The Decoherence Of Measurement :: essays research papers

<a href="http//www.geocities.com/vaksam/">Sam Vaknins Psychology, Philosophy, Economics and Foreign personal business Web SitesArguably the most onerous philosophical question inclined to Quantum Mechanics (QM) is that of Measurement. The accepted (a.k.a. Copenhagen) Interpretation of QM says that our very act of conscious, intelligent, observable measuring patch ups the outcome of the measuring in the quantum (microcosmic) realm. The cast function (which describes the co-existing, superpositioned, states of the system) collapses following a measuring stick. It seems that just by knowing the results of a measurement we determine its outcome, determine the state of the system and, by implication, the state of the Universe as a whole. This notion is so counter-intuitive that it fostered a raging debate which has been on breathing out for more(prenominal) than 7 decades now. But, could we have turned the question (and, inevitably, the answer) on its headway? Is i t the measurement that brings about the collapse or, maybe, we are capable of measuring unless collapsed results? Maybe our very ability to measure, to design measurement methods and instrumentation, to conceptualize measurement and so on are thus limited as to turn out only the collapse solutions of the wave function? Superpositions are notoriously unstable. still in the quantum realm they should last but an infinitely split meaning of time. Our measurement apparatus is not as refined as to convey a superposition long enough to justify the title of measurement or observation. By contrast, collapses are sufficiently stable to last, to be observed and measured. This is why we measure collapses. But in which sense (excluding senior status which, anyhow, is a dubious matter in the quantum world) are collapse events measurable, what makes them so? Collapse events are not the most highly probable or so of them are associated with low probabilities and still they occur and are m easured. Ex definitio, the more probable states will tend to be measured more (the wave function will collapse more often into high prospect states). But this does not exclude the less probable states of the quantum system from materializing upon measurement. The former(a) possibility is that the collapse events are carefully selected for some purpose, within a certain pattern and in a certain sequence. What could that purpose be? Probably, the extension and enhancement of order in the Universe. That this is so can be easily substantiated it is so. Order increases all the time. This is doubly true if we adopt the anthropocentric view of the Copenhagen Interpretation (conscious, intelligent observers determine the outcomes of measurements in the quantum realm).