reply to post by dviper785
Just gone back and re-read the original experiment (it's been about 30 years since i last read it), and i was wrong. The cat isn't (according to the
experiment) neither alive and dead, it is BOTH alive and dead after a time, as it has said to have entered a 'superposition' (roughly: an atom
occupies every posible position, and is said to be in superposition).
I thought i said there WAS a cat in the box?
In other words we are to take it as a fact (in the original thought experiment) that there is a cat in the box.
You ask: 'Why must I be expected to look in the box?'
Because looking into the box, breaks the superposition - and the cat is now not both dead and alive, but either dead or alive. Personally, i think
there is a third option. The cat is alive, but in the process of dying.
If you don't observe the cat or radioactive material, you'll not know if the atom has decayed and triggered the release of poison and thus whether
the cat is alive or dead, since the whole experiment is geared up to examining quantum states, you have to look in the box, in order to break the
superposition of the atoms contained inside.
I'm not saying you (or anyone) has to look into the box to see IF there's a cat inside...i'm saying you have to look inside in order for the
thought experiment to come to a conclusion. Did the radioactive material decay and trigger release of the poison and kill the cat? The only way to
know, is to look at the cat.
If the cat is alive, the atom did not decay, if it's dead (or rapidly dying) the atom did decay ONLY after being observed by you. Until you observe
the box contents, they are in atomic superposition, being in every state possible.
Quantum law is...nuts!
I mean..it's an interesting mental exercise, but i don't see how the action of a human being observing something, changes that something's
superposition. What is the physical linkage, what is the ethereal linkage?
Is there a subatomic linkage?
Are subatomic particles streaming from one's eyes or brain, and interfereing with the observed object's subatomic particles, to cause this jump from
superposition to a single position, alive, dead etc.?
Think about it..you change an atoms quantum state just by looking at it?!
Does that imply that i can change an objects quantum state just by thinking about that object?
My eyes after all, only feed the information to my brain, so if i bypass the eyes, and think the 'cat' is dead, would it make it so? What if i
thought the cat was alive, and the atom didn't decay, would that then be so?
Very strange subject, quantum physics. It should mean that everything is, was, always will be and never was or will be, at the same time in every
state posible, until an action or sequence of actions are performed on something to change it's quantum state, drop it's atoms out of
superpositional state (every state possible), then it takes on a fixed state.
In the cat example, it's alive or dead. And this action could be as simple as observing it.
You do realise you're barking mad don't you?!
