The question was about the observer. If you aren't there, then it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. There is no wave to collapse just by your god-like observation of it.

If the cat is in the box.. it is alive or dead.... period...whether you look or not.

Sure we are. "Reality" is our word, after all. There is nothing you and I can discuss that we are not the "final arbiters" of.

But science is ours, so scientifically, true reality is whatever we define it to be. A useful definition will require that we not be tyrants, however, I'll grant you that.

(Title)
Somebody who observes quantums, duh! ;-)

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"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

That is philosophy too.

Does the world end when I die?

Ask George Washington.

Actually, it isn't. It's just applying the definitions of the words.
That's irrelevant, we are not talking about you, we are talking about science and reality. And yes, human science would end if all humans and all traces of our writings on science die, as would whatever have been all our concepts of what reality is. If you are asking about real reality, rather than our concept of reality, then you are talking nonsense, because the only thing we can have a conversation about is our concept of reality-- and that's not philosophy, it's fact.

I think what you are actually saying is that our concept of reality is connected with our ability to imagine something that exists outside of our imagining it. This model of reality works great, passes most of the tests we give it, and will be gone with us-- unless some nonhuman intelligence is also using it (which they likely are).

I'm sorry. But I have a problem with injecting myself into reality.

**** happens whether I am there or not.

he's got it on camera....

That is certainly the standard for our model of reality, to within certain "probability" related nuances.

in the double slit experiment tho very DIFFERENT **** happens if you are not there....

ie you get an interference pattern and the photons seem to go thro both slits..

even if you measure AFTER the slits it effects what the photon does at the slit...

as for the cat (even tho i think dechonherence explains why it is one or the other)
it is not something that can just be easily swept under the carpet as obvious..

electrons never ''jump'' energy levels whilst observed.....a watched kettle really does never boil...


lol

Then the original question should be what happens to an obsrever of quantum physics.

Because the quatum world doesn't work the same way at our scale.

I will never, by chance, fall up out of bed.

or at least it very unlikely

Down Under, we fall up out of bed all the time.

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If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it... of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms...
Albert Einstein

oof... my typing was horrible up there.

Sorry.

don t worry mine is always awful i cant speel atall

Here's what wikipedia has to say about reality:

Imagination, on the other hand, is part of how we make sense of what we perceive:

This is a common misconception about quantum mechanics. But if you look at the theory, the predictions depend only on the experimental setup, and are obtained entirely in a scheme that does not require my presence in the equations-- it only needs to me to see if I was right.
That is controlled by the experimental setup, not my presence.
That statement may or may not be correct depending on how certain key words are intepreted, but taken at face value it sounds like a common misconception about "delayed choice quantum erasure". Half the articles I see on that topic make steam come out of my ears, because I know they are feeding that false impression. Nothing that an experimental setup does later can alter the correct prediction of a prior outcome. It is only our interpretation of when things happen that tends to be faulty-- our intuition about causality, not causality itself.
Certainly there is nothing obvious about it. But the role of the observer in quantum mechanics is way oversold-- the real issue is the role of the observer in all of science. Science is manifestly an intellectual organization of the interaction between an observer and his/her environment, and that is as true in Newtonian mechanics as in quantum physics. It is only the people who mistake their science for "what is really happening" that run into philosophical conundrums, and not surprisingly-- logically, the use of a false premise will tend to do that.

That statement may or may not be correct depending on how certain key words are intepreted, but taken at face value it sounds like a common misconception about "delayed choice quantum erasure". Half the articles I see on that topic make steam come out of my ears, because I know they are feeding that false impression. Nothing that an experimental setup does later can alter the correct prediction of a prior outcome. It is only our interpretation of when things happen that tends to be faulty-- our intuition about causality, not causality itself.
Quote:



could you explain a bit?

as i understand it if you know the path the pattern goes....

if you measure after the slits ie know the path the pattern goes...seeming to suggest that the photon took one slit or the other....tho it does hit the detector after...

i get very confused with all those mirrors...

please dont misunderstand me i am not into this whole observer thing and completly agree that it depends on the experimental set up...

tho why the 2 different results exist?

i must also admit to not being smart enough to have a problem with the role of observers in science...i'll leaver that to philosophers....nmp

http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0008036


???!??

Correct.
It's all about interference. Basically, the things that happen receive contribution from all the ways they can happen, and the different ways don't add normally, they don't simply accumulate they interfere. Your knowledge of the situation can allow you to rule out certain contributions, thereby destroying the interference. The interaction is physical, so occurs even if you don't use the information, that's where the setup comes in. But there's no need for any backward causality in time, and efforts to include it usually are more ungainly than the classical notions they attempt to resuscitate.