/sci/ - Science & Math

The simple act of measuring it affects the outcome, so no.

Please Lobotomize Yourself

Well then you're in effect checking the box and thus violating one of the assumptions of the thought experiment.

>>5550042

>Schrödinger's cat

10/10 OP

they are rustled, indeed

>>5550052
What Does That Mean?

Am I Been Troaled ??

>>5550108
not that guy

but it means you have no idea what the metaphor of Schrödinger's Cat was referring to and your question makes that obvious

Fucks sake, why is /sci/ all of a sudden being raided by idiots asking about Schrodinger's cat.

>>5550212
>bumping a troll thread half an hour later

>People taking Schrodingers cat box experiment seriously.

>>5550042
No. You don't understand what the Schrödinger's cat experiment is. If there is any observation of the cat you are not doing the Schrödinger's cat experiment.

The cat really is just obfuscation. What's important is the decaying radioisotope. Schrödinger added that the radioisotope kills the cat when it decays in an attempt to show how silly QM is when applied to everyday objects. It backfired on him because as silly as it sounds there is nothing incorrect about it.

The size of a photon limits the precision to which we can make measurements. This limits the precision to which we can make predictions about the future. This is a hard physical limit like the speed of light, not a problem of poor technology.

We can not know exactly when a single radioisotope will decay. In Schrödinger's experiment you seal it up so it can decay, but there's no way for anybody to tell if it has or not. At any point in time the radioisotope has decayed or it hasn't, but there's no way to tell. The weird way QM works means it's technically both decayed and not at the same time.

>>5550053
this

if you want a REAL mind fuck and not some pseudo-intellectual BS then look up double slit experiment

>>5550282
So why do we say "the computer observes the cat, thus collapsing its wave function", but not "the cat observes the poison delivery mechanism, thus collapsing its wave function"

>>5550311
He is wrong. The quantum state ought to be something like

<span class="math">\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}[/spoiler] (|dead cat, camera seeing dead cat> + |live cat, camera seeing live cat>)

At some point we can be reasonably sure that the two branches of the state vector are not going to come back together again and interfere with each other in a substantial amount, so it's a very good approximation to pretend it has collapsed to one of the two. This approximation is excellent a long time before the cat gets killed/spared.

Science is about making predictions and doesn't have to answer "what's really going on," so we can only speculate. In my opinion, state vectors are bad for seeing what's really going on, and should be viewed only as a convenient calculation tool. I like to view things in terms of path integrals and weak values. If we define a liveness observable for the cat, its weak value will be close to 0 or 1, not in some weird half-live state.

You don't say either one. The quantum state ought to be something like

<span class="math">\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}[/spoiler] (|dead cat, camera seeing dead cat> + |live cat, camera seeing live cat>)

At some point we can be reasonably sure that the two branches of the state vector are not going to come back together again and interfere with each other in a substantial amount, so it's a very good approximation to pretend it has collapsed to one of the two. This approximation is excellent a long time before the cat gets killed/spared.

Science is about making predictions and doesn't have to answer "what's really going on," so we can only speculate. In my opinion, state vectors are bad for seeing what's really going on, and should be viewed only as a convenient calculation tool. I like to view things in terms of path integrals and weak values. If we define a liveness observable for the cat, its weak value will be close to 0 or 1, not in some weird half-live state.

>>5550304
Same poster, just had a thought. They had optical sensors to measure photons entering the slits. When they had the optical sensors turned on and recorded the results, it showed a particle pattern. When they had the optical sensor tuned on but didn't record the data it showed a wave pastern. The concluded that that it was pure probability until it was consciously observed at which point it collapsed the wave function and displayed the particle pattern.

My thought, or question rather, is what happens when they leave the optical sensors on, measure the data, but don't look at the data. Like burn the date or something. Now the 2nd part of this. If it doesn't collapse the wave form and it shows a wave pattern. Can you then show the data, while not directly observing it yourself, to an animal of some kind. What would happen then? Because if the wave/particle pattern is determined by conscious observation, then having like a monkey observe the data would be an accurate test of weather or not animals possess consciousness.

tl;dr Can you use the double slit experiment to test life forms for consciousness?

>>5550304
Same poster, just had a thought. They had optical sensors to measure photons entering the slits. When they had the optical sensors turned on and recorded the results, it showed a particle pattern. When they had the optical sensor tuned on but didn't record the data it showed a wave pastern. The concluded that that it was pure probability until it was consciously observed at which point it collapsed the wave function and displayed the particle pattern. Consciousness observation changed the outcome of the experiment.

My thought, or question rather, is what happens when they leave the optical sensors on, measure the data, but don't look at the data. Like burn the date or something. Now the 2nd part of this. If it doesn't collapse the wave form and it shows a wave pattern. Can you then show the data, while not directly observing it yourself, to an animal of some kind. What would happen then? Because if the wave/particle pattern is determined by conscious observation, then having like a monkey observe the data would be an accurate test of weather or not animals possess consciousness.

tl;dr Can you use the double slit experiment to test life forms for consciousness?

>>5550357
>When they had the optical sensors turned on and recorded the results, it showed a particle pattern.
I must correct you here: Measuring which slit the particle goes through gives you a single-slit pattern. Not a particle pattern. Pic related. Yes, it does matter if you eventually want to understand any of this.

>>5550365
If something that is conscious sees the results, the wave function will not collapse for you if they cannot communicate it to you.

>>5550365
>When they had the optical sensors turned on and recorded the results, it showed a particle pattern.
I must correct you here: Measuring which slit the particle goes through gives you a single-slit pattern. Not a particle pattern. Pic related. Yes, it does matter if you eventually want to understand any of this.

>>5550365
>>5550373
To go on:
>When they had the optical sensor tuned on but didn't record the data it showed a wave pastern.
Also false. When the which-way information is measured and the results are not looked at, you get a single-slit pattern, the same as if you had looked at the results.

Quantum gives greater evidence to the silly theory that the universe is a computer simulation. If we only compute definite values when a quantum system is observed, we save on computation.

>>5550376
This is confusing. Can't any ordinary matter be the 'observer' then? The slits themselves?