Comment on Literally exactly how it works, too.
Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club 1 month agoI don’t understand. How can they “get” a wave pattern if they didn’t look at the data?
Comment on Literally exactly how it works, too.
Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club 1 month agoI don’t understand. How can they “get” a wave pattern if they didn’t look at the data?
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The wave pattern is on the photo plate, the data that never gets looked at is from a sensor on one or both slits that measures whether the projectile passed through that slit.
Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club 1 month ago
Well, if you look at the plate, then you’ve collapsed the wave function, and the data on the hard drive is then determine, and can’t contradict the result on the plate.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 month ago
One of the claims of the more psuedoscience “quantum mechanics” is that the future can affect the past. So the intent to check the data if there is a wave pattern would cause there to not be a wave pattern on its own, otherwise there would be a contradiction.
But, as the other commenter mentioned, it’s a moot point because it’s the sensor is the “observer”, and it’s not “being observed” that affects the outcome, but “interacting with the wave/particle to generate the data that may or may not be observed by a conscious”.
The profoundness of this, if it were the case, would be to imply that there’s something special, different about consciousness vs all the other non-conscious interactions out there, that this existence is for us rather than us just being here in this existence. But quantum mechanics doesn’t actually say anything about consciousness, at least not at this point, and probably not any time soon because it isn’t even really looking at that problem.
Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club 1 month ago
Thing is, that’s an assumption. You dont know that for sure. Just like you can’t prove the speed of light isn’t different in different directions. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be free to believe that, but you must admit it’s an assumption.
I’m not a really mystical person, but I don’t discount the possibility. That would be arrogant. Simply being conscious is rather bizarre. How does the universe even support that? What is it? Is there a consciousness field? Why does a blob of fat, protein, and sodium ions give rise to consciousness? Surely, life could have evolved and thrived without experiencing life. I can easily imagine mindless, robotic life just doing it’s thing.
Since no one can currently explain any of that, and no one can know for sure a wavefunction has collapsed until you’ve lookef at the results, I also don’t discount that consciousness might play a role. I remain agnostic about it.
If you don’t think there’s something special and unusual about consciousness, I don’t know what to say. 😄 I don’t believe in a soul, but at least I admit that consciousness is special, and that the universe is weird because of that.