RE: Quantum theory of measurement

From: Ben Goertzel <ben.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 14:34:03 -0400

Hal,

> > What will the outcome be in these experiments?
>
> It won't make any difference, because the CC is not used in the way you
> imagine. It doesn't have to produce a record and it doesn't have to erase
> any records.

OK, mea culpa, maybe I misunderstood the apparatus and it was not the CC
that records
things, but still the records
could be kept somewhere, and one can ask what would happen if the records
were
kept somewhere else (e.g. in a macroscopic medium). No?

> The point is, there is no change to the s photon when we put the polarizer
> over by p. Its results do not visibly change from non-interference
> to interference, as the web page might imply. (If that did happen,
> we'd have the basis for a faster than light communicator.) No, all
> that is happening is that we are choosing to throw out half the data,
> and the half we keep does show interference.

Yes but we are choosing which half to throw out in a very peculiar way --
i.e. we are throwing it out by "un-happening" it after it happened,
by destroying some records that were only gathered after the events
recorded in the data already happened...

Ben
Received on Wed Oct 12 2005 - 14:47:30 PDT