For Theocracy: Schroedinger's Cat
First, happy Wiki linkage.
It was used primarily as a metaphor for occurances at the painfully small level, and is not considered to necessarily actually apply to cats in boxes. Which is why we can be assured that no one has actually harmed any cats or potentially harmed cats when dealing with this mind experiment.
Ok, now, to boil this down the way my dad-- or was it my brother?-- did for me once upon a time. . .
The thought experiment goes like this:
Take a very small amount of radioactive material, and put it into a sealed box with a gieger counter which is hooked to a device that will release a poison shuold the material decay. Also place in the box a cat (ensure that the other materials are safe from feline mischief). Now, seal up the box with no way the inside can be observed, and wait an hour.
During this time, there is a 50-50 chance that the radioactive material will decay or not, and thus a 50-50 chance for the cat to be alive or dead. Quantum theory posits that, while the box is closed and the cat unobserved, the cat is both alive and dead.
At this point, there are different interpretations, but the one I was alluding to the other day is the Copenhagen interpretation, where upon observation, the waveform (living cat/ dead cat) collapses into a single state. Something not mentioned in the article but which my dad or big brother added was that the waveform collapsed not only forwards in time, but also backwards, so that while unobserved, both states exist, but upon observation, one takes hold and this "Waveform collapse" goes back in time, so that the cat then becomes dead at some point during the previous hour.
Many, many physicists are naturally leery of this interpretation, because once the state of a thing depends on an observer. . . then the mind naturally travels along a track that will end up sitting next to Good Ol' Julian of Norwich, who has said:
Which sounds an aweful lot like "The Universe exists because God Observes it to exist." I'm sure physicists state more scientific or mathematic reasons for discomfort, but many people have commented that Physics is coming aweful close to Metaphysics of late. . . Even when they try to get out of the need for an Observer, you have the Many Worlds Theory which postits realities of infinite (or near infinite variety)--> everything we can imagine and more-- and this also runs afoul of the God problem because if Reality has infinite variations, then it is pretty much inevitable that in at least one of these, a Great, All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Utterly Benevolent and Super-Intelligent Being That Trancends All must exist. And, if it does properly trancend all. . . All being even reality itself. . .Then it would no longer becontained to that reality. . .
So, the point of what I said the other day was wondering, essentialy if prayer, it's obeject being a Being outside of Time, could effect events already past, but the results of which unknown (at the time) to the supplicant.
.
It was used primarily as a metaphor for occurances at the painfully small level, and is not considered to necessarily actually apply to cats in boxes. Which is why we can be assured that no one has actually harmed any cats or potentially harmed cats when dealing with this mind experiment.
Ok, now, to boil this down the way my dad-- or was it my brother?-- did for me once upon a time. . .
The thought experiment goes like this:
Take a very small amount of radioactive material, and put it into a sealed box with a gieger counter which is hooked to a device that will release a poison shuold the material decay. Also place in the box a cat (ensure that the other materials are safe from feline mischief). Now, seal up the box with no way the inside can be observed, and wait an hour.
During this time, there is a 50-50 chance that the radioactive material will decay or not, and thus a 50-50 chance for the cat to be alive or dead. Quantum theory posits that, while the box is closed and the cat unobserved, the cat is both alive and dead.
At this point, there are different interpretations, but the one I was alluding to the other day is the Copenhagen interpretation, where upon observation, the waveform (living cat/ dead cat) collapses into a single state. Something not mentioned in the article but which my dad or big brother added was that the waveform collapsed not only forwards in time, but also backwards, so that while unobserved, both states exist, but upon observation, one takes hold and this "Waveform collapse" goes back in time, so that the cat then becomes dead at some point during the previous hour.
Many, many physicists are naturally leery of this interpretation, because once the state of a thing depends on an observer. . . then the mind naturally travels along a track that will end up sitting next to Good Ol' Julian of Norwich, who has said:
- He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for little. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall for that God loveth it. And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God.
- In this Little Thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God keepeth it. But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover,-I cannot tell; for till I am Substantially oned to Him, I may never have full rest nor very bliss: that is to say, till I be so fastened to Him, that there is right nought that is made betwixt my God and me.
Which sounds an aweful lot like "The Universe exists because God Observes it to exist." I'm sure physicists state more scientific or mathematic reasons for discomfort, but many people have commented that Physics is coming aweful close to Metaphysics of late. . . Even when they try to get out of the need for an Observer, you have the Many Worlds Theory which postits realities of infinite (or near infinite variety)--> everything we can imagine and more-- and this also runs afoul of the God problem because if Reality has infinite variations, then it is pretty much inevitable that in at least one of these, a Great, All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Utterly Benevolent and Super-Intelligent Being That Trancends All must exist. And, if it does properly trancend all. . . All being even reality itself. . .Then it would no longer becontained to that reality. . .
So, the point of what I said the other day was wondering, essentialy if prayer, it's obeject being a Being outside of Time, could effect events already past, but the results of which unknown (at the time) to the supplicant.
.