Does Schrodinger's cat know whether it's dead?

[Hurkyl]

Does anyone still think that Schrodinger's cat can be in a state of superposition rather than decoherence?

Decoherence doesn't destroy the superposition -- it just, FAPP, makes it a mixed state.

 

[ZapperZ]

Which was why I was arguing the opposite - using a language in which the embedded prejudices conform with nature. But I see you have no interest in the topic.

I have no interest in the topic because the "effort" has to come from both directions. So far, we seem to want play name games, i.e. let's not call Pluto a planet, as if Pluto really cares. We can call it anything you want, but it still will not change the fact that most people barely understand what the physics is but would not hesitate to "philosophize" on them.

Zz.

 

[apeiron]

Decoherence doesn't destroy the superposition -- it just, FAPP, makes it a mixed state.

I don't agree with "mixed state". In post #41 (https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2795251&postcount=41) I argued that it pushes the superposition issue to the margins.

Mixed state has the implication that a macro-object like a warm cat can be actually in a mixture of states. But experiments confirm that mixed states only exist in quasi-object fashion in marginal situations. The QM formalisms may not contain that clear distinction within them (in their current state of development). But FAPP, Schrodinger's cat can be expected to be a decohered object rather than a quasi-object.

 

[robheus]

I've read several descriptions of the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment, but I've never heard anyone discuss whether the cat qualifies as an observer that can collapse the superposition of states. This seems like too simple a question not to have been raised before, but I've never head anyone raise it.

If it is, how is the thought experiment valid? If the cat being aware of its own death or continued life can collapse the superposition, then the cat is either alive or dead and not in a superposition of states.

If it is not, that raises the question of what qualifies as an observer that can collapse the superposition. Do you have to be human to be able to observe a superposition of states such that the superposition will collapse? That seems like an absurdity.

The whole idea of this QM interpretation that you need a conscious observer to collapse the wave function is already absurd, and feeds the philosophical position of Idealism.

And of course a dead cat doesn't know it's dead.