On Thursday, November 7, 2019 at 8:47:15 PM UTC-7, Brent wrote: > > > > On 11/7/2019 6:39 PM, Alan Grayson wrote: > > > > On Thursday, November 7, 2019 at 6:25:37 PM UTC-7, Brent wrote: >> >> >> >> On 11/7/2019 5:01 PM, Alan Grayson wrote: >> >> There is no paradox. It's just some hang up you have that a cat can't be >>> dead and alive at the same time. It's as though your physics was stuck in >>> the time of Aristotle and words were magic so that "Alive implies >>> not-dead." was a law of physics instead of an axiom of logic. >>> >>> In fact a moments thought will tell you that quite aside from quantum >>> mechanics there would be no way to identify the moment of death of the cat >>> to less than a several seconds. It would be simply meaningless to say the >>> cat was alive at 0913:20 and dead at 0913:21. >>> >>> Brent >>> >> >> You can imagine a different experiment, without cats, with the same >> paradoxical result. The point of Schroedinger's thought experiment was to >> demonstate tHE title of this thread; that there's something wrong with the >> prevailing interpretation of superposition. In your view I am hung up with >> Aristotle? In my view, you're seduced by some quantum nonsense. AG >> >> >> Prevailing when? 1927? There is no problem in the prevailing 2019 >> interpretation, except in your mind because you assume that a cat cannot be >> in a superposition of alive/dead even for a fraction of a >> nano-second...because...WHY? The radioactive atom can be in a >> superposition of decayed and not-decayed for a nanosecond. Why doesn't >> that violate your Aristotelean logic? >> >> Brent >> > > What's wrong with the interpretation that the radioactive atom is either > decayed OR undecayed with probabilities calculated by Born's Rule? AG > > > Being in the quasi-classical state of either decayed or undecayed assumes > the superposition of decayed and undecayed has decohered by interaction > with the environment. The interactions that produce decoherence all > proceed at less than the speed of light, so it is not instantaneous. So > the atom and the cat are no different...except the time for which one can > keep them isolated from the environment. > > Brent >
Maybe isolation is an idealization which never exists in nature. That would put this issue to bed. 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/8f787705-1ff3-427d-a6f1-085b9baa3e5e%40googlegroups.com.
