Posted on 08/17/2020 9:17:34 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Wigner sharpened the paradox by imagining a (human) friend of his shut in a lab, measuring a quantum system. He argued it was absurd to say his friend exists in a superposition of having seen and not seen a decay unless and until Wigner opens the lab door.
[Nora] Tischler and her colleagues have carried out a version of the Wigner’s friend test. By combining the classic thought experiment with another quantum head-scratcher called entanglement—a phenomenon that links particles across vast distances—they have also derived a new theorem, which they claim puts the strongest constraints yet on the fundamental nature of reality.
Until quantum physics came along in the 1920s, physicists expected their theories to be deterministic, generating predictions for the outcome of experiments with certainty. But quantum theory appears to be inherently probabilistic. The textbook version...says that until a system’s properties are measured, they can encompass myriad values. This superposition only collapses into a single state when the system is observed...
Today most physicists concur that inanimate objects can knock quantum systems out of superposition through a process known as decoherence. Certainly, researchers attempting to manipulate complex quantum superpositions in the lab can find their hard work destroyed by speedy air particles colliding with their systems. So they carry out their tests at ultracold temperatures and try to isolate their apparatuses from vibrations.
Several competing quantum interpretations have sprung up over the decades that employ less mystical mechanisms...to explain how superpositions break down without invoking consciousness...The most exotic is the “many worlds” view, which says that whenever you make a quantum measurement, reality fractures, creating parallel universes to accommodate every possible outcome. Thus, Wigner’s friend would split into two copies and, “with good enough supertechnology,” he could indeed measure that person to be in superposition from outside the lab...
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
Biocentrism. Is a hot babe really a hot babe before somebody leers at her?
Yes, because she has a mirror.
I suspected this all along.
I did, and I didn't.
“The new work is an “important step forward in the field of experimental metaphysics,” says quantum physicist Aephraim Steinberg of the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the study. “It’s the beginning of what I expect will be a huge program of research.””
I think we have collapsed the superposition of this study - IT’S GRANTS!!
I see what you did there. LOL
I’ve gotten the answer many times, but each time I finish writing it down I experience a wrenching sensation through my whole body and the sky turns a different color.
These people act like they understand the shit.
“This superposition only collapses into a single state when the system is observed... “
Sounds suspiciously like “If a tree falls in the forest.....”
All I know is that the source article is about ten times longer than it needs to be.
Always about the money
Large
Acquisition
Scheme (for)
Extremely (expensive)
Research
Turns out Schroedinger’s cat identifies as a dog, or what?
Schroedinger hated cats. That’s why fluffy was hiding in the box.
Our perceived quantum state is merely each individual’s observation point among all possibilities. Together. Simultaneously.
You wonder why everything is soooooo effed up?
But isn't God the Ultimate Observer? Remember Bishop Berekley's par of limericks.
The ultimate tangled hierarchy rests on this principle:
The Universe could not exist as it is without us observing it so
BUT
We could not be here to observe the Universe if it did not exist as it is.
To quote Bishop Berkeley:
There was a young man who said, "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
To find that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad.
Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd
I am always about in the Quad
And that's why this tree
Continues to be
Since observed by yours faithfully, God.
“Consciousness is the singular for which there is no plural.” — Erwin Schrodinger
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