Undergrad Does Schrodinger's Cat contradict itself?

[SamuelCunningham3456]

In the schrodinger's cat thought experiment is the cat technically the observer because The cat can observe if its alive or dyeing? Should schrodinger's thought experiment only work with non living objects?

 

[PeterDonis]

Moderator's note: Thread moved to QM interpretations subforum, and thread level changed to "I".

 

[PeterDonis]

is the cat technically the observer

In the modern decoherence viewpoint, yes, the cat can "observe" itself, meaning decohere itself, so it is either alive or dead before the box is opened.

However, exactly what that means in terms of the wave function depends on which interpretation of QM you adopt.

 

[PeterDonis]

Should schrodinger's thought experiment only work with non living objects?

In terms of decoherence there is no difference between a cat and a nonliving macroscopic object like a rock. Both have a very large number of quantum degrees of freedom and can decohere themselves.

 

[Nugatory]

In the schrodinger's cat thought experiment is the cat technically the observer because The cat can observe if its alive or dyeing?

The cat is frequently misrepresented in the popular press. Schrodinger was not saying that's how he thought it worked, he was using the contradictions to show that something had to be wrong with the then-current (100 years ago, and we've figured out a lot more since then) understanding of QM.

Should schrodinger's thought experiment only work with non living objects?

That was sort of vaguely one resolution of the problem back then, more often stated as "consciousness causes collapse". It turns out that that approach just pushes the problem around (google for "Wigner's friend") without really clearing anything up. The bigger breakthrough came a few decades later with the discovery of quantum decoherence - David Lindley's book "Where does the weirdness go?" is laymanfriendly and a pretty decent explanation - give it a try.