Recent content by rgmcc

Would a typical modern-day Copenhagenist say that collapse occurs 'at the time of decoherence' and that collapse consists of random selection of one of the 'diagonal terms'?

To get a little more specific: -remember it's not necessary to think of universes being 'created'; rather think of a big flowchart or map that simply lists many different possible different arrangements of the universe... you could say the whole thing just exists all along, whether it's shaped...

Question- do you think that past moments are 'real'? Think of all those separate moments, each one is a separate 'configuration of the universe'. So intangible, they're only in your imagination in a sense. And yet most people are happy to call the past 'real'. Think of how each past moment is...

I think that your view is not the mainstream consensus. For example, from Wikipedia: "The measurement problem in quantum mechanics is the unresolved problem of how (or if) wavefunction collapse occurs. The inability to observe this process directly has given rise to different...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this thought experiment is still a good illustration of the unsolved 'Measurement Problem' in QM-- in principle, if you work out all the math using QM to describe the cat's fate, you will get an 'answer' consisting of two components, 'Alive Cat and Dead Cat' (even...

It can be interesting to ponder the question of whether it is sometimes useful to "communicate" "random information" over a quantum channel. It seems there are some applications in e.g. cryptography. Or, as a very contrived example, it strikes me that you could set up a "quantum lottery"...

My point was: Clicks of Geiger counter are considered 'quantum random'. Clicks of a Geiger counter have not been _shown_ to be 100% deterministic (it is a matter of unresolved competing QM interpretations). Also, clicks of a Geiger counter are something I can experience. Therefore it is...

Really? If I watch single photons hitting a detector, or listen to a Geiger counter clicking, has it been shown that I'm experiencing something 100% determined? What about random mutations in DNA, or even weather patterns do to chaos principles? I would have thought those examples come...

Lately I've been enjoying the deterministic perspective (probably, it seems more 'relaxing' ;) ) but I think the concept of 'true randomness' sits just fine with many people. You could claim that the universe is a balance between a Pattern that is ordered/understandable/predictable and an...

I agree that the DCQE seems to suggest a workaround for "purposeful determined information": one thinks, maybe the sender can "choose to erase or not", and the receiver will be able to observe the sender's choice? (i.e. 'erasing the which-path information' causes an interference pattern to be...

I don't think that 'noise' is the issue here; the issue is that the only 'information' you can send is 'randomly determined information' (probably an oxymoron under the standard definitions of terms); meaning that it's useless for most practical types of communication. Imagine you owned a pair...

If the trajectories were formed by connecting 'average' velocity vectors, does that mean that some 'actual' trajectories do in fact cross the center-line? (Since, an 'average' velocity of 'straight along the middle' implies that we have some 'actual' velocities going slightly up and some going...

Thanks Fyzix, that link looks really helpful. And it's good to see the lingo people are using around these ideas, so I can express myself better, e.g."The most obvious way to do that might be to assume that the wavefunction is represented by an integer function on configuration space rather...

Well, I admit I'm new to the forum and something tells me I asked too much at once. :redface: Let me try to start more simply: As mentioned in http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics#endnote_note3 , particles are considered 'real' entities in de Broglie-Bohm...

Hello Forum, I've been reading about MWI, the Bohm interpretation, and Feynman QED. Combining elements from these interpretations, I've been building up my own simple mental model of 'how to picture the state of affairs', and I've been speculating about the feasibility of interpretations...