An electron is a posit?

As far as what Wigner means by consciousness in the matter of QM, this topic has to do with the 'observer effect'. There are several issues this impinges on. Of course QM is a specialist area. Nevertheless the book I quoted from yesterday, the Quantum Enigma, addresses issues such as





Bye for now.

Would I be mistaken to characterize an electron as a theoretical entity? I ask because I'm not sure the implications of an entity being theoretical. I guess some theoretical entites exist while some do not, so to say an entity that it's theoretical isn't to say it doesn't exist.

I think this take on the electron is valid, electrons like all fundamental particles cannot be observed as concrete objects, you cant measure their position and speed at the same moment in time

is a thought experiment, often described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. In the course of developing this experiment, he coined the term - literally, entanglement.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision. That is, the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known. This statement has been interpreted in two different ways. According to Heisenberg its meaning is that it is impossible to determine simultaneously both the position and velocity of an electron or any other particle with any great degree of accuracy or certainty. According to others (for instance Ballentine)[1] this is not a statement about the limitations of a researcher's ability to measure particular quantities of a system, but it is a statement about the nature of the system itself as described by the equations of quantum mechanics.

In one sense Schrodinger's cat could be a real experiment. If we could "emit" a cat toward a double-slit maybe we would see a probabilistic pattern when it hit its head on the other side... I'm just kidding of course!

It might be a better interpretation of the thought experiment to say that if you actually did this to 100 cats, close to 50 of them would come out dead, but you could not predict in what order. Placing the behavior back on the emitted particle, instead of the system not being observed by a conscious person. This might help clear up the conclusions people tend to jump to about human observations of particles, not that they are necessarily wrong.

You do realize that the whole thought experiment was to remind yourself of probabilities and not actualities right? I wonder because you go on to state this which isn't the case.



If you actually did the experiment, you could change it. You don't have to use a lethal position to get this experiment to work. Instead of using a poisonous gas you could use people and a paint ball explosive. But I guarantee this experiment will fail because it's talking about potentials and not actualities. Your 50% theory is bunk, sorry to say.

The observer has an influence on the results probably because of pin pointing those results. I think the problem has always been the method of observation rather than the actual observation causing the problem. That is why I think the thought experiment would fail.

You do realize that the whole thought experiment was to remind yourself of probabilities and not actualities right? I wonder because you go on to state this which isn't the case.



If you actually did the experiment, you could change it. You don't have to use a lethal position to get this experiment to work. Instead of using a poisonous gas you could use people and a paint ball explosive. But I guarantee this experiment will fail because it's talking about potentials and not actualities. Your 50% theory is bunk, sorry to say.

The observer has an influence on the results probably because of pin pointing those results. I think the problem has always been the method of observation rather than the actual observation causing the problem. That is why I think the thought experiment would fail.

You could not do the experiment using poison gas, you have to use radioactive particle decay where the electrons spit out completely at random without any certainty

You must refer back to the beginning of the experiment where the chances of radioactive decay are 50% (or equal, but in this example 50%). You must also couple this with the double-slit experiment (or another showing superposition) to understand where the Schrodinger's cat example even stems from (and to get my joke).

I thought I understood your joke. I was trying to mention the part about quantum mechanics hinging on the idea that nothing can ever be known with certainty. So implying a 50% decay potential is actually inaccurate.

I said "close to 50 cats" to account for this physical implementation of a thought experiment. However, what the double-slit experiment says is not that we can't build a probabilistic framework, but that we can't build one for individual particles going through the slits one at a time. If you build up a number of these particles that have gone through one at a time, you see a probabilistic pattern revealed as dark and light bands.

Yeah, well I was also under the impression from what I have studied that sending one particle through just by itself, it actually showed that a single particle could go through both slits simultaneously.

I am not sure what you want to do by sending them through at the same time. Are you implying that the particle only acts like a particle when it is alone? But a particle acts like a wave because it is accompanied by other particles?

I thought I understood your joke. I was trying to mention the part about quantum mechanics hinging on the idea that nothing can ever be known with certainty. So implying a 50% decay potential is actually inaccurate.

Yes you are getting half of what I am saying (ironically 50% lol), they do go through both slits (under the assumption of the Copenhagen interpretation, which appears to be accurate if possibly incomplete), however, even if you send the electrons one at a time through the slits, you still see a predictable pattern on the other side.

So I am in a sense changing what Schrodinger meant, and perhaps that's where the confusion lies.

Schrodinger was using the cat itself to represent an example of superposition *EDITED* (cat = metaphor for superposition*/EDITED*), but his thought experiment was still reliant upon the quantum behavior of a radioactive atom. So I am pushing the focus of the thought experiment back to that radioactive probability to take focus off of the cat which causes confusion to a lot of people (the reason I used a cat in my joke).

Also, since the difference between conscious observation and detection is still somewhat unclear (unclear in terms of how it affects particles), it may all fall back upon the detector collapsing the superposition even before the box is opened, making Schrodinger's example a bad interpretation, and making mine the more correct one (but either way what I said would still work), that around 50 cats will be dead, but you could not predict in what order. I am not saying Schrodinger was wrong, but if one were to actually try the experiment one does not have to assume the cat is in a superposition to get the result of 50 dead cats, because one does not have to assume there is no difference between detection and conscious observation.

I think you are leaving a crucial part out of this experiment. The reason Schrodinger used the cat was because he felt the observer influenced the result of the experiment. Which quantum mechanics proved does happen. If the observer plays a role in the result then by all means you have to remove the observer from the equation to get an accurate picture. But as soon as you remove the observer you have no way of recording the result. That is why he said, before opening the box, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. But that is a paradox of reality. A cat can not be both dead and alive. It is only after you open the box to check can you determine the result. That makes you NOW taint the experiment because you have to become an observer to record the data.

So my point was even though you are probably right math-wise of the probability, I say it will fail because of the observational factor you are leaving off your equation.

According to Heisenberg its meaning is that it is impossible to determine simultaneously both the position and velocity of an electron or any other particle with any great degree of accuracy or certainty. According to others (for instance Ballentine)[1] this is not a statement about the limitations of a researcher's ability to measure particular quantities of a system, but it is a statement about the nature of the system itself as described by the equations of quantum mechanics.

First, to say of something that it exists is to say that it has properties, and electrons have properties (e.g. mass), so electrons exist.

Second, to say of an object that it is abstract is to say that an object meets two particular conditions, and electrons meet neither condition, so electrons are not abstract.

they do not give what they promise, for they do not correctly reveal or describe what the Real is for them.

Whether or not the cat is on the mat is matter of fact, and our lack of knowledge has no bearing on the issue.

Now I do see what you mean. The vulgar scientist is one whose lab notes do not include how he feels about those dots on the graph he is looking at. If he mentioned how cute they looked he would no longer be vulgar.