Re: Bootstrapping Reality: The inconsistency of nothing

[Bruce Kellett]

From: *Brent Meeker* mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>


On 7/6/2018 8:38 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

From: *Brent Meeker* mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>


On 7/6/2018 4:54 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
I am not sure I understand the idea of being in the same world 
when space-like separated.


Who said anything like that? They end up in the same world when 
they meet. Or do you disagree with that as well?


Certainly the two people who meet are in the same quasi-classical 
world.  But when decoherence happened to the two people who were 
space-like separated wasn't that decoherence at Alice in general 
different from the decoherence at Bob?  From Zurek's quantum 
Darwinism view, at each end there will be a very large number of 
different states reached by decoherence (Zurek proposes to recover 
the Born rule as statistices over these) but the decoherence effects 
will spread at roughly the speed of light and eventually overlap.  
When they overlap they will in general be incompatible so the Alice 
and Bob corresponding to those, can never meet.  Only those, if 
there are any, which decohered compatibly AND have the contra-Bell 
correlations in their notebooks can meet.  What happened to those 
that decohered incompatibly?...they are traced out to zero?


Decoherence is a local phenomenon, spreading at the speed of light or 
less. But that does not necessarily mean that the spacelike separated 
people are in different worlds. At any particular instant of GMT, you 
in California are spacelike separated from me in Australia. But that 
does not mean we are in different worlds, and does not prevent us 
from meeting at some time in the future. Consequently, when the 
decoherence from an event at Alice meets the decoherence from another 
event at Bob, they may or may not be in the same world. It is not the 
compatibility of the decoherence that is at issue, but the branches 
of the wave function on which the particular measurement results put 
them that can be incompatible. Separate decohered branches can never 
meet. It is not that they are traced out to zero -- it is that they 
are separate disjoint worlds.


There is an additional complication present in the measurements on 
EPR pairs. Given that Alice measured 'up', either 'up' or 'down' for 
Bob is compatible if the polarizers are aligned at some intermediate 
angle. So Alice _up and Bob_up can be in the same world. And Alice_up 
and Bob_down can be in the same world. But since Bob has split, these 
cannot be the same worlds overall. The crucial point for recovering 
the quantum correlations is the corresponding probabilities -- the 
probability for Bob to have recorded 'up' when Alice's lab book shows 
'up' is generally different from the probability that Bob's book 
shows 'down' in this situation. For any particular trial, there is no 
way of knowing these probabilities, or of knowing which of the two 
Bob-worlds are compatible with the Alice-world. This only shows up in 
the expectation values over a large sequence of trials. It is 
explaining the origin of these probabilities that is the challenge 
for any proposed local account of the EPR correlations. And 
many-worlds signally fails to provide any such explanation. 
Many-worlders are content with waving their hands over multiple 
entanglements and incompatible worlds, but they never get down to the 
nitty-gritty of explaining the probabilities.


As I understand Zurek's quantum Darwinism there are many (e.g. ~10^30) 
quantum threads corresponding to each sequence of entries in Alice's 
notebooks.  A probable entry sequence has more threads and hence more 
measure than an improbable one.


That can't be right. The number of copies of a result left in the 
environment cannot determine the probability of that result. The 
probability is given by the square of the amplitude in the wave 
function. And if the environment is sparse, the system may not even 
properly decohere. I think that Zurek's quantum Darwinism is much more 
about establishing robust classical states after a quantum event.


 So "Alice and her notebook reading u,u,d,u...d,u,d,d,d" is a 
classical thing that exists as many quantum threads that are 
classically indistinguishable and so constitute one FAPP classical world.


That is regarding the lab book as a classical object. But it always was 
a decohered classical onject -- unaffected by the measurements Alice 
makes, at least until she write her result in the book. The decoherence 
is in the pointer state that reveals up or down, and many copies of this 
result are written to the environment, making it stable and classical. 
But this does not affect probabilities, or what ALice writes in her book/



 Similarly for Bob.  So where the forward light cones of their last 
measurements overlap, most of these quantum threads must trace out to 
zero and leave only those whose measures satisfy both the Born rule 
and the correlations that violate Bell.  This "tracing out" is what 
adjusts the relative 

Re: Radioactive Decay States

[agrayson2000]

On Friday, July 6, 2018 at 1:56:12 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, July 6, 2018 at 1:22:03 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/6/2018 11:44 AM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 5:14:34 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/5/2018 3:55 PM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 2:03:46 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 



 On 7/5/2018 11:27 AM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:



 On Wednesday, July 4, 2018 at 10:57:06 AM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>
>
>
> On 7/4/2018 1:57 AM, 'scerir' via Everything List wrote:
>
>
> *No. I am asserting that the INTERPRETATION of the superposition of 
> states is wrong. Although I have asked several times, no one here seems 
> able to offer a plausible justification for interpreting that a system in 
> a 
> superposition of states, is physically in all states of the superposition 
> SIMULTANEOUSLY before the system is measured. If we go back to those 
> little 
> pointing things, you will see there exists an infinite uncountable set of 
> basis vectors for any vector in that linear vector space. For quantum 
> systems, there is no unique basis, and in many cases also infinitely many 
> bases, So IMO, the interpretation is not justified. AG* 
>
> ***SIMULTANEOUSLY*** was used by EPR in their paper, but that did not 
> have much meaning (operationally, physically).
>
> Can we say that the observable, in a superposition state, has a 
> ***DEFINITE*** value between two measurements?
>
> No - in general - we cannot say that.
>
>
> It's in some definite state.  But it may be a state for which we have 
> no measurement operator or don't intend to measure; so we say it is in a 
> superposition, meaning a superposition of the eigenstates we're going to 
> measure.  So it does not have one of the eigenvalues of our measurement.
>
> Brent
>

 *So for the radioactive source, the superposed state, Decayed + 
 Undecayed, does NOT imply the system is in both states simultaneously? *


 No, it is in a state that consists of Decayed+Undecayed.  So in a sense 
 it is in both simulatnaeously.  If you are sailing a heading of 45deg you 
 are on a definite heading.  But you are simultaneously traveling North and 
 East.  And if someone was watching you with a radar that could only output 
 "moving north" or "moving east" it would oscillate between the two and you 
 might call that a superposition of north and east motion.

 Brent

>>>
>>> *I see. But as I have pointed out, there are uncountably many sets of 
>>> basis vectors that result in the same vector along the 45 deg direction. 
>>> Thus, it makes no sense to single out a particular basis and claim it is 
>>> simultaneously in both. *
>>>
>>>
>>> That's where you're wrong.  It makes perfect sense if that's the only 
>>> basis you can measure in.  That's why I gave the hypothetical example of a 
>>> radar that could only report motion as northward or eastward.  In some 
>>> cases, like decayed our not-decayed, we don't have instruments to measure 
>>> the superposition state.  In other cases like sliver atom spin we can 
>>> measure up/down or left/right or along any other axis.
>>>
>>> *ISTM, this is the cause of many of the apparent paradoxes in QM such as 
>>> Schroedinger's cat, or a radioactive source which is decayed and undecayed 
>>> simultaneously. I have no objection using such a state to do a calculation, 
>>> but I think it's an error to further interpret a superposition in terms of 
>>> simultaneity of component states. What say you? AG*
>>>
>>>
>>> I say use what's convenient for calculation.  Don't imagine your 
>>> calculation is the reality.
>>>
>>
>>
>> *But the consensus, perhaps unstated or subliminally, is that the 
>> superposition is imagined as reality, which leads to cats and radioactive 
>> sources being (respectively) alive and dead, and decayed and undecayed, 
>> simultaneously. Isn't this what Schroedinger was arguing against? I have 
>> rarely, if ever, seen it argued NOT to interpret a superposition as reality 
>> as a proposed solution to these apparent paradoxes. AG *
>>
>>
>> You just go around and around.  You never put together the explanations 
>> you get.  Decoherence shows that, in the presence of an environment, the 
>> wave function FAPP collapses into orthogonal quasi-classical states in 
>> fractions of a nano-second.  That's why the Schroedinger cat story doesn't 
>> show what Schroedinger thought it did.  BUT there are experiments, like 
>> silver atoms thru and SG in which superpositions of left+right persist, 
>> they are up polarizations for example; and we know they exist because we 
>> can prepare up states and then measure them left/right or measure them 
>> up/down.  The latter, 

Re: Do we live within a Diophantine equation?

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 4:35 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

​>>​
>> So you now admit that the experts who specialize in the study of physical
>> phenomena have, just as I said, "never seen a demonstration of a
>> non-physical calculation “ .
>
>
> *​>​Yes. Computability is born in mathematical logic, not in physics.*
>

​
And logicians who claim that were, without exception, physically born not
logically born.


> *​>​ just show that the physical reality is Turing-complete. It only means
> that the physical reality can implement a universal Turing machine.*
>

Yes, but the reverse is not true, a universal Turing machine can't
implement physical reality, by itself it can't change, it can't
DO anything.

> ​>>​
>> And that dear Bruno flatly contradicts your statement "That contradicts
>> all publication in the field “
>
>

*​>​I don’t see it.*
>

Did you see the "yes" in the quotation above?



> ​>>​
>> If energy comes from pure numbers then why do experts in pure numbers
>> need energy even when they study pure numbers?
>
>
> ​>*​*
> *Because experts are physical being.*
>
So physics can do something mathematics can not; mathematicians can use
energy to power their mind but they can't use mathematics to do so.

> ​> ​
> *With mechanism, they emerge in arithmetic or equivalent, though.*
>

The fact that mathematicians need calories obtained from food to do their
mathematics is experimental proof that they are NOT equivalent.

>   ​
>> ​>>​
>> The ways numbers can be manipulated is infinite but only one of those
>> ways is compatible with physical reality
>
>
> ​>​
> ?
>

*​!​ *

​>> *​*
>> *and we call that way arithmetic; it is the only way that is correct,*
>
>
> ​>*​*
> *That is utterly ridiculous, and circular. *
>

​There are countless ways of manipulating numbers but only one of those
ways is consistent with physical reality, we call that one way "correct, it
can also be called "arithmetic". What's circular about that?


> ​>* ​*
> *Physicists assume arithmetic to make sense of the observations.*
>

Yes, whatever way that numbers are manipulated it must be consistent with
PHYSICAL observations, if physical reality was different correct arithmetic
would be different, but its not so it isn't. And its not just physicists,
the sheep herder who invented arithmetic knew enough physics  to make sure
his new invention  called “arithmetic"  was consistent with physics, for
example he knew one of his sheep wouldn't instantaneously become 2 sheep or
100 sheep or zero sheep.

​>​
> *you assume a primary physical reality. But that is not a valid way to
> proceed when we do metaphysics with the scientific method.*
>

​You admitted above that articles about calculations made without the use
of matter that obey the laws of physics are not in any of the physics
journals nor in any of the general science journals like Nature or Science
because there are no physical observations to report. So how on earth can
you use the scientific method if you have no observations to work on??


> ​>*​*
> *Anyway, this has been refuted.*
>

​Sure it has, in that wonderful post you've been talking about for nearly a
decade that for some reason I have never seen and nobody I know has ever
seen either.


> ​>> ​
>> so the number of existing functions is not only enumerable it is finite,
>> assuming by "existence" we mean there is a difference between "X " and "not
>> X”.
>
>
>
> ​>*​*
> *?*
>

*​!​*

​>>​
>> ​If you don't have a notation that allows you to represent a function in
>> a finite number of symbols then neither a person nor a machine can think
>> about it then it does not exist except in Plato's heaven, and there is no
>> detectable difference between Plato's heaven existing and Plato's heaven
>> not existing so, just like the luminiferous aether of old, it is useless
>> metaphysical baggage.
>
>
> ​>*​*
> *This is your opinion. But it contradicts your belief in computationalism
> as I have shown.*
>
It is my hope that sometime before my death I shall gaze upon that
glorious post of yours that explains all the inner workings of the univers

> ​
>> ​>>​
>> Matter doesn't need anything to do stuff except the laws of physics, but
>> the laws of numbers are not enough to enable numbers to do anything.
>
>
> *​>​As I said, that contradicts all the papers in the field.​ It shows
> that you never study even one paper.*
>

I can't study even one paper because there is not even one paper published
in a reputable journal that claims to have proven the existence of a non
physical calculation; your paper hasn’t been published and its not hard to
see why, its just silly.


> ​> ​
> *Again, you assume Aristotle criteria of reality.*
>

​
And again its Greeks Greeks Greeks, nothing but wall to wall Greeks 24/7 as
if no other humans have done anything interesting in the last 2500 years.


>> ​>>​
>> there is incontrovertible evidence that matter DOES produce consciousness.
>
>
> ​>​
> *First show an evidence of primary matter.*
>
First show me 

Re: Bootstrapping Reality: The inconsistency of nothing

[Brent Meeker]

On 7/6/2018 11:27 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:

From: *Brent Meeker* mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>


On 7/6/2018 8:38 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
From: *Brent Meeker* >


On 7/6/2018 4:54 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
I am not sure I understand the idea of being in the same world 
when space-like separated.


Who said anything like that? They end up in the same world when 
they meet. Or do you disagree with that as well?


Certainly the two people who meet are in the same quasi-classical 
world.  But when decoherence happened to the two people who were 
space-like separated wasn't that decoherence at Alice in general 
different from the decoherence at Bob?  From Zurek's quantum 
Darwinism view, at each end there will be a very large number of 
different states reached by decoherence (Zurek proposes to recover 
the Born rule as statistices over these) but the decoherence 
effects will spread at roughly the speed of light and eventually 
overlap.  When they overlap they will in general be incompatible so 
the Alice and Bob corresponding to those, can never meet.  Only 
those, if there are any, which decohered compatibly AND have the 
contra-Bell correlations in their notebooks can meet. What happened 
to those that decohered incompatibly?...they are traced out to zero?


Decoherence is a local phenomenon, spreading at the speed of light 
or less. But that does not necessarily mean that the spacelike 
separated people are in different worlds. At any particular instant 
of GMT, you in California are spacelike separated from me in 
Australia. But that does not mean we are in different worlds, and 
does not prevent us from meeting at some time in the future. 
Consequently, when the decoherence from an event at Alice meets the 
decoherence from another event at Bob, they may or may not be in the 
same world. It is not the compatibility of the decoherence that is 
at issue, but the branches of the wave function on which the 
particular measurement results put them that can be incompatible. 
Separate decohered branches can never meet. It is not that they are 
traced out to zero -- it is that they are separate disjoint worlds.


There is an additional complication present in the measurements on 
EPR pairs. Given that Alice measured 'up', either 'up' or 'down' for 
Bob is compatible if the polarizers are aligned at some intermediate 
angle. So Alice _up and Bob_up can be in the same world. And 
Alice_up and Bob_down can be in the same world. But since Bob has 
split, these cannot be the same worlds overall. The crucial point 
for recovering the quantum correlations is the corresponding 
probabilities -- the probability for Bob to have recorded 'up' when 
Alice's lab book shows 'up' is generally different from the 
probability that Bob's book shows 'down' in this situation. For any 
particular trial, there is no way of knowing these probabilities, or 
of knowing which of the two Bob-worlds are compatible with the 
Alice-world. This only shows up in the expectation values over a 
large sequence of trials. It is explaining the origin of these 
probabilities that is the challenge for any proposed local account 
of the EPR correlations. And many-worlds signally fails to provide 
any such explanation. Many-worlders are content with waving their 
hands over multiple entanglements and incompatible worlds, but they 
never get down to the nitty-gritty of explaining the probabilities.


As I understand Zurek's quantum Darwinism there are many (e.g. 
~10^30) quantum threads corresponding to each sequence of entries in 
Alice's notebooks.  A probable entry sequence has more threads and 
hence more measure than an improbable one.


That can't be right. The number of copies of a result left in the 
environment cannot determine the probability of that result. The 
probability is given by the square of the amplitude in the wave 
function. And if the environment is sparse, the system may not even 
properly decohere. I think that Zurek's quantum Darwinism is much more 
about establishing robust classical states after a quantum event.


But he also proposes to recover the Born rule.  A classical world is an 
equivalence class over many quantum states.  We don't suppose that every 
K40 decay in your blood puts you into a different world, even though it 
decoheres into a definite decayed state.  When a quantum measurement 
gets recorded in its environment, that environment consists of many 
classically equivalent, but quantum inequivalent, states.  So the 
decoherence with these states can realize relative measures satisfying 
the Born rule.




 So "Alice and her notebook reading u,u,d,u...d,u,d,d,d" is a 
classical thing that exists as many quantum threads that are 
classically indistinguishable and so constitute one FAPP classical world.


That is regarding the lab book as a classical object. But it always 
was a decohered classical onject -- unaffected by the measurements 
Alice makes, at least until she write her 

Re: Radioactive Decay States

[agrayson2000]

On Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 4:48:51 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 12:19:23 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, July 6, 2018 at 1:56:12 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Friday, July 6, 2018 at 1:22:03 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:



 On 7/6/2018 11:44 AM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:



 On Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 5:14:34 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>
>
>
> On 7/5/2018 3:55 PM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 2:03:46 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/5/2018 11:27 AM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, July 4, 2018 at 10:57:06 AM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/4/2018 1:57 AM, 'scerir' via Everything List wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> *No. I am asserting that the INTERPRETATION of the superposition of 
>>> states is wrong. Although I have asked several times, no one here seems 
>>> able to offer a plausible justification for interpreting that a system 
>>> in a 
>>> superposition of states, is physically in all states of the 
>>> superposition 
>>> SIMULTANEOUSLY before the system is measured. If we go back to those 
>>> little 
>>> pointing things, you will see there exists an infinite uncountable set 
>>> of 
>>> basis vectors for any vector in that linear vector space. For quantum 
>>> systems, there is no unique basis, and in many cases also infinitely 
>>> many 
>>> bases, So IMO, the interpretation is not justified. AG* 
>>>
>>> ***SIMULTANEOUSLY*** was used by EPR in their paper, but that did 
>>> not have much meaning (operationally, physically).
>>>
>>> Can we say that the observable, in a superposition state, has a 
>>> ***DEFINITE*** value between two measurements?
>>>
>>> No - in general - we cannot say that.
>>>
>>>
>>> It's in some definite state.  But it may be a state for which we 
>>> have no measurement operator or don't intend to measure; so we say it 
>>> is in 
>>> a superposition, meaning a superposition of the eigenstates we're going 
>>> to 
>>> measure.  So it does not have one of the eigenvalues of our measurement.
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>
>> *So for the radioactive source, the superposed state, Decayed + 
>> Undecayed, does NOT imply the system is in both states simultaneously? *
>>
>>
>> No, it is in a state that consists of Decayed+Undecayed.  So in a 
>> sense it is in both simulatnaeously.  If you are sailing a heading of 
>> 45deg 
>> you are on a definite heading.  But you are simultaneously traveling 
>> North 
>> and East.  And if someone was watching you with a radar that could only 
>> output "moving north" or "moving east" it would oscillate between the 
>> two 
>> and you might call that a superposition of north and east motion.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>
> *I see. But as I have pointed out, there are uncountably many sets of 
> basis vectors that result in the same vector along the 45 deg direction. 
> Thus, it makes no sense to single out a particular basis and claim it is 
> simultaneously in both. *
>
>
> That's where you're wrong.  It makes perfect sense if that's the only 
> basis you can measure in.  That's why I gave the hypothetical example of 
> a 
> radar that could only report motion as northward or eastward.  In some 
> cases, like decayed our not-decayed, we don't have instruments to measure 
> the superposition state.  In other cases like sliver atom spin we can 
> measure up/down or left/right or along any other axis.
>
> *ISTM, this is the cause of many of the apparent paradoxes in QM such 
> as Schroedinger's cat, or a radioactive source which is decayed and 
> undecayed simultaneously. I have no objection using such a state to do a 
> calculation, but I think it's an error to further interpret a 
> superposition 
> in terms of simultaneity of component states. What say you? AG*
>
>
> I say use what's convenient for calculation.  Don't imagine your 
> calculation is the reality.
>


 *But the consensus, perhaps unstated or subliminally, is that the 
 superposition is imagined as reality, which leads to cats and radioactive 
 sources being (respectively) alive and dead, and decayed and undecayed, 
 simultaneously. Isn't this what Schroedinger was arguing against? I have 
 rarely, if ever, seen it argued NOT to interpret a superposition as 
 reality 
 as a proposed solution to these apparent paradoxes. AG *


 You just go around and around.  You never put together the explanations 
 you get.  Decoherence shows that, in the presence of an environment, the 
 

Re: Radioactive Decay States

[agrayson2000]

On Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 12:19:23 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, July 6, 2018 at 1:56:12 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, July 6, 2018 at 1:22:03 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/6/2018 11:44 AM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 5:14:34 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 



 On 7/5/2018 3:55 PM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:



 On Thursday, July 5, 2018 at 2:03:46 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>
>
>
> On 7/5/2018 11:27 AM, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, July 4, 2018 at 10:57:06 AM UTC-6, Brent wrote: 
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/4/2018 1:57 AM, 'scerir' via Everything List wrote:
>>
>>
>> *No. I am asserting that the INTERPRETATION of the superposition of 
>> states is wrong. Although I have asked several times, no one here seems 
>> able to offer a plausible justification for interpreting that a system 
>> in a 
>> superposition of states, is physically in all states of the 
>> superposition 
>> SIMULTANEOUSLY before the system is measured. If we go back to those 
>> little 
>> pointing things, you will see there exists an infinite uncountable set 
>> of 
>> basis vectors for any vector in that linear vector space. For quantum 
>> systems, there is no unique basis, and in many cases also infinitely 
>> many 
>> bases, So IMO, the interpretation is not justified. AG* 
>>
>> ***SIMULTANEOUSLY*** was used by EPR in their paper, but that did not 
>> have much meaning (operationally, physically).
>>
>> Can we say that the observable, in a superposition state, has a 
>> ***DEFINITE*** value between two measurements?
>>
>> No - in general - we cannot say that.
>>
>>
>> It's in some definite state.  But it may be a state for which we have 
>> no measurement operator or don't intend to measure; so we say it is in a 
>> superposition, meaning a superposition of the eigenstates we're going to 
>> measure.  So it does not have one of the eigenvalues of our measurement.
>>
>> Brent
>>
>
> *So for the radioactive source, the superposed state, Decayed + 
> Undecayed, does NOT imply the system is in both states simultaneously? *
>
>
> No, it is in a state that consists of Decayed+Undecayed.  So in a 
> sense it is in both simulatnaeously.  If you are sailing a heading of 
> 45deg 
> you are on a definite heading.  But you are simultaneously traveling 
> North 
> and East.  And if someone was watching you with a radar that could only 
> output "moving north" or "moving east" it would oscillate between the two 
> and you might call that a superposition of north and east motion.
>
> Brent
>

 *I see. But as I have pointed out, there are uncountably many sets of 
 basis vectors that result in the same vector along the 45 deg direction. 
 Thus, it makes no sense to single out a particular basis and claim it is 
 simultaneously in both. *


 That's where you're wrong.  It makes perfect sense if that's the only 
 basis you can measure in.  That's why I gave the hypothetical example of a 
 radar that could only report motion as northward or eastward.  In some 
 cases, like decayed our not-decayed, we don't have instruments to measure 
 the superposition state.  In other cases like sliver atom spin we can 
 measure up/down or left/right or along any other axis.

 *ISTM, this is the cause of many of the apparent paradoxes in QM such 
 as Schroedinger's cat, or a radioactive source which is decayed and 
 undecayed simultaneously. I have no objection using such a state to do a 
 calculation, but I think it's an error to further interpret a 
 superposition 
 in terms of simultaneity of component states. What say you? AG*


 I say use what's convenient for calculation.  Don't imagine your 
 calculation is the reality.

>>>
>>>
>>> *But the consensus, perhaps unstated or subliminally, is that the 
>>> superposition is imagined as reality, which leads to cats and radioactive 
>>> sources being (respectively) alive and dead, and decayed and undecayed, 
>>> simultaneously. Isn't this what Schroedinger was arguing against? I have 
>>> rarely, if ever, seen it argued NOT to interpret a superposition as reality 
>>> as a proposed solution to these apparent paradoxes. AG *
>>>
>>>
>>> You just go around and around.  You never put together the explanations 
>>> you get.  Decoherence shows that, in the presence of an environment, the 
>>> wave function FAPP collapses into orthogonal quasi-classical states in 
>>> fractions of a nano-second.  That's why the Schroedinger cat story doesn't 
>>> show what Schroedinger thought it did.  BUT there are experiments, like 
>>> silver atoms