On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 9:57 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >> >> I've been asking all along exactly what is it that collapses the wave >> function. If its not an observer and its not a measurement and its not >> consciousness then what is it? > > > > > It is interaction with something with lots degrees of freedom > In other words a change, a difference. That works for me and it works for manny worlds too. It would not violate the laws of physics if a photon went through either slit, so the universe splits, in one universe it goes through the left slit in the other it goes through the right. Normally the universes stay split because they stay different and the 2 photons continue on into infinite space, but if you put up a photographic plate after passing the slits it hits the plate and so no longer exists in either universe, so there is no longer a difference between universes so they merge back together. That act of splitting and then coming back together makes the interference pattern. If you want to strip "measurement" and "observation" back to their absolute minimal essential you arrive at a simple change, and that would be fine but then in effect you've just turned Copenhagen into Many Worlds. > > I pointed out that is inconsistent with SWE to say that anything possible > actually happens. "Possible" needs to be qualified. For example the SWE > in a Young's slit experiment tells you that the probability of a particle > striking the detector is zero at some places. It's logically possible for > a particle to strike there, but not nomologically possible. I'm talking about physics not mathematics. As far as I know there would be no logical inconsistency if Newtonian physics (but not Aristotelian physics) was the only physics there is, but that's not the way things are so we need Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
