On Sat, 6 Aug 2016 17:50:27 -0600 Mirimir <mirimir@riseup.net> wrote:
The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics: A Translation of Schrödinger's "Cat Paradox" Paper <http://www.jstor.org.secure.sci-hub.cc/stable/986572>
So, the zombie cat is indeed a reductio-ad-absurdum of sorts (the translator uses the word 'ridiculous') and schroedinger's view is less stupid and crazy than what vulgar QM 'philosophers' believe. At least as far as 'blurring' ('superposition') goes. On the other hand he does present a rather retarded 'rejection' of 'naive realism'...justified by 'epistemology' (hahaha). Which of course means that what the mainstream calls QM is not physics but pseudo-philosophy. -------------------- 5. Are the Variables Really Blurred? The other alternative consisted of granting reality only to the momentarily sharp determining parts- or in more general terms to each variable a sort of realization just corresponding to the quantum me chanical statistics of this variable at the relevant moment. That it is in fact not impossible to express the degree and kind of blurring of all variables in one perfectly clear concept follows at once from the fact that Q.M. as a matter of fact has and uses such an instrument, the so-called wave function or psi-function, also called system vector. Much more is to be said about it further on. That it is an abstract, unintuitive mathematical construct is a scruple that almost always surfaces against new aids to thought and that carries no great message. At all events it is an imagined entity that images the blurring of all variables at every moment just as clearly and faithfully as the classical model does its sharp numerical values. Its equation of motion too, the law of its time variation, so long as the system is left undisturbed, lags not one iota, in clarity and determinacy, behind the equations of motion of the classical model. So the latter could be straight-forwardly replaced by the psi-function, so long as the blurring is confined to atomic scale, not open to direct control. In fact the function has pro- vided quite intuitive and convenient ideas, for in- stance the "cloud of negative electricity" around the nucleus, etc. But serious misgivings arise if one notices that the uncertainty affects macroscopically tangible and visible things, for which the term"blur- ring" seems simply wrong. The state of a radioactive nucleus is presumably blurred in such degree and fashion that neither the instant of decay nor the direction, in which the emitted a-particle leaves the nucleus, is well-established. Inside the nucleus, blur- ring doesn't bother us. The emerging particle is described, if one wants to explain intuitively, as a spherical wave that continuously emanates in all di- rections from the nucleus and that impinges continu ously on a surrounding luminescent screen over its full expanse. The screen however does not show a more or less constant uniform surface glow,but rather lights up at one instant at one spot, or, to honor the truth, it lights up now here, now there, for it is im- possible to do the experiment with only a single radio- active atom. If in place of the luminescent screen one uses a spatially extended detector, perhaps a gas that is ionised by the a-particles, one finds the ion pairs arranged along rectilinear columns that project backwards on to the bit of radioactive matter from which the a-radiation comes (C.T.R. Wilson's cloud chamber tracks, made visible by drops of moisture condensed on the ions). One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the fol lowing diabolical device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of one hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube dis- charges and through a relay releases a hammer which shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and the dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts. It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality ---------------
Meanwhile :
Schroedinger - What is life - 1944
http://whatislife.stanford.edu/LoCo_files/What-is-Life.pdf
I suggest people take a look at the epilogue where he talks about free will and determinism, about his budhist creed, and how human are actually immortal god...or something like that.