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The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics concentrates on a 'classical
treatment' of the observer and the observed; leading to a 'collapse of the wavefunction' upon the act of the observation.
This has little to do with the 'quantum phenomenon of entanglement' as is indicated in the Weinberg critique of
Copenghagen below.
Summararily, Schroedinger was right in the first instance; BUT this does NOT require a
Copenhagen observer.
Schroedinger's Cat is BOTH ALIVE and DEAD as the superposition of quantum selfstates and
INDEPENDENT on any classical observer (looking at the cat).
The superposition is the entanglement of the collapsed and
the escaped quantum eigenstates.
The cat is a living Particle-Entity with 'consciousness/soul/god'
INSIDE as a collapsed wave.
And the cat is a dead Wave-Entity with a 'consciousness/soul/god' OUTSIDE as
an escaped wave.
These two eigenstates define QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT of the SIMULTANEOUS CAT, being BOTH a living body
and a dead nonbody at the same time.
Why does the human mind find that this is so hard to understand? Many physicists and philosophers have objected to the Copenhagen interpretation, both on the grounds that it is
non-deterministic and that it includes an undefined measurement process that converts probability functions into non-probabilistic
measurements. Einstein's comments "I, at any rate, am convinced that He (God) does not throw dice."[14] and "Do you really think the moon isn't there if you aren't looking at it?"[15] exemplify this. Bohr, in response, said "Einstein, don't tell God what to do". Steven Weinberg in "Einstein's Mistakes", Physics Today, November 2005, page 31, said: All this familiar
story is true, but it leaves out an irony. Bohr's version of quantum mechanics was deeply flawed, but not for the reason
Einstein thought. The Copenhagen interpretation describes what happens when an observer makes a measurement, but the observer
and the act of measurement are themselves treated classically. This is surely wrong: Physicists and their apparatus must be
governed by the same quantum mechanical rules that govern everything else in the universe. But these rules are expressed in
terms of a wave function (or, more precisely, a state vector) that evolves in a perfectly deterministic way. So where do the
probabilistic rules of the Copenhagen interpretation come from? Considerable
progress has been made in recent years toward the resolution of the problem, which I cannot go into here. It is enough to
say that neither Bohr nor Einstein had focused on the real problem with quantum mechanics. The Copenhagen rules clearly
work, so they have to be accepted. But this leaves the task of explaining them by applying the deterministic equation
for the evolution of the wave function, the Schrödinger equation, to observers and their apparatus.
The problem of thinking in terms of classical measurements of a quantum system becomes
particularly acute in the field of quantum cosmology, where the quantum system is the universe.[16]
JS
[MIKE] Certainly
Schroedinger's thought problem was originally
proposed to show the problems with the Copenhagen interpretation, but
even today you get the Cat in the box and a few seconds later you read
about collapse of the wave function. It still
has not really been
resolved. As Gribbon said in one of his books is that the problem with
QM is that it is too
democratic everyone has an opinion on what it
means. All of the interpretations you listed above give the same results
they just use differing explanations as to what it means, the philosophy
as Mac puts it. Feynman had two one was a
sum over histories and the
other was an electron going forward and back in time to interfere with
itself. As Gribbon
also wrote no one knows what QM means. We use it like
a cookbook knowing if we do this we get that but we have no idea
why the
ingredients do what they do to get the result.
BTW. It does not get much press, but Eugene Wigner's
adaptation to
Schroedinger's Cat is much more easily understood. The thought problem
is called Wigner's
Friend. Substitute a human volunteer for the cat. Do
the same experiment. At the conclusion, open the door. If the volunteer
is still alive, ie the radioactive particle did not decay and release
the poison, ask him to describe the transitional
states he was
theoretically supposed to experience.
Mike, here is the solution without any OBSERVED COLLAPSE
of any
wavefunction.
Schroedinger's Cat is BOTH ALIVE and DEAD as the superposition of
quantum selfstates
and INDEPENDENT on any classical observer (looking at
the cat).
The superposition is the entanglement of the collapsed
and the escaped
quantum eigenstates.
The cat is a living Particle-Entity with 'consciousness/soul/god'
INSIDE as a collapsed wave.
And the cat is a dead Wave-Entity with a 'consciousness/soul/god'
OUTSIDE
as an escaped wave.
These two eigenstates define QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT of the Cat in smultaneity, being BOTH a living
body and a dead nonbody at the same time.
Why does the human mind find that this is so hard to understand?
[MIKE] Think about Wigner's friend and you should have your answer.
There is more to it Mike. I didn't
ask a question, but stated the superposition as quantum fact and thoroughly without any Many-Worlds of splitting universes.
Wigner's argument engages Consciousness and in that aspect he has hit the 'occuli tauri'; but the basis
is that this consciousness itself is superposed.
Below is 'my accomplice' in Roger Penrose.
Consciousness and measurement
Wigner designed the experiment to illustrate his belief that consciousness
is necessary to the quantum mechanical measurement process. If a material device is substituted for the conscious friend,
the linearity of the wave function implies that the state of the system is in a linear sum of possible states. It is simply
a larger indeterminate system.
However, a conscious observer (according to his reasoning) must be in either one state
or the other, hence conscious observations are different, hence consciousness is material. Wigner discusses this scenario
in "Remarks on the mind-body question", one in his collection of essays, Symmetries and Reflections, 1967.
The idea has become known as the consciousness causes collapse interpretation.
Consciousness
and SuperpositionA counterargument is that the superimposition of
two conscious states is not paradoxical - just as there is no interaction between the multiple quantum states of a particle,
so the superimposed consciousnesses need not be aware of each other.[1]
The state of the observer's perception is considered
to be entangled with the state of the cat. The perception state 'I perceive a live cat' accompanies the 'live-cat'
state and the perception state 'I perceive a dead cat' accompanies the 'dead-cat' state. [..] It is then assumed
that a perceiving being always finds his/her perception state to be in one of these two; accordingly, the cat is, in the perceived
world, either alive or dead.[..] I wish to make clear that, as it stands, this is far from a resolution of the cat paradox.
For there is nothing in the formalism of quantum mechanics that demands that a state of consciousness cannot involve the simultaneous
perception of a live and a dead cat.
-Roger Penrose
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