Eugene Wigner made this contribution to the thought problem of Schrödinger's Cat.

What if we put a person into the box instead of cat? And instead of killing whatever is inside the box, we put a light bulb that goes off when the radioactive decay is recorded. Or if you really want to keep the cat, you can. Just put Wigner's buddy in there to watch either the bulb or the cat.

You can ask him what a superposition state is like. Wigner's point being, I think, because this thought problem, as always, is frankly starting to make my head hurt, that the collapse of the superposition depends on consciousness, because our experience of consciousness precludes existing in a superposed state or multiple alternative states.

The implications for those trying to connect New Age thinking and quantum physics is that the mechanics of the universe are disrupted by conscious beings.

There is no documented evidence to prove that Wigner developed this idea when he got Edward Teller drunk one night and locked him in a large box.

Hopefully this might be slightly clearer. If you already know about Schrodinger's Cat then good, if not then go read about it now.

Great so you now know that the state of the cat is uncertain until "observed", i.e. until the box is opened. Eugine Wigner suggested that you place the box in a locked room with a person in the room.

You let the person in the room observe the cat, but you have no way of knowing what that observation is, so until the door is opened the person in the room has observed a dead cat and observed an alive cat (i.e. he is in a superposition of states) until the door is opened.

This is obviously ridiculous and the paradox was proposed to point out the fact that the act of observation is not clearly defined.

You can constuct a hierarchy of rooms and observers until the entire universe is in such a superposition, again what does it mean to observe ? I'm fucked if I know

To the present day the fourth postulate of quantum mechanics, the collapse of the wavefunction postulate, remains problematic in science. oh well.


tdent says "I don't necessarily agree that the person being in a superposition is 'obviously ridiculous'... although it is certainly problematic." I agree with tdent on this. It is the interesting question.

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