Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!seismo!mcvax!botter!klipper!biep
From: biep@klipper.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Aspect Experiment and Meaning of QM
Message-ID: <769@klipper.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Wed, 27-May-87 04:14:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: klipper.769
Posted: Wed May 27 04:14:01 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 29-May-87 00:49:51 EDT
References: <1275@cci632.UUCP> <766@klipper.cs.vu.nl> <650@pbhyc.UUCP> <1828@sphinx.uchicago.edu> <652@pbhyc.UUCP>
Reply-To: biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 44
Keywords: aspect light faster

Warning: I don't know what I'm talking about!!!

In article <1828@sphinx.uchicago.edu> ogil@sphinx.UUCP (Lord Julius) writes:
>Now put two detectors in the holes, so you know which hole the photon went
>through on its way to the detector.  Now the probability that the original
>detector detects the photon is _independent of its position_!  Yes, just
>placing those two detectors in the holes changed the results, demonstrating
>that the universe does conform to the state of man's knowledge, at least
>in one sense.

In article <652@pbhyc.UUCP> djo@pbhyc.UUCP (Dan'l Oakes) writes:
>Forgive me for stating the obvious, but I do believe that a modified version
>of Heisenberg's Principle is applicable here -- it is not our knowledge of
>"which hole the photon went through," but the presence and activity of the
>detectors themselves.

That seems better. I cannot really believe things depend on whether some
physicist is looking at what the detectors detect or not.

About the wave function collapse: Doesn't that boil down to "does the
bathroom light burn when I don't see it?"? If one starts with saying:
my only source of knowledge is my sensations, then it makes sense to
say that "the universe" only exists as far as one senses it. But in
such a position one cannot talk any more about "observers", there is
just one observer and that's you. (This is not solipsism.), all others
are only observing as far as you observe them observing.

If I dream, I am a god in a sense: I create a world I am transcendent to.
Whether something is true in that world really depends on whether I
observe (better: think) it or not, but it does not depend on whether the
people in my dream observe it or not. So if one poses an objective
reality (objective to us), I think one cannot at the same time claim that
reality depends on our observations. It may depend on the thoughts
of God, but that's another newsgroup - which we don't get in Europe,
at least the way I observe it.

Well, I think I'll try and get the QED-book first.

					
-- 
						Biep.  (biep@cs.vu.nl via mcvax)
When a doctor doctors a doctor, does the doctoring doctor doctor the doc-
tored doctor with the doctoring doctor's doctrine,  or does the doctoring
doctor doctor  the doctored doctor  with the doctored doctor's  doctrine?