The Energon Pub

Wingspan wrote:Got a link to somewhat explain that and what defines observation? Isn't observation directly tied to consciousness? On the surface it seems off to say "if a person cannot observe it, it doesn't exist."

Educate me Grimlock. <== irony

Hope that last bit was directed at the character Grimlock and not me.

Anyway, here's a link. I'll try to dig up a more applicable link later because, admittedly, this one isn't bang on what we're talking about.

I can't remember the exact title of the theory, but it's pretty much exactly as you'd expect from Shrodinger's cat, but it also includes position as well as state, and applied on the atomic level rather than to a cat. I learned it more from Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos than anything on the net.

It's all theory for the most part, but since we're in the Philosopher's Forum, I figured I'd throw it out here. After all, this forum isn't always about known science.

Me, Grimlock! wrote:Hope that last bit was directed at the character Grimlock and not me.

Character. You're all clear

"the paradox of Schrodinger's kitten."

Now that's a quote and the article was quite good at explaining.

But what defines observation in these experiments / quantum mechanics?

Wingspan wrote:

Me, Grimlock! wrote:Hope that last bit was directed at the character Grimlock and not me.

Character. You're all clear

Heheh. Good. I know I'm not the brightest guy on the board, but I like to think I'm no Grimlock. Even though I'm a Grimlock.

Yeah, observation is kind of a misleading word, but what scientists mean is that something interacts with it, i.e. if something (not necessarily a living thing) can "see" it. It's not necessarily observation. If something interacts with another thing, it's said to have observed its state.

In real life, observing something changes it. We see because a photon (the building block of light) bounces off something and hits our eye. When the photon bounces off something so small, it can change its trajectory, like billiard balls. So basically we change things by seeing them (only if the thing has such little mass that it *can* be moved by a photon). Ever seen the Futurama episode "Luck of the Fryish"? At the beginning, when Farnsworth rants that they changed the outcome of the horse race by measuring it, this is what he was referring to.

In the case of quantum physics, however, instead of just changing its trajectory, we define it. Until it's observed, it remains undefined. Of course, this only happens at such a small level (it *is* quantum physics) and there's no real way to test it, because testing means observing. It's all speculation right now. I originally read it a few months ago, so I can't quite remember the string of logic that Brian Greene used, but pick up the book. It's quite a fantastic subject if you're into that sort of thing, and he does a good job of explaining it.

And I've thought a little more about it. I think I'm wrong in my original assertion. Because we don't observe a completely sealed up glass, whatever is filling the empty half of it isn't nothing; it's undefined. Two different things, since by definition "nothing" is defined.

Still, it's fun to make this claim and see where the conversation goes. It is, after all, philosophy.

Me, Grimlock! wrote:It is, after all, philosophy.

Aka mental and moral shenanigans. Also your description of observation was the memory trigger I needed to bring up what I've read / heard / understood before. Defining the glass' contents as unknown is more much accurate. But by bringing up the quantum level and the minuscule building blocks of our universe technically the glass and whatever it contains are all empty if you're just measuring what's physically there.

This whole thread now has me thinking that it's not really a knife cutting through a steak but the force of the knife's electromagnetic fields in its atoms driving apart atoms of the steak. Then what boggles further is that all that electro-magnetic-fissure ignores the cells we care about so much that made up the cow. Layers on layers in quite a complex universe we live in.

Now where did steak come from? I'm hungry. Don't read more into it than that.

The glass is both half empty and half full. The half that is not empty is full, and the half that is not full is empty.

Wow...I was kidding around when I made this thread. I see it has transformed into quite the intellectual debate...I truly do think it is all comes down to optimism and pessimism. I have enjoyed reading the progression of this discussion.