quantum particles. Since I was 14 I have pondered the double slit experiment and this oil drop experiment is the closest answer I have found.
Yes it is random and deterministic at the same time - but not that wierd.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 05:49 PM

Mr. Red you can watch the watchers and even watch the watcher watchers and obtain findings but you will not be on track in seeing the bigger picture. Have the simple oil drops opened your eyes a bit, at least in terms of quantum mechanics?

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 08:26 PM

Oops it was only 10+ years ago the first French experiment was conducted.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/fluid-experiments-support-deterministic-pilot-wave-quantum-theory-20140624/
I'm not a friend to Bohr.
As I have said before I'm an Einstien guy and favor an elegant universe. If superstrings exist it makes sense to me that the smallest possible particle is a wave and is an active part of a vibrating universe.

If you ever make an oil drop experiment in your kitchen, B flat 3 octaves above high C works well. btw B flat is the background pitch for the entire universe. Its just deeper than one can an imagine, or hear.

I used an underwater speaker but it doesn't matter. What does matter is a perfectly level fluid table.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Aug 20 - 09:46 PM

Bill, it's just down to what people enjoy. Talking philosophy, you can go on endlessly, and I like to feel there's a concrete purpose to a discussion - that it comes to a conclusion at some point. I know that it's not about right or wrong, good or bad, but it's just that it bothers me. It's as if the main purpose of the discussion is to keep the discussion going.

...but I so enjoy folks who use "the average person" as some sort of pejorative. It must be great to be so enlightened, and we common folk are in awe of your greatness. [enough snark for one night. Be well]

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Aug 20 - 04:21 AM

how to ask the right questions than to look directly for 'right answers'.

Which is why Opinion Polls are prone to errors.

Talking philosophically - opinions vary, inbuilt biases are legion. Philosophy is about discussion, not about answers. Travelling hopefully to get agreement. Hopefully, but not arriving.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Aug 20 - 07:05 AM

Without philosophy there is no discussion of ethics in science. I don't think such a world would last long. Philosophy is a crucial pillar that holds up the protective roof over mankind. Many ruins may not have a roof anymore but the pillars still stand. May philosophy stand proud and long. It is not just talk. The corruption* of philosophy in the 3rd Reich should show you the importance of the discipline.

Now back to the issue of the catbox. Phew

* a different conversation.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Aug 20 - 10:02 AM

> It's as if the main purpose of the discussion is to keep the discussion going.

Like many Mudcat threads.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Aug 20 - 01:10 PM

Conversation, discussion; these two words generally indicate a mutual exchange between two or more people; with this difference, that conversation is commonly used for all talk between two individuals, whereas discussion is for talk concerning a precise subject. But you can't step in the same river twice due to the current so drift is a given.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Aug 20 - 04:25 PM

Watching the walking droplets is hypnotizing like watching a fireplace.   Some people even see more quantum behavior:

ABSTRACT

The investigation of dynamical systems has revealed a deep-rooted difference between waves and objects regarding temporal reversibility and particlelike objects. In nondissipative chaos, the dynamic of waves always remains time reversible, unlike that of particles. Here, we explore the dynamics of a wave-particle entity. It consists in a drop bouncing on a vibrated liquid bath, self-propelled and piloted by the surface waves it generates. This walker, in which there is an information exchange between the particle and the wave, can be analyzed in terms of a Turing machine with waves as the information repository. The experiments reveal that in this system, the drop can read information backwards while erasing it. The drop can thus backtrack on its previous trajectory.
[A transient temporal reversibility] , restricted to the drop motion, is obtained in spite of the system being both dissipative and chaotic.

Yes this still has to do with that damn cat who never suspected that even small amounts of time reversability is involved.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Sep 20 - 07:30 AM

This thread started with an article from Scientific American which is in the news again for endorsing a political candidate for the first time in 175 years.


Regarding this thread basicly about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which defends the small quantum mechanics and Einsteins large relativity, the two were brought closer together by Paul Dirac who used both relativity and quantum mechanics in his equation. In particle physics, the Dirac equation is a relativistic wave equation formulated
in 1928. It describes fields corresponding to elementary spin-½ particles as a vector of four complex numbers, in contrast to the Schrödinger equation which described a field of only one complex value.
Dirac went on to succesfully predict antimatter.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Sep 20 - 02:38 AM

Well, at the risk of opening up the debate on how he views truth ........................

Trump is/isn't going to win the election.

And before anyone says "all the indicators are .........". Remember, he wasn't supposed to win last time!

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Sep 20 - 08:54 PM

The indicators were right last time... he lost by 3,000,000. This time the recent indicators are even better in several ways... but the real unknown is to what extent 'they' are able to suppress the vote by intimidation, cheating, Russian hacking,,etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Sep 20 - 04:12 AM

what extent 'they' are able to suppress the vote by intimidation, cheating, Russian hacking,,etc.

all of the above. They will be desperate this time.

Is it appropriate to label Captain Catastrophe as a Lame Dick president?

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Sep 20 - 11:53 AM

I bought into the wierdness of quantum mechanics for a long time since I didn't have an alternative. Jeri is right that much of reality is locally happening at the same time. The math for QM can even be correct
while not being a true reality because only the point of view is what is changed but not the overall system.
   What is a workable alternative?? A better POV imo is that time is what is wierd and has several dimensions to it on smaller scales and on large galactic scales shinks to a singular value. Between small scale dimensional time and large absolute time there is a middle ground in which past, future and present are simultaneous depending upon direction and speed which can cut hundreds of years into te past as well as the future.
    Peering into the wierdness of space-time is what we are amazed and confused by on small scales and amazed and see more clearly on large scales. Locality and determinism becomes more understandable when we discover the non linear qualities of a time spectrum.

We will not have to change all of QM but merely see how it explained questions when we didn't know the true cause. An observer of a photon sized quantum strangeness may or may not be in the same time dimension. That seems much less wierd or strange to me, its only a matter of postion and not 'impossibility'.

The odds of my being correct about this is not the point but measuring
the nature of time having a 'thickness' as scales shrink is an experimental reality/

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Sep 20 - 02:20 PM

SCI FI ALERT
Back when I was a Quantum mechanics follower I expanded a plot into book form titled 'Best Intentions'. The plot involved the technology of entangling 2 people to enable Tempoal Travel into the future and past simultaneously. It was only successfully done on identical twins. Action took place in the past present and future until the twin traveling in the past who could still communicate with the present,    died which caused the future traveler to create a paradox trap which would eventually cause trouble for those respondsible for the Temporal experient in the present an unseen catastrophe in the future. Ethics, revenge and avoidance of a future disaster created heros and villains that changed roles as time went on...until...

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Sep 20 - 07:06 PM

Yea, Yea. There is no theoretical reason time cannot be a negative quantity. But to get time to reverse it implies anti-grav. Like entropy, you can only reverse entropy by inserting energy into a system. And reversing time, IMNSHO, would require the kind of energy they don't have numbers for.

And as for the duality of light being a wave or quantum - I see that as an illusion. If you send one single photon through a dual slit it will end up in some place on the screen on the other side, having been buffeted by air molecules randomly. Send another and it appears in another random place. Keep sending and the dots build up into a refraction pattern. Only then is it a wave. The single photon got to the other side through one slit. I have seen what was presented as an experiment with single photons. For all practical purposes we perceive the wave because we deal in streams of photons, ie light.

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Sep 20 - 09:09 AM

Dark Energy, if not an anti gravity, what is it? There are 4 main theories and my take makes 5.

My take is that dark E is a balancing space energy force that expands as matter and dark matter continues to concentrate. It will stretch only so far until an ENTIRE PHASE CHANGE occurs reducing the universe to a lower energy state as entropy predicts.

As for how we see a diffraction pattern, we thought as we put constraints on direction and positions simultaneously it collapses wave possibilites. We are really seeing how a spectrum of time can show something different. -or not- I'm not at my peak right now.
I see what you are saying but air molecules have almost nothing to do with it.

If anyone here does not know about the 'dual slit' experiment
Prepare to be mystified - GOOGLE IT

Subject: RE: BS: Schrödinger’s Cat has a friend
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Sep 20 - 01:52 PM

ever thought that dark matter/energy is an artefact from a complex formula/theory that Einstein did not quite explain?

A lot like Newton did not quite explain gravity that Einstein's theory made good the difference.

And so little fleas have lesser fleas and so ad infinitum.