Mark Sheeky Artworks

Probabilistic And Discrete Knowledge

The "Schroedinger's Cat" thought experiment is an example of the expansion of quantum scale effects into a real world scale. The scenario postulates that a cat is placed in a box containing a poison that will kill the cat when a single radioactive atom decays. The exact time of the radioactive decay of an atom cannot be predicted, but the probability of the decay in a certain time can be.

Crucially, it is the act of observing whether the atom has decayed that creates its state, decayed or not decayed. Before this is observed, the atom is in a state of flux, it is both decayed and not decayed at the same time. In other terms, the truth value of the decay of the atom is a wave before it is observed, and observing it 'collapses' the wave, jumping it into an absolute yes or no. When it is a wave, it is both at once. This has a direct analogue with atomic level events which can often be a wave (a flowing mix of states) or a particle (absolute states).

The cat experiment expands this curious atomic-level event to a real-world scale. Before the box is peered into, the cat is also in a state of flux, it is both alive and dead at once. Only when looked at is the cat definitely alive or dead. This is where science meets philosophy. Presumably the cat knows whether it is alive or dead! Does this count as observation? Well, for the cat yes, for us no.

Imagine if I asked a friend to peer into the box. The friend lifts the lid and peers inside, then lowers the lid and says nothing. Is the knowledge of the cat's state of living collapsed into 'dead' or 'alive' or is the knowledge in a state of flux? For us, the state of flux continues. For the friend (and the cat!) the state is clear. For us, the chances of life or death are still fifty fifty. For the friend there is a 100% chance of the cat being alive or dead. Now, what if the friend forgot what he or she saw, or the friend died!? Would the living or dead state of the cat switch back into a wave-like form? It always was, for us. It would also be for the now amnesiac (or dead) friend. To look again, there would be no possible way to detect whether the cat was alive or dead last time. Crucially, the wave-like state of knowledge would be fully restored, to an extent that a dead cat might be resurrected to life. This is a direct consequence of knowledge that is examined in this way.

So we can at least definitively say that knowledge is relative. When we close our eyes, light ceases to exist, for us.

All knowledge can be a wave-like (mix of probabilities) state or an absolute (quantised) state. Whether truth is absolutely yes, no, or a simultaneous mix of both depends on how you observe it. This is present in the real world all of the time. I don't know the weather outside now but there's a certain chance of it raining now, and another chance of it being dry. It's not definitely either until I look. When we look, the truth is definitively asserted, but there are some routes back to the wave-like state of knowledge.

Mind States

Imagine being in the Schroedinger box with the cat. To us, the knowledge is clear. To the world outside it remains in uncertain flux.

However clear or unclear our mental states are, these can only be observed by us. Like the version of us in the box, the world sees our mind in a wave-like state, not a definite anything. Our thoughts, no matter how clear they are to us are identical to nothing, or anything, until we act on the world. Of course, the world can affect our thoughts, we can see things, take in sense data.