On Wednesday, October 9, 2019 at 4:21:50 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: > > > > On 10/9/2019 3:52 AM, Alan Grayson wrote: > > > > On Wednesday, October 9, 2019 at 12:28:38 AM UTC-6, Brent wrote: >> >> >> >> On 10/8/2019 9:20 PM, Alan Grayson wrote: >> > I've argued this before, but it's worth stating again. It's a >> > misintepretation of superposition to claim that a system described by >> > it, is in all the component states simultaneously. As is easily seen >> > in ordinary vector space, an arbitrary vector has an uncountable >> > number of different representations. Thus, to claim it is in some >> > specific set of component states simultaneously, makes no sense. Thus >> > evaporates a key "mystery" of quantum theory, inclusive of S's cat and >> > Everett's many worlds. AG >> >> No. It changes the problem to the question of why there are preferred >> bases. >> >> Brent >> > > Who chose Alive and Dead, or Awake and Sleeping for the S. cat? Wasn't it > the observer? > > > Could the observer have chosen |alive>+|dead> and |alive>-|dead> as a > basis? > > Brent >
*That's a great question and the answer is No, because, as you would say, the pair (|Alive>, |Dead>), forms a "preferred" basis. We can only measure Alive or Dead. However, the other pair you have above is a perfectly valid state of the S cat system, a vector in the Hilbert Space of the system, and presumably there is an uncountable set of other valid states in Hilbert Space. This means that the interpretation of a superposition of the first pair is just as valid as the interpretation of any other pair; namely, that the system is in both components simultanously. But this is obvious nonsense given the plethora of valid bases, so the interpretation fails. THIS is my point. Am I mistaken? AG* > > Since they had other choices, my claim stands. AG > > > -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/9d9ba92c-458d-40d4-86dc-fcdfc3d9e5c1%40googlegroups.com.
