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What is the thought-experiment that your referring to?
Again you are taking "observer" to mean the english keyword rather than what it actually means. An "observer" is anything other than the quantum superposition that attempts to interact with it. It doesn't need to be a human observer. Quantum superpositions happen without humans, and the wave functions collapse without humans. We can extrapolate this to show possibilities in different decisions/choices, which is usually how the theory is portrayed in fiction/media. Since most timelines are going to be almost identical except a particular atom in a slightly different position. So it's only worth talking about timelines that are noticeably different.a different timeline (or more) makes no sense if no observer emerges at some point in any of the branches.
In such a world nothing would happen, or move, or exist. So sure, in such a world there wouldn't be any action nor any future. That has nothing to do with humans in particular. "observer" doesn't mean "human". It means "interaction with the quantum superposition".So, it must be at least on branch that subsequently has an observer, in other words, if no observation is to be ever made, regardless of the vastness of branches (timelines), all those branches collapse to zero.
And you'd be incorrect. At least if you are meaning "observer" in reference to the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Though there is an argument to be had for personal observation moving through before/after the wave function collapse and ending up on one side despite physically identical brains in each; at which point we get into theology and the nature of the soul and spirit, along with temporal migration of them.The observer I mentioned, I see as a consciousness being, so to say “intelligent life”.
Yes. When something interacts with the quantum state the wave function collapses and we arrive at a single result. IE a particular timeline out of the many. There are other models for why wavefunction collapse happens, but the MWI posits that it doesn't collapse, and instead both outcomes legitimately occur. Rather than one being "arbitrarily" chosen. Of course, we know the MWI is correct, even if scientists haven't gotten that far yet.The wave function collapses when there is an observer involved.
It's because you're thinking about it wrong. Using an abstraction to decisions helps clarify this a bit. Imagine you had to decide whether you were going to have vanilla icecream or chocolate. As it stands, it is prior to the event of you getting icecream. Both are technically possible outcomes. They both exist as possible futures. When you eventually end up going and getting icecream, you make a decision, perhaps vanilla, and the wave function collapses. There is now no chance that you will get chocolate, because you have gotten vanilla. Similarly, the photon can go through either slit, and we don't know which one it will be until it goes through one and we observe it. Both are possible futures for the photon. What's interesting is that if we close the slit after the photon goes through but before we measure, the photon acts differently. Retrocausality. Interesting stuff, I'm not a physicist so I might have botched that explanation. Basically, the probability wave function collapse upon the event (clear measurement) taking place.In this aspect, it seems a little weird to me that people speak about collapsing the wave function, when in reality, especially regarding the “double slit” experiment, it is the particle that is collapsed (eliminated) – not the wave.
Hi!Retrocausality. Interesting stuff, I'm not a physicist so I might have botched that explanation. Basically, the probability wave function collapse upon the event (clear measurement) taking place.
All right then, it is really not about circuits diagrams and schematics, as this one is very simple. It is about the very strange phenomenon that occurs here, about the logic of the whole thing.Circuits aren't my strong suit but it's fine yeah.
Don’t say that !! .. You’re brilliant at physics.I'm no good at physics but it looks to me like it'd take 10s to arrive at the led and turn it on, then 10s for the light from the led along with the return signal to head back to the viewer. So 20s cycles. This is ignoring brain processing time, which might mess up the order of observations. So the meter and the light would appear to turn on at the same time.
My strong belief is that in the immediate vicinity of the whole circuit wiring, something happens to time.Unfortunately as I said, I'm not too good at physics. I do see the scenario you're talking about. Being able to flick the switch prior to completing a full cycle would need to "stop" it due to a broken circuit, but to do so it'd have to stop and send such information faster than the speed of light or somehow predict that you'd flick the switch.
I can't actually say what would happen in practice because this is far from what my expertise is in. My intuition says that breaking the circuit would cut the flow immediately. However my limited physics knowledge tells me that the electrical current would travel at the speed of light and no faster. And there's a clear contradiction there. Might be a good question for a physicist on what exactly would happen and how/why.
Too bad we can't actually make a 3 million kilometer long circuit to actually test this.