4 ms·
Cat observes itself.
by lupusreal 2y ago
Cat observes itself.
- IX-103 2y agoThat defeats the point of the exercise. The whole point was about the state of some isolated system. Otherwise we could say that the detector observes the state of the system without even needing the poison or the car
- megaloblasto 2y agoIt doesn't defeat the point of the exercise, it just shows that the exercise is nonsense. The cat is an observer therefore collapses the quantum wave function and is either alive or dead.
- baq 2y agoIn what sense the cat is an observer? Having eyes and a brain doesn't really mean anything in QM.
- lupusreal 2y agoIf the particle interacts, that collapses the superposition. Cats aren't any more or less blessed as observers than physicists. If either of them can observe the outcome, then both can.
- murftown 2y agoHmm. Maybe what "counts as an observer" is relative to your reference frame, and so is the concept of "superposition". And thus, though the cat is making observations within its environment, since the environment is sealed off, the cat is not "an observer" from our reference frame because there is no interaction between us and the cat. From the cat's reference frame it is probably not in a superposition - If it is observing anything, it is alive, and if it is dead, it is not observing anything. But if we observe the cat, the wave function is collapsed from our reference frame and the cat is in one or the other state. My understanding of quantum mechanics is pretty shallow so take this with an ocean of salt.
- danbruc 2y agoIf the particle interacts, that collapses the superposition. Not at all, the superposition spreads to the interacting particles. What destroys superpositions are measurements and we do not know what measurements really are.
- lupusreal 2y agoYou can't measure something without interacting with it. So either it's the interaction that collapses it, or it's some sort of soul mumbo jumbo. If it's somehow the latter, there's no justification beyond shear anthropocentrism to suppose that physicists can do it but cats can't. Therefore, the cat observes itself.
- dTal 2y agoThe result is the same if you replace the cat with a physicist. The relevant distinction is whether the animal in question is inside or outside the sealed box - not species.
- dTal 2y agoWe do know what measurements are. "Superposition" and "collapse" are only really valid concepts in a particular reference frame. A "measurement" is an interaction in your preferred reference frame. The cat cannot "collapse" anything from your perpective - only its own. Indeed the cat itself does not experience superposition.
- rcxdude 2y agoDoesn't necessarily tell you anything about what you would observe. The cat's observations of itself would still be in superposition in theory.
- Jensson 2y ago> The cat's observations of itself would still be in superposition in theory. Not anymore, not according to this theory.
- rcxdude 2y agoNo, the results of this paper are still 100% compatible with the interpretation that the cat is in a superposition: all it says is that the two states (cat alive and cat dead) can't interact with each other at all (or more specifically, can't interact in a way that's distinguishable from random noise).