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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Would you say the following was a plausible interpretation of Schroedinger's famous analogy:
The truth condition of an untested proposition is such that the argument can be true if and only if it remains untested. If, then, one should test the proposition, it will necessarily be false, its truth value being otherwise indeterminate.
If so, how would one express this as an argument in logical positivistic terms, that is, with respect to a physical state of being and not merely to an argument?
Thanks,
IP
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Are you equating the argument as being that the cat is both dead and alive?
I've always thought that all Schrödinger's cat showed us is that we can't draw conclusions from ignorance.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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If you don't already have a headache like mine, try reading this translation of the otiginal paper. I'm sure it will give you one. http://www.qedcorp.com/pcr/pcr/qcat.html
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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try reading this translation
Not tonight dear, I have a headache.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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okay, here's one layperson's translation:
You put a cat in a box. Then you have poison that can be triggered by a quantum event-perhaps a half-silvered mirror that you send an electron through. The electron has a fifty-fifty chance of actually going through the mirror. If it goes through, it triggers the poison. So there's a 50% chance that the cat is dead, and a 50% chance that the cat is alive. But according to quantum theory, until the observation is made, the electron both did and didn't go through the mirror, and the cat is therefore both dead and alive. Schrödinger said that according to quantum theory, until a conscious observer opens the box and looks, the cat is both dead and alive.
Schrödinger's point was that the conscious observer interpretation was absurd.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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and Heisenberg said that when you opened the door you changed the outcome anyway, so why bother looking... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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No. I'm suggesting that the proposition that the cat is alive is by definition untestable and that its truth value is therefore indeterminate. This is in distinction to the proposition that "the cat observed is dead" is unambiguously true. I am not suggesting that S's cat says that "the cat is at once both alive and dead" is true.
I think Schroedinger's cat is a demonstration, by analogy, of the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. But although it seems to deal with the conditions of a physical fact, what it really does is propose a truth condition for a proposition, i.e., that "the cat is alive." In this, it is distinguished from the uncertainty principle which deals with actual observation of actual phenomena in terms of the definitive pairs of qualities of those phenomena: position and speed. Unlike the viability/lack of viability of the cat, however, the position and speed of an electron are not expressions of a logical argument; they are properties of a physical phenomenon. If I am right, S's cat is only meant to illustrate the uncertainty principle by means of a thought experiment that is only partially analogous to it.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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hehe. got ya' by 5 seconds...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Thanks, tsuwm.
Although your clarification does make my project a bit more difficult.
IP
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In truth, the cat is just too big to validate the analogy.
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