{"id":901,"date":"2011-03-21T15:42:17","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T15:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mixermuse.com\/blog\/?p=901"},"modified":"2014-11-15T10:12:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-15T17:12:00","slug":"with-regard-to-a-discussion-on-causality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/western-philosophy\/with-regard-to-a-discussion-on-causality\/","title":{"rendered":"With regard to a discussion on causality\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

My initial post to a question about causality…<\/p>\n

One thing that comes to mind is Schr\u00f6dinger’s cat. Determinations are made by the act of observation that preclude certain results and determine causal outcomes. Could we think of the \u201cbox\u201d as determining the result?…perhaps better to think of the observer as predisposing physics towards his expectations \u2013 quite a murky business in any case.<\/div>\n

After the deserved critcism of being too “poppy” I expanded the explanation…<\/p>\n

Yes, perhaps a bit \u201cpoppy\u201d in my brief post but the mystery remains.\u00a0 Speaking of the observable disorder in molecules Schrodinger writes, \u201cBut whether any particular molecule, supposing you could follow, its course, will be among those which have reacted or among those which are still untouched, he [the chemist] could not predict. That is a matter of pure chance. This is not a purely theoretical conjecture. It is not that we can never observe the fate of a single small group of atoms or even of a single atom. We can, occasionally. But whenever we do, we find complete irregularity, co-operating to produce regularity only on the average.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWhat Is Life\u201d, pdf page 27<\/p>\n

http:\/\/whatislife.stanford.edu\/LoCo_files\/What-is-Life.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

It is a bit of a wishful leap to suggest that the phenomena that Schrodinger observed on the quantum scale has been \u201cexplained\u201d.\u00a0 His supposition was that order arises out of chaos (peros from aperion) not unlike the thoughts of Plato, I might add.<\/p>\n

I would submit that the slit experiment can actually strengthen my rather anemic response.\u00a0 When individual photons are emitted through two slits (or more) to the photographic film, the apparent simultaneity of the photon passing through both slits introduces an uncertainty that has yet to be explained. \u00a0\u00a0While Schrodinger referred to this \u201cmystery\u201d as entanglement, Heisenberg addressed the wave particle duality in his \u201cuncertainty principle\u201d.\u00a0 Subatomic particles incessantly pop in and out of existence in a way that disallows determinism and can only be explained statistically with essential and inherent uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Forgive the indulgence but according to the Copenhagen Interpretation (not pop) if you never measure the x-spin (box, i.e., Schrodinger) of an electron, it will never jump to an eigenstate of x-spin and thus will have a 100% probability of y-spin (a contradictory state).\u00a0 The conclusion is that observable results depend on whether the electron is in an indeterminate state or determinate but unknown state.\u00a0 Indeterminate states are not just determinate states we have no knowledge of.\u00a0 Physical objects actually behave differently depending on whether their states are unknown or indeterminate.<\/p>\n

One need look no further than quantum entanglement, the spooky action at a distance that Einstein despised and tried to refute with his EPR paradox only to end up showing the non-classical characteristics of the measurement process.<\/p>\n

A Couple Quotes:<\/p>\n

Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.<\/p>\n

Niels Bohr<\/p>\n

I think that I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.<\/p>\n

Richard Feynman<\/p>\n

I don’t like it, and I’m sorry I ever had anything to do with it.<\/p>\n

Erwin Schr\u00f6dinger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My initial post to a question about causality… One thing that comes to mind is Schr\u00f6dinger’s cat. Determinations are made by the act of observation that preclude certain results and determine causal outcomes. Could we think of the \u201cbox\u201d as determining the result?…perhaps better to think of the observer as predisposing physics towards his expectations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[165,166],"class_list":["post-901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-western-philosophy","category-physics-2","tag-philosophy","tag-physics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3890,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions\/3890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}