4 ms·

While I lean the same way, the measurement problem is definitely harder than you say. If it's just entanglement with an external system, you still have to answe

by knzhou 7y ago

While I lean the same way, the measurement problem is definitely harder than you say. If it's just entanglement with an external system, you still have to answer how that superposition ends up with you personally observing only one result.

MrEldritch 7y ago
you are a large, warm object, and as such you decohere basically instantaneously. (In any case, far faster than the milliseconds required for you to perceive anything.) As such, the state-in-which-you-perceive-result-A is completely unable to causally influence the state-in-which-you-perceive-result-B, and vice versa.
gliese1337 7y ago
Because you are part of the entangled system. You can only know that a measurement apparatus is in a definite state because you interacted with it, so your own mental state is partially dependent on it. You, however, being a large, warm thing decohere rather rapidly, even if the formal measurement apparatus can be made not to. Your consciousness is a classical phenomenon, so you can only perceive one possible classical outcome. If you believe in Many Worlds (which is the most natural interpretation to pair with this resolution of the measurement problem, but is not absolutely forced), then there are other versions of you out there in different parts of state-space which perceive different outcomes, and may even be observable as elements of a superposed-you in principle if not ever in practice, but there is no means of transferring information between any of these different versions of you. EDIT: To whomever downvoted the parent... why? It is, after all, a perfectly reasonable question, especially (although I do not presume that knzhou personally holds this view) in light of the reasonably common assumption that consciousness is somehow quantum in nature itself.

4 ms·

While I lean the same way, the measurement problem is definitely harder than you say. If it's just entanglement with an external system, you still have to answe

by knzhou 7y ago

MrEldritch 7y ago
you are a large, warm object, and as such you decohere basically instantaneously. (In any case, far faster than the milliseconds required for you to perceive anything.) As such, the state-in-which-you-perceive-result-A is completely unable to causally influence the state-in-which-you-perceive-result-B, and vice versa.
gliese1337 7y ago
Because you are part of the entangled system. You can only know that a measurement apparatus is in a definite state because you interacted with it, so your own mental state is partially dependent on it. You, however, being a large, warm thing decohere rather rapidly, even if the formal measurement apparatus can be made not to. Your consciousness is a classical phenomenon, so you can only perceive one possible classical outcome. If you believe in Many Worlds (which is the most natural interpretation to pair with this resolution of the measurement problem, but is not absolutely forced), then there are other versions of you out there in different parts of state-space which perceive different outcomes, and may even be observable as elements of a superposed-you in principle if not ever in practice, but there is no means of transferring information between any of these different versions of you. EDIT: To whomever downvoted the parent... why? It is, after all, a perfectly reasonable question, especially (although I do not presume that knzhou personally holds this view) in light of the reasonably common assumption that consciousness is somehow quantum in nature itself.