[lit-ideas] Re: Understanding Why The Compressor Shorted To Ground
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:48:45 -0330
THE PLAY IS NEVER THE PHILOSOPHICAL THING
Robin (upon reading all about that damn cat): Holy feline infelicities, Batman!
Looks like we'll never catch that cat now. Or for us to find it, we first have
to see it, but before we see it, it may not be there, so why are we looking for
the cat, Batman? .... Am I making any sense, Batman?
Batman: It may be worse than a lack of semantic intelligibility, Robin. Our
entire system of traditional logic is at stake. Not to mention democracy and
washing your car in the driveway on a Sunday morning. That demon, Battling
Bohr, has forced us to posit P, where P reads: "From the point of view of
quantum mechancis, it is neither T nor F that a statement about subatomic
participles ...
Robin: That's "particles," Batman. I hate it when you commit a George W.
Batman: "Particles," yes. It's been a long night of cleaning, Robin. Maybe we
shouldn't have fired Alfred for speaking English so correctly. Anyway, where
was I? Yes, P. "... that a statement about subatomic *particles* itself has no
determinable truth value independent of observation."
Robin: Sounds like a fiendish attempt to throw us off track by playing fast and
loose with the distinction between the ontological and the epistemic, Batman.
Batman: Or perhaps the proferred red herring is the use of an epistemic point
to
conclude an ontological point.
Robin: Sheer venal, villainous invalidity, Batman. Oh we'll get him for that.
We'll ...
Batman: I haven't completed my analyis Robin.
Robin: Sorry, Batman. It's just that I'm getting a bit cold standing here in my
underwear. I don't know why you won't let me wear ...
Batman: So, if P, we must ask whether it is true that P.
Robin: But wait, Batman! What if Battling Bohr's quantum bomb doesn't allow for
its own statement in a natural language or Aristotelian logic? It may be
ticking right now somewhere in Gotham city and neither semantics nor speech
acts nor The Square of Opposition will help us!
Batman: That may not be the problem. We have to make sure nobody *hears* it
ticking. For it's the hearing of the ticking that will set it off.
Robin: If indeed there is a bomb. Isn't that what "indeterminate" means,
Batman?
Batman: Still, we can't take that chance. But there's still "Q".
Robin: "Q," Batman? We don't have a Q yet!
Batman: Hold onto your cerebral cortex, Robin. "Q" states: "It is true that P."
Robin: Holy complicities, Batman! Does that mean that Q itself is neither T nor
F until the relevant observation is made? But if so, Q is surely
self-contradictory, Batman. For Q, if it is an expression in natural language
which it certainly seems to be, thus accepts bivalence, avers that P, and hence
claims the truth value of P to be T, and yet P itself avers that the class of
statements it refers to don't have a truth value until the truth value is
actually determined by observation.
Batman: "*Doesn't* have a truth value ... "
Robin: So how do we find the cat, Batman? Assuming it's there. And if it isn't,
how can you look for something which doesn't exist before you find it?
Batman: So that's why I find all those paperbacks on Plato under your bed.
Robin: Sorry, Batman. But I can't learn everything I need to know to be a
dissatisfied human from you. And wait until I tell you about HIS cave!!! By the
way, is there a cat or not?
Batman: Permit me to refer you to the play "Jumpers" by my old cellmate Tom
Stoppard. As you'll see, it all depends on what you mean by "is."
Robin: Holy Bill Clinton, Batman.!
Batman: Good Oxford man, Robin. Sound analytic abilities, even for an American.
Not a Mods and Greats sort o' guy, but loads of fun in the quadrangle at
midnight.
CURTAIN
Cheers, Walter O
MUN
Quoting Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>:
> > I don't now recall the reference to the cat you cite above. Does the cat
> meow a
> > philosophical point?
>
> Walter,
>
> Just in case you're ever at a party with some physicists.
>
> Yours phenomenally,
>
> Robert
>
>
> Schrödinger's cat A thought experiment introduced by Erwin Schrödinger
> in 1935 to illustrate the paradox in quantum mechanics regarding the
> probability of finding, say, a subatomic particle at a specific point in
> space. According to Niels Bohr, the position of such a particle remains
> indeterminate until it has been observed. Schrödinger postulated a
> sealed vessel containing a live cat and a device triggered by a quantum
> event, such as the radioactive decay of a nucleus. If the quantum event
> occurs, cyanide is released and the cat dies; if the event does not
> occur the cat lives. Schrödinger argued that Bohr's interpretation of
> events in quantum mechanics means that the cat could only be said to be
> alive or dead when the vessel has been opened and the situation inside
> it had been observed. This paradox has been extensively discussed since
> its introduction. It is currently thought that the concept of
> decoherence might resolve this paradox in a satisfactory way.
>
> Wigner's friend is a variation of the Schrödinger's cat paradox in which
> a friend of the physicist Eugene Wigner (1902?95) is the first to look
> inside the vessel. The friend will either find a live or dead cat.
> However, if Professor Wigner has both the vessel with the cat and the
> friend in a closed room, the state of mind of the friend (happy if there
> is a live cat but sad if there is a dead cat) cannot be determined in
> Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics until the professor has
> looked into the room although the friend has already looked at the cat.
> These paradoxes indicate the absurdity of the overstated roles of
> measurement and observation in Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics.
>
> How to cite this entry:
> "Schrödinger's cat" A Dictionary of Physics. Ed. John Daintith. Oxford
> University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University
> Press. Reed College. 26 November 2007
>
<http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t83.e2714>
>
>
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