I hope this doesn't distress people over in the Caturday Pooties diary, but today, fellow losers, we are going to discuss unorthodox ways of killing pooties. Or not killing pooties!
Forgive me if you were expecting ChingChongChinaman. He'll be back next week. In the meantime, you're stuck with me, a poor substitute indeed, but it's all you've got.
Have you ever wondered what the Schrodinger's Pootie experiment would look like from the perspective of the pootie? I have.
I guess this is obligatory. I have to explain the Schrodinger's Cat experiment. Here goes:
The Copenhagen explanation of quantum theory says that when a a subatomic particle decays, or does any other fancy trick, that until this decay, or this fancy trick, is measured by a scientist, it both is and isn't decayed -- that it's in a state of superposition, two mutually exclusive states true at the same time. This superposed state is described by a quantum wave formula that leaves it up in the air, yes and no simultaneously. However, once you examine the particle to see if it is decayed, the "wave function collapses" and you have a clear answer of yes or no, the particle has/hasn't decayed. This all corresponds well to what is seen in laboratory experiments. Kooky as it sounds.
But Schrodinger tried to extend this beyond just elementary particles to larger objects. Like cats. For instance, let's say some cruel asshole puts a cat in a box, and the box has a particle that has X percent chance of decaying, and there's a geiger counter in the box that, if it detects the decay, will kill the cat. According to the Copenhagen theory of quantum mechanics, we people, looking at this closed box, don't know whether or not the cat is alive. Since the decay of the particle is dependent on a quantum wave formula that says it's HALF-decayed and HALF-not-decayed, the cat must be, therefore, HALF-DEAD. Of course, cats can't be half-dead, so, the reasoning would go, there's something wrong with our logic here.
There are various ways of explaining this, and it's not really the subject of this diary. Go read about it at Wikipedia if you need to. I'm going to assume all losers here have at least a slight acquaintance with the concept of Schrodinger's Cat, if only because of Far Side cartoons.
So, okay, back to the poor lil' pooty in the box. What does the experiment look like from his perspective? Is he half-alive and half-dead? What would that feel like? That seems rather silly, really. He knows that he's alive! Therefore, assuming he's a very, very intelligent cat, he knows the particle has not decayed. It's only the people outside the box to whom he is both half-alive and half-dead.
Let's be clear. Half-alive and half-dead is NOT the same thing as "I don't know" or "There's a 50/50 chance he's still alive." The latter two situations we understand quite well. But when subatomic particles are in this half/half state, they are none of the above. Not until the result is observed.
But that poor pootie says, "What am I if I'm not an observer?"
So far we have talked about the Copenhagen interpretation, the one that describes quantum phenomena very well using these half-decayed, half-dead formulas that calculate out so well that it's pretty much the standard operating procedure in science. Ultimately, though, it is an interpretation of the results from a scientist's POV.
Two scientists, Everett and Wheeler, however, offered a new interpretation, which doesn't change any of the calculations but does provide a very different way of interpreting all the same phenomenon. It's called the Multiple World Interpretation.
In MWI, at the moment in time when the particle decays or doesn't decay, two different universes branch out, one where the particle DID decay, one where it DID NOT. To the pootie, this means that there is one universe where he died, and one where he still lives. This theory explains everything just as well as the Copenhagen theory, but it's a toss-up which is more bizarre. The MWI theory that there are umpteen-gazillion universes that split off from ours every time a particle decays (or does some other funny quantum trick) sort of cheapens our own sense of being "in the real world." Which one?
I became fascinated with this several years back. I imagined myself as climbing into the box and waiting for the particle to decay. And waiting. And waiting. According to MWI, there is always going to be a universe somewhere, improbable as it may be, where the particle seems rather stubborn in its refusal to decay.
From the POV of me in the box, (or, if you prefer imagining it that way, as YOU in the box), the particle never decays. How can that be? Well, in all the universes in which it did decay, I'm gone dead byebye, so I'll never get to express an opinion on the subject there. The only Dumbos that survive are the ones in universes where the particle didn't decay, just by the process of elimination. However, there are a great many universes in which I don't exist any longer where people are holding funerals and shaking their heads saying, "He took his job too seriously." Since I'm not in those universes, though, why should I care?
Curious about this, years ago, I googled the subject until I found an interesting mailing list that covered the subject of Quantum Suicide, which is similar to my Dumbo-in-the-box experiment. It was a cool little mailing list called The Everything List, which I assumed meant they discuss everything. Actually, it was a mailing list for people who were interested in and/or working on the Theory of Everything. One of the people on the list was Max Tegmark.
The Wiki entry on Schrodinger's Cat includes Tegmark's view of Quantum Sucide:
A variant of the Schrödinger's Cat experiment, known as the quantum suicide machine, has been proposed by cosmologist Max Tegmark. It examines the Schrödinger's Cat experiment from the point of view of the cat, and argues that by using this approach, one may be able to distinguish between the Copenhagen interpretation and many-worlds.
How can you distinguish the two interpretations and does it matter? Well, I think it does, but, ah, now we start to cross way out of the realm of physics into metaphysics. Which, I think, simplifies things because we don't need engineering degrees to follow the discussion anymore.
One way MIGHT be to do as follows. Get in the box. Trigger the mechanism over and over and over and over.... A whooole lot of times. If you're still there at the end of all that experimenting and not dead, then you might gain confidence in MWI. You might say to yourself, "It is vastly improbable that I could survive this many attempts on my own life unless the MWI theory is true!" It would be a pretty ballsy thing to do, wouldn't it? If MWI is true, then you could legitimately do this and expect to be alive at the end of it. To OUTSIDE observers in other universes, you are a fool who killed himself, but you're not there to face their disapproval, so fuck 'em!
If you think about this enough, the meaning of life starts to take on a whole new form.
Let's try another thought experiment. A quantum-roulette machine. Let's say Dumbo and CCC both like the same girl and can't live without her. They decide to play quantum-roulette for her. It's a game like Russian Roulette, except it's played with decaying particles. If a particle decays one way, Dumbo dies, CCC lives, and he gets the girl with no competition. If it decays another way, CCC dies, Dumbo lives and gets the girl. According to MWI, we BOTH win (in different universes) and both get the girl all to ourselves. There are no jealous, heart-broken losers! And since we're doing this, we might as well take out life insurance policies on each other to up the ante.
Your common sense is telling you this is a VERY VERY BAD PLAN. Is it, really? Why? It solves his and my problem. But somebody died! Who? Me? CCC? According to MWI, we both still exist, just not together.
In fact, according to MWI, the city of Hiroshima was not destroyed in August of 1945. In some other universe, The Enola Gay dropped a bomb on Hiroshima, it triggered a thousand feet above the surface, and all the particle decays that should have created a chain reaction failed (in that universe), sparing the city long enough for the bomb to hit the ground and shatter as a dud.
Oh well, that's as far as I'll go with this, although I could go much further. For instance, I could try to explain why it doesn't matter if MWI is testable or not, that it is effectively "real" enough that our definition of life and death and personal identity may be more tenuous than you have previously thought.