Ray Saintonge wrote: > Ian Woollard wrote: > >> On 04/11/2009, Steve Bennett wrote: >> >> >>> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Ian Woollard wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Schroedinger's cat very definitely is fictitious; it's not an >>>> experiment you can actually do and get an alive/dead cat that you can >>>> actually see, you would get either an alive cat, or a dead cat. >>>> >>>> >>> I agree with the statement that it should not be in that category. >>> Essentially, because schrodinger's cat is not a cat. >>> >>> >> Schrodinger's cat is a fictitious cat that is in the Schrodinger's cat >> thought experiment. >> >> It is fictitious because it is not a factual cat; it is countrafactual. >> >> >>> There is no notable fiction in which >>> Schrodinger's cat features heavily, for example. >>> >>> >> It is notably in "Schroedinger's cat" thought experiment. >> >> That's what a thought experiment is; it's a made up story about what >> would happen if you did X,Y,Z which is used to illuminate aspects of >> physics. >> >> >> > I would be inclined toward keeping it in the category, but mostly > because of subsequent references in works of science fiction. In common > usage there is a tendency to ignore the difference between "fictitious" > and "fictional". With reference to the original concept of > Schrodinger's cat it is fictitious because it is imaginary; it is not > fictional because it is not part of a work of fiction. > As things stand currently Schrödinger's cat and Schrödinger's cat in popular culture are both categorised there. To the person who said I should just fix it, yeah, I could, but there's enough discussion on this list to say I ain't got a strong consensus. Besides which, there was an underlying point there somewhere about the philosophy of categorisation on Wikipedia which still, after, um six years? hasn't been resolved.
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