Aduke.2104
net.misc
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!npois!harpo!duke!cjp
Thu Apr 29 02:33:56 1982
Re: utcsrgv.318: Re: psi vs relativity vs quantum mechanics
	From harpo!decvax!utzoo!utcsrgv!donald Thu Apr 29 00:33:42 1982
	Date: Wed Apr 28 13:30:06 1982
	To: utzoo!decvax!harpo!duke!cjp utzoo!utcsrgv!donald
	Subject: Re: utcsrgv.298: Re: instantaneous telepathy


	....

	Regarding the Uncertainty Principle:  according to the Copenhagen
	Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (c. 1927) a particle does NOT
	have a definite location or velocity until it IS measured.  In other
	words, there is no underlying reality "behind the scenes".  The
	observer creates the reality (!)  This is the great disparity between
	quantum theory and the classical physical theories.  A particle DOESN'T
	know where it IS.  Remember the problem of Schrodinger's Cat?


					See you in net.misc
					Don Chan (utcsrgv!donald)

I'd hate to embarass myself in net.misc by telling lies about physics.
It's really not my field.  I am familiar with neither the Copenhagen
Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics ca. 1927 nor the problem
Schroedinger had with his cat.  The wave function of my cat is giving
me enough problems in trying to keep it off my keyboard.  I do
think that things, even quantum things, have a location and velocity
even without their being observed or even observable.  The idea that
"the observer creates the reality" sounds too much like Bishop
Berkeley's philosophy of (I think it's called) Idealism for my liking.
In case you are not familiar with it, the scheme is that "reality"
is created by the perception of the observer.  When something is not
being observed, it just isn't there.  Of course there has to be
some scheme for making things consistent among different observers
of the same thing at different times; this is where God comes in,
to serve as the permanent perceiver of everything and thus to hold
reality together.  I nearly puked when I had to study this stuff
as a humanities requirement.  What garbage.  So I surely don't want
to believe that such a thing may actually be true of quantum sized
objects.
Now, if you change that to "the observer *affects* the reality",
I'll buy that 100%.  In the case of the coffee break electron,
I'd say that the observation of an electron being at the coffee break
here has made it impossible for the electron to be observed at the
Alpha Centauri coffee break today.  The description of the
electron as a wave function merely means, that before you looked
for it, you couldn't be sure whose coffee break it would be attending.

		Charles Poirier (duke!cjp)

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