My guess is that the Copenhagen interpretation isn’t supposed to talk about what your beliefs are; it’s just supposed to talk about entanglement of waveforms. So Schroedinger’s beliefs about whether the cat is alive or dead don’t matter.
But I’ve heard people talk about such situation as if Schroedinger’s belief that the cat was alive or dead was important. Especially in connection with the idea that a waveform only truly collapses when an observation is made by a conscious agent.
If you don’t say that only conscious agents can collapse waveforms, then you have to agree that something in the box collapses the waveform as seen from inside the box, while it’s still uncollapsed to Schroedinger. And Schroedinger’s opening the box collapses that waveform for him; but it is still uncollapsed for someone outside the room.
But if you do say that only conscious agents can collapse waveforms, then it’s something about their mental processes that does the collapsing. This could mean their beliefs matter. And then, the cat is always dead.
The whole business seems murky and mysterious to me, and I hope for some enlightenment. And if it is not enlightening, it can at least be entertaining.
But I’ve heard people talk about such situation as if Schroedinger’s belief that the cat was alive or dead was important. Especially in connection with the idea that a waveform only truly collapses when an observation is made by a conscious agent.
No. Strong evidence for consciousness being a fundmental part of reality would be a huge deal.
The whole business seems murky and mysterious to me, and I hope for some enlightenment. And if it is not enlightening, it can at least be entertaining.
It is often not so entertaining for the person trying to explain because it takes most people serious effort to understand, something most are unwilling to do for amusement sake. In person it can be more productive in my opinion, but I have not had much success online.
QED by Feynman is a decent place to start if you want to learn more about quantum mechanics.
But I’ve heard people talk about such situation as if Schroedinger’s belief that the cat was alive or dead was important.
In the consciousness-collapsing-waveform interpretation of quantum mechanics (which is not the same as the Copenhagen interpretation BTW) it is observation that collapses quantum states not belief. In particular the fact that Schroedinger misinterpreted his observation is irrelevant to how the wave function collapses.
My guess is that the Copenhagen interpretation isn’t supposed to talk about what your beliefs are; it’s just supposed to talk about entanglement of waveforms. So Schroedinger’s beliefs about whether the cat is alive or dead don’t matter.
But I’ve heard people talk about such situation as if Schroedinger’s belief that the cat was alive or dead was important. Especially in connection with the idea that a waveform only truly collapses when an observation is made by a conscious agent.
If you don’t say that only conscious agents can collapse waveforms, then you have to agree that something in the box collapses the waveform as seen from inside the box, while it’s still uncollapsed to Schroedinger. And Schroedinger’s opening the box collapses that waveform for him; but it is still uncollapsed for someone outside the room.
But if you do say that only conscious agents can collapse waveforms, then it’s something about their mental processes that does the collapsing. This could mean their beliefs matter. And then, the cat is always dead.
The whole business seems murky and mysterious to me, and I hope for some enlightenment. And if it is not enlightening, it can at least be entertaining.
No. Strong evidence for consciousness being a fundmental part of reality would be a huge deal.
It is often not so entertaining for the person trying to explain because it takes most people serious effort to understand, something most are unwilling to do for amusement sake. In person it can be more productive in my opinion, but I have not had much success online.
QED by Feynman is a decent place to start if you want to learn more about quantum mechanics.
In the consciousness-collapsing-waveform interpretation of quantum mechanics (which is not the same as the Copenhagen interpretation BTW) it is observation that collapses quantum states not belief. In particular the fact that Schroedinger misinterpreted his observation is irrelevant to how the wave function collapses.