In a message dated Wed, 28 Feb 2001 2:52:41 PM Eastern Standard Time, "Dan Minette"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
<< --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>Presumably the universe existed for quite a while before any form of >life
evolved at all. And a little bit longer before anything with >consciousness
evolved. So it seems likely that it ticks along quite >smoothly without
anything watching.
Since you appear to be taking the realist arguement, let me ask you how you
interpret the results of QM. Do things actually have a definate position in
space at all times? Are there hidden variables underlying what we observe,
with definate properties at all times?
I would answer that the QM must make the macroscopic universe that creatures of our
size and life span live within. At some level I must believe that there is a reality
out there because I cannot conceive a rational explanation for how I got here without
an historical perspective that predates me and all members of my species. I cannot
place humans in a special non-natural catogory. We reak of our animalness. So when
does the universe begin to exist if I take the view that we have created it? Not a
chimp? How about a homo erectus? No? How about Neandethal Man? Can a particularly
smart chimp with the ability to think symbolically create the universe?
Murray Gel-Mann said (I think) in The Jaguar and the Quark -or was it the Quark and
Jaguar) that the interactions between things collapses the superposed states. So
humans are not necessary. His answer to the Schrodecker' Cat (please ignore spelling -
I have worked all day today and I am too lazy to look this stuff up) was that the cat
is not a quantum object. That the interactions between its electrons protons etc.
collapse all of the uncertainty and that the cat is surely dead or alive. The moon
cannot instantly jump from one place to another because there are too many particles
involved. In fact, quantum mechanics requires that the moon and every other
macroscopic object behave in precisely the orderly way that we perceive them to
behave. That QM insures reality.
