Woman in a box - a thought experiment.

Well I am not saying that it is the case, but I could imagine a scenario where under anesthesia information is not integrated into a single experience that we recognize as waking conscious experience, but there could be conscious experience either within sub complexes or even down to cells themselves that remain since the person is still alive. If conscious experience is collapse of the wave function, and cells can do this, then perhaps in the described experiment the woman's waking consciousness would not be needed to collapse, but her sub complexes or cells could do it.

This experiment deals with macro objects. Does collapse of the wave function play a major role here? I thought it didn't, which is why classical physics gives us a pretty good description.
 
This experiment deals with macro objects. Does collapse of the wave function play a major role here? I thought it didn't, which is why classical physics gives us a pretty good description.

How could collapse not play a role?
 
Yes, I was going off your OP. Breaking it down to the essentials. Did I misrepresent something?

I'll take some inspiration from the bible thread to show how it matched up:
  • F sets the timer of a device to a number between 111 and 999 seconds
  • E attaches the device to a gas bomb and presses start. (I see upon reading it that it simply released gas rather than exploding, but I'm not sure this makes a difference).
  • If the timer reaches zero it will trigger the device will explode.
  • E will turn off the timer after 499 seconds (I see I did originally also had "if the bomb had already exploded - had meant to delete that last part)


In reading over your last paragraph, your point seems to be that the gas should go off irrespective of the conscious state of F. I'm with you there. But I thought you were getting at something more?

I'm trying to get peeps to think about the experiment... I think it's challenging... I'm only making some possible observations about it... but it leaves me with lots of questions.

The point was to split information between two systems, such that neither could know the outcome. Hiding one observer system (who has no conscious awareness) inside a box, where they may or may not die... Due to the collision between both systems.

The external world seems able to combine both systems information, such that when the box is opened, Freda is either dead, dying or alive.

The purpose is to apply my thoughts to what has happened in the sealed box, and why it has happened?

It appears that information - which we perceive as Freda's past choice ( that would be information stored in the external world) - is directly responsible as to whether she is alive or dead.

As an example of one observation I might take from the experiment,... It implies that we can extend Freda's past choice (information put into the external world), further and further away in time... there seems no reason why we cant move it into past ancestors. Indeed there seems no limit to how far away in the past we can put an effect.

If we consider the experimenter, there also seems no reason to limit how far away in time or space that information is able to affect the experiment.
 
This experiment deals with macro objects. Does collapse of the wave function play a major role here? I thought it didn't, which is why classical physics gives us a pretty good description.

Off topic: you should probably look up the experiment that was published in January regarding macro realism. It is not definitive yet, but they are trying to extrapolate the method to cover more distance.
 
How could collapse not play a role?

I didn't say no role. I asked whether it played a major role - as it does in experiments such as the double slit experiment. When dealing with macro objects we don't need to calculate the wave function for example (I know that we can, but it's not necessary as we can fully account for this using classical physics, something we can't do with the double slit experiment.)
 
I didn't say no role. I asked whether it played a major role - as it does in experiments such as the double slit experiment. When dealing with macro objects we don't need to calculate the wave function for example (I know that we can, but it's not necessary as we can fully account for this using classical physics, something we can't do with the double slit experiment.)

I'm not sure I understand. It's not as if there is a classical world that exists.
 
I'm not sure I understand. It's not as if there is a classical world that exists.

I'm not sure I understand you either. For example, in Max's thought experiment, if Freda input 243 as the number, are you suggesting that anything other than the gas being released after 243 seconds will occur? Or that if she put in 612 when they open it at 499 she would be alive and well? (assume no dysfunction in the device).
 
I'm not sure I understand you either. For example, in Max's thought experiment, if Freda input 243 as the number, are you suggesting that anything other than the gas being released after 243 seconds will occur? Or that if she put in 612 when they open it at 499 she would be alive and well? (assume no dysfunction in the device).

No, I am not saying anything else would occur. I'm just not sure on what this is supposed to mean. I mean, there is a relative objectivity, but in order for anything to "happen" there has to be a conscious experience at some point, whether by the woman's body or by an observer. I think the idea was that this shows that the world is objective, but I don't see that as being the case.
 
No, I am not saying anything else would occur. I'm just not sure on what this is supposed to mean. I mean, there is a relative objectivity, but in order for anything to "happen" there has to be a conscious experience at some point, whether by the woman's body or by an observer. I think the idea was that this shows that the world is objective, but I don't see that as being the case.

I don't understand why you need concious experience for anything to 'happen' (perhaps I just don't understand you definition of consious experience - examples would help here). I accept that concious experience by the individual is required to 'learn' something (rather than 'happen').
 
Not sure, which is why I'm asking...

It was a response to "are you saying my everyday experience of the world, is of a world that does not exist?"

The reason why I don't like quoting everything is because it clutters the "alerts" tab, so I prefer doing it when responding to multiple queries or if someone has posted something in-between.
 
Not in the objective, realistic way that we naively perceive. No.

I don't really know what that means. However, I'll try an respond. I understand Quantum Mechanics in terms of our observation of a 'process', and my individual everyday experience of the world in terms of the 'result' of the previous process.

Thus I see them as one thing. 'Process' and 'result'. Neither is less, or more valid than the other.

But since we discovered Quantum Mechanics, and this new way of thinking, what obviously ain't valid are the classical laws (classical physics) we have developed to explain how my everyday observations of the world get strung together. They work, but they are just approximations, what I like to think of as regularities we have noticed in the 'result' of the 'process'.
 
I'm not sure what that means... are you saying my everyday experience of the world, is of a world that does not exist?

No, I am saying that the world is only quantum, and that is not objective and realistic like in classical physics.
 
I don't understand why you need concious experience for anything to 'happen' (perhaps I just don't understand you definition of consious experience - examples would help here). I accept that concious experience by the individual is required to 'learn' something (rather than 'happen').

Well there is no evidence that anything "happens" without conscious experience involved. conscious experience is subjective experience of any conscious entity.
 
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