# Schrodinger's Cat



## aj47 (Feb 12, 2016)

So, the question is:  Alive? Dead? Both? Neither? I don't give a rat's asterisk?


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## PrinzeCharming (Feb 12, 2016)




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## ppsage (Feb 12, 2016)

I don't care how unquantifiable it is, no cat lives to be over 75 years old.


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## Riis Marshall (Feb 13, 2016)

Hello Annie

Because it's warmer in the summer that it is in the country.

Have a nice day.

All the best with your metaphysical musings.

Warmest regards
Riis


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## Deleted member 56686 (Feb 13, 2016)

You dare ask if Schrodinger's Cat is alive or dead? Boy is Schrody going to come in and haunt you. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




  :cat:


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## UtopiasCult (Feb 13, 2016)

Well according to quantum physics unless someone sees you, you really don't exist. So... where's the option for not-existing cat? Seeing as in a sealed box who would have seen it to know it really exists.


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## EllaLouis (May 28, 2017)

I voted.


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## Theglasshouse (May 28, 2017)

Would make for a fun story. If a person someone became immortal using that supposed scenario, but the psychics must be complex such as playing with the universe. Yes, I know. Both dead and alive, but what would that mean? I voted alive, because if this concept worked people could be immortal. Wish I knew more on how that could make for an interesting story concept.


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## JustRob (May 28, 2017)

Theglasshouse said:


> Would make for a fun story. If a person someone became immortal using that supposed scenario, but the psychics must be complex such as playing with the universe. Yes, I know. Both dead and alive, but what would that mean? I voted alive, because if this concept worked people could be immortal. Wish I knew more on how that could make for an interesting story concept.



No problem. It's a key feature of my trilogy _The Hermes Culture_. If anyone were interested in reading it then I might write it.

Oh yes, by the way, my answer to the poll is in the box ... with the cat. That was where we were meant to put our votes, wasn't it?


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## Theglasshouse (May 28, 2017)

I know Schrodinger's cat means it is dead or alive, I knew this years back. A physics equation makes it possible and obviously hasn't been accomplished. I know Heinlein did try it. Could make for a good suspense for a story since you never know if anyone is dead or alive. I know I need to do more research. I say I have had it in mind for a while, and you can basically create a story where. I say write if you wish to. Life and self-preservation is always good in fiction (it makes people read if someone's life is in danger). I voted alive just for the heck of it. Because of plot.


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## Ptolemy (May 28, 2017)

I love the Schrödinger's cat "paradox" even if it is only really viable under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. It's basically a question when quantum superposition ends. Eventually the cat would die, however, we don't know when. When you open the box, you can only see the cat as alive or dead, not alive and dead. 

However, the theorem only really applies with the Copenhagen interpretation. Basically it revolves around that a system stops being in a superposition state once an observation takes place, hence since superposition cannot be interpreted when no observation takes place, the cat is both alive and dead when out of sight, since there is a possibility that it is either alive or dead when you take an observation. 

However, there are a multitude of other interpretations of quantum physics, that don't really support it. Including the many-worlds interpretation, Ensemble interpretation, relational interpretation. Objective collapse theories too. I could go on about the entire thing, but I don't have much room.


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## JustRob (May 28, 2017)

Ptolemy said:


> I could go on about the entire thing, but I don't have much room.



Why? Did they shut you in a box as well? Is there a cat in there with you by any chance?


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## Ptolemy (May 28, 2017)

JustRob said:


> Why? Did they shut you in a box as well? Is there a cat in there with you by any chance?



Joke & Time constraints. 

I have written a paper on Schrödinger's Cat and the multitude of different interpretations of the theorem. All are pretty complex on their views of quantum superposition. And I cany really explain them all in a forum post.


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## Ptolemy (May 28, 2017)

Double post


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## escorial (May 28, 2017)

Just shouted to a cat on the garage roof..is shrodys cat still alive an it turned looked at me but I couldn't hear what it said before it got off...


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## bobo (May 28, 2017)




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## bdcharles (May 28, 2017)

We need a new language to describe these states of superposition. Yesnomaybe. Eitherneitherboth. 

It's decided - Eithenitha Böthe will be the name of my next femme fatale. She'll sail the endless skies dodging the Probability Pirates.


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## -xXx- (May 28, 2017)

*looks but does not find the _yes_ selection*
*per-p-lex(es)*


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## jenthepen (May 28, 2017)

It's dead. How do you tell the kids you ran the cat over when reversing  in drunk? You don't. You put it in a box and set up an elaborate  experiment purporting to expose the folly of quantum mechanics. That way,  the kids blame Einstein for the death of their cat and you become famous  as the bloke who created an impossible experiment. It's a win win  situation.


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## escorial (May 28, 2017)

jenthepen said:


> It's dead. How do you tell the kids you ran the cat over when reversing  in drunk? You don't. You put it in a box and set up an elaborate  experiment purporting to expose the folly of quantum mechanics. That way,  the kids blame Einstein for the death of their cat and you become famous  as the bloke who created an impossible experiment. It's a win win  situation.



I can recall telling the kids Christmas Eve that I've just heard father Christmas has been shot in new York..the instant look I got made me backtrack quicker than a politician..


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## Cran (May 28, 2017)

Ptolemy said:


> I have written a paper on Schrödinger's Cat and the multitude of different interpretations of the theorem. All are pretty complex on their views of quantum superposition. And I can't really explain them all in a forum post.


No. But you can post it in Non Fiction for our armchair scientists to read ... 

just sayin'


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## Penless (May 29, 2017)

I'm tempted to choose #Both, because the many-worlds interpretation gives us writers so much to play with.

#Neither, seems more likely. The idea of time as an emergent phenomenon; the idea that until observed, the cat didn't exist,  and that our observation in the present is what created the past... Could be an interesting premise!


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## JustRob (May 29, 2017)

Cran said:


> Ptolemy said:
> 
> 
> > Joke & Time constraints.
> ...



I second that. 

My persistent speculation about recalling future memories is all tangled up with the idea of the future being a superposition of alternative realities, the probabilities of which depend on the current state of our local reality regardless of whether we know the details or not. This is the only solution that I can see to the problem of free will in a deterministic reality. In my model opening the box and observing the cat merely relocates our own consciousness within phase space, but the state of the cat is not changed. 

I think we get hung up on the importance of consciousness. If that is merely an interface with a particular version of reality then I see no problem with the wider psyche being a coherent superposition of all possible consciousnesses. Therefore when an observer opens the box and forms an opinion of the state of the cat they divide into two consciousnesses, each with a different view. In fact those two consciousnesses could be said to have existed as part of the observer's coherent psyche before the box was opened. Hence the dual state of the cat is matched by a dual state of the observer. That is why my answer to the poll is that my vote is in the box with the cat, that vote also being in a coherent state. In this I am no more nor less unresolved than the cat is. Q.E.D.

However, I know nothing about the established theories behind all this and my terminology is probably wrongly used, so a paper written by someone with insight into it would be of interest. As I have written before, I am just a lab rat in search of a researcher. The talk at the Society for Psychical Research on Thursday is about the recall of future memories within the context of established thinking on models of reality. I have been in correspondence with the speaker but I have trouble interpreting his ideas and this may be either because of the way that he stretches more conventional thinking into his domain or my lack of knowledge of that conventional thinking. It should be an interesting talk and he has invited me to chat to him before it if I arrive early. Whether my angel, who will be with me, will find it interesting is another matter. I think I could probably answer a poll about that immediately with reasonable confidence though, the probabilities being as they currently stand.


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## aj47 (May 29, 2017)

I set up this poll as a practice poll for something I was doing.  I see  I need to amend it.....


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## JustRob (May 29, 2017)

Annie, if you want literary critique on it, then I would suggest that the reader might become more involved and likely to respond if you wrote it from the POV of the cat, which I assume to be the protagonist. The current third party perspective doesn't seem to be working too well.


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## JustRob (Jun 7, 2017)

This morning while out walking alone a thought occurred to me. The cat effectively acts as a recording device in that if we were to open the box now we could no doubt determine whether it was alive yesterday. Enclosing it in the box does not change its time frame in relativistic terms, so far as I can see, so its yesterday corresponds to ours. If all observation, i.e. the acquisition of new information, changes whatever is observed, then by opening the box have we changed something in the past, either the cat's or our own? Hence the far more intriguing question to my mind is not whether the cat is dead or alive now but whether it was yesterday. Maybe the former question is still worth more than a rat's asterisk though.

N.B. This is probably all addressed in a document somewhere, but I have to work things out for myself in order to truly understand them, rather than just soaking up predigested information from others. That's why I haven't solved Rubik's cube yet, because I've never looked up the method of "doing" it in a mindless way.


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