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G01
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Fredrik said:The key point is that an interaction that doesn't produce a persistent record that a human can interpret as a specific result of the interaction wouldn't be considered a measurement.
OK. I agree with this. But I think I'm getting stuck on the use of the word consciousness. Let me give an example:Ken G said:That's an excellent way to put it Fredrik, thank you.
We build a robot that sets up a two state system in some superposition. The robot then measures the system, finding it in some eigenstate. It records the eigenstate. The wavefunction collapses when we read the data sheet the robot prints out then? Or the second, non-unitary portion of the measurement process happens when we read the data sheet?
The way I would have looked at this scenario before this conversation is as follows:
The whole measurement process happens when the robot interacts with the system. The system collapsed into a random eigenstate, though the robot is not conscious. It is in a definite eigenstate, though I can't know what one it ended up in.
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