I know this is old hat but I really still do not get the "observer" aspect of the double slit experiment
The act of "observing", it is always said, collapses the wave function. The implications of this can be pretty extreme. I prefer that there's a more boring explanation.
So I have some dumb questions
1. What is defined as an "observer"?
2. What happens if detectors are used but the results are discarded or never revealed to an "observer"?
3.. Basically my question is is it REALLY the act of "observing" that is causing this collapse, which seems metaphysical, or is it something much more mundane like the interaction between a detector and the particle causes the collapse, not because it's been observed, simply because of the interaction/detection/collision/whatever
Basically I'm pretty confident the universe doesn't give a crap about "observers" and there's a much more boring explanation, but smarter people than me have struggled to prove this apparently. Or I just don't know.
The evidence against me is the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser. I've been reading about it, and what I keep reading is things like results changing depending on when an "observer" has "information" presented to them. The implication is the actual act of a human learning or viewing the information is what causes the change, and I hate this, it's clearly wrong. Yet the studies I see never clarify the actual physical acts behind what an observation is, what information is, how it works. Like if a computer records the information, but deletes the data, is that a different result than if it saves the data and shows a human?
The act of "observing", it is always said, collapses the wave function. The implications of this can be pretty extreme. I prefer that there's a more boring explanation.
So I have some dumb questions
1. What is defined as an "observer"?
2. What happens if detectors are used but the results are discarded or never revealed to an "observer"?
3.. Basically my question is is it REALLY the act of "observing" that is causing this collapse, which seems metaphysical, or is it something much more mundane like the interaction between a detector and the particle causes the collapse, not because it's been observed, simply because of the interaction/detection/collision/whatever
Basically I'm pretty confident the universe doesn't give a crap about "observers" and there's a much more boring explanation, but smarter people than me have struggled to prove this apparently. Or I just don't know.
The evidence against me is the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser. I've been reading about it, and what I keep reading is things like results changing depending on when an "observer" has "information" presented to them. The implication is the actual act of a human learning or viewing the information is what causes the change, and I hate this, it's clearly wrong. Yet the studies I see never clarify the actual physical acts behind what an observation is, what information is, how it works. Like if a computer records the information, but deletes the data, is that a different result than if it saves the data and shows a human?
