Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeGoldfarb  godot, are you using the popular Copenhagen interpretation of QT in real-life situations? |
The interpretation appeals to me, but real-life examples of observer-affecting-event are so numerous and obvious that it is hardly necessarily to resort to using QT to explain the phenomenon.
As a former litigation lawyer, for example, I was involved in many cases where the judge, ostensibly, is out to discover the "truth" of the case. Yet the way a question is phrased and put to the witness, while ostensibly of a "truth-finding" nature, itself affects the nature of the answer is given.
As an investor in the stock market, I note that every investor's observation of the stock market's conditions leads the investor to make one of three possible decisions:
1. sell
2. buy
3. neither sell nor buy - ie do nothing
and in each case, the decision itself affects the market conditions.
As a parent, I note that my observation of my children's behaviour itself affects their behaviour. For example, if my little son is doing something naughty, and I stare at him, he stops doing the naughty thing.
As I observe the discussion in this forum thread, I may either:
1. do nothing; or
2. post a reply
and the future course of this forum discussion (ie other participants' future comments / posts in this thread) would be different, depending on whether I did post a reply or not.
Therefore it was not pre-determined how the trial would progress; or the stock market would perform; or my son would behave; or how this forum thread would progress.
My observation or non-observation itself affects the event.
Observation implies consciousness.
Follow it a few steps further, and we see that mind creates all reality. For we cannot know that reality exists, unless we observe it to exist, and our knowing is itself a state of mind.