Exploring Quantum Mechanics: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat

[steersman]

I read John Gribbon's In Search of Schrodinger's Cat recently and have spent many moments puzzling over the implications of QM.

Particularly this passage:

Imagine an arrangement that records which hole an electron goes through but let's it pass on its way to the detector screen. Now the electrons behave like normal, self-respecting everday particles.We always see an electron at one hole or the other, never both at once. And now the pattern that builds up on the detector screen is exactly equivalent to the pattern for bullets, with no trace of interference. The electrons not only know wether or not both holes are open, they know wether or not we are watching them, and they adjust their behaviour accordingly.

It's like god got lazy planning the laws of the universe: Oh screw it, they'll never see this little ad hoc thing I did there. In fact, I think it works nicely, I get to seem a little ecentric, and if they accuse me of being irrational I'll accuse them of not being multi-dimensional!

 

[phoenixthoth]

so if we're just not being multi-dimensional, and from that perspective it all makes more sense, then is God lazy? do you think and/or would you want science to ever END? i mean get to a point where all the laws of nature have been proven and are known?

 

[zk4586]

"If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever."
-Woody Allen

 

[Loren Booda]

God exerts least action.

 

[olde drunk]

god's practicle joke?

personally, i think that god wanted to have some fun.

"these guys think that everything can be measured and that light is key for understanding laws of physics. screw'em! we'll alter the properties of light so that now they got to continue to think beyond the current dogma."

peace,

 

[phoenixthoth]

it seems that historically when one sets down an axiom that everyone accepts, it freezes progress which is to say it puts a limit on progress. euclid's axioms. the axioms of set theory. all axioms confine one to a boxed way of thinking. yet on the other hand, the other extreme is absurdity where everything is true. well, the axiom that the speed of light is constant is another such principle. I've often wondered if light isn't changing speed, albeit at a slow rate such as 0.0001 % per millenia, an amount undetectable by us so it would appear.

suppose that in the beginning the speed of light was c' and after one millenia, it is 1.001c'. after two millenia, (1.001)^2 c', after n millenia, it is (1.001)^n c'. this would then change the age of the universe but let's say it is still 15 billion years old. then the number of millenia in 15 billion years is n=15,000,000,000. then the current c is 1.001)^n c', which is 1.55*10^6511162 c'! or maybe the two effects cancel and the age of the universe would no longer be 15 billion years but something else.

aynway, I'm not seriously suggesting that c is not constant because i have no evidence for this. but i am saying the rabbit hole may be deeper than we think it is and unfortuntely/fortunately, it may be more complicated than we think it is. and so i seriously doubt God is lazy.

 

[Pergatory]

Originally posted by phoenixthoth
suppose that in the beginning the speed of light was c' and after one millenia, it is 1.001c'. after two millenia, (1.001)^2 c', after n millenia, it is (1.001)^n c'. this would then change the age of the universe but let's say it is still 15 billion years old. then the number of millenia in 15 billion years is n=15,000,000,000. then the current c is 1.001)^n c', which is 1.55*10^6511162 c'! or maybe the two effects cancel and the age of the universe would no longer be 15 billion years but something else.

The problem with that, is that you are altering our "point of reference" so to speak. The speed of light in a vacuum cannot change from our perspective because it is the speed of light that determines how fast we can (or can't) perceive things. Why do you think the speed of light is relevant in the famous equation E=MC²? I believe what you're truly arguing is, how do we know that the energy required for particular work isn't increasing or decreasing over time?

Anyway, for the sake of getting back on topic... to look at things from a perspective that "God is lazy" is a very narrow-minded and human perspective. To say something like that assumes that A) there is a God, and B) our knowledge of the working universe is equal or greater than that God. Otherwise, for all we know, our currently accepted understanding of physics may be completely wrong, and what you are observing is merely a manifestation of our own shortcomings.

 

[plum]

Based on what has been expressed in this thread, it would appear to be the case that I myself am God.

 

[steersman]

and so i seriously doubt God is lazy.

Anyway, for the sake of getting back on topic... to look at things from a perspective that "God is lazy" is a very narrow-minded and human perspective. To say something like that assumes that A) there is a God, and B) our knowledge of the working universe is equal or greater than that God. Otherwise, for all we know, our currently accepted understanding of physics may be completely wrong, and what you are observing is merely a manifestation of our own shortcomings.

I was being flippant.

 

[Pergatory]

Originally posted by steersman
I was being flippant.

My bad! Then in that case the answer would be:
Restricted to our current knowledge of physics, yes lazy seems to be the only answer. However, how is that different from any other phenomenon that we don't yet understand?

 

[phoenixthoth]

Originally posted by plum
Based on what has been expressed in this thread, it would appear to be the case that I myself am God.

here's something a real psycho once wrote:
I am a God, I very God of very God; I go upon my way to work my will; I have made matter and motion for my mirror; I have decreed for my delight that Nothingness should figure itself as twain, that I might dream a dance of names and natures, and enjoy the substance of simplicity by watching the wanderings of my shadows. I am not that which is not; I know which knows not; I love that which loves not. For I am Love, whereby division dies in delight; I am Knowledge, whereby all parts, plunged in the whole, perish and pass into perfection; and I am that I am, the being wherein Being is lost in Nothing, nor deigns to be but its Will to unfold its nature, its need to express its perfection in all possibilities, each phase a partial phantasm, and yet inevitable and absolute.
I am Omniscient, for naught exists for me unless I know it. I am Omnipotent, for naught occurs save by Necessity my soul's expression through my will to be, to do, to suffer the symbols of itself. I am Omnipresent, for naught exists where I am not, who fashioned space as a condition of my consciousness myself, who am the center of all, and my circumference the frame of my fancy.

 

[jammieg]

Whoever wrote it gets my vote for crackpot master, yet so what?, I mean it's just words IF the guy goes to work everyday and does his job well and doesn't hurt people then let him be I say, who knows maybe he is having the time of his life in some awesome fantasy land but still has enough grasp of reality to do her job. I think the trouble with this is people with abundant imagination control scare the hell out of many people and the reason is most likely because the analogical perceptions of God are within imagination or the cerebral cortex, but hold up a bit I have to get my mind map, everyone should have a mind map replicating the surface area of their own brain to help keep from getting lost, that way when they are talking about their map they can point to the speech center and say ah ha I'm in this area quite a bit now.
...oh you so if you see me on the street doing this leave me ******* alone, long as I'm not killing people or getting people to kill people or myself.