From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Sun Jun 08 2003 - 20:49:53 MDT
Scerir writes:
> Well, Bohr responded that until the experimental
> procedure is specified, there is a possibility of
> "an influence on the very conditions which define
> the possible types of predictions regarding the future
> behavior of the system."
This phrase by Bohr has always bothered me. Maybe it is due in part to
a translation from German.
What are "the very conditions which define the possible types of
predictions"? Isn't this phrase the same as "the experimental setup"?
That is, it is the experimental setup which defines the possible types
of predictions which can be made. It is the setup which determines
whether you are measuring position or momentum. It is the setup which
determines whether you detect which slit a particle went through in a
two slit experiment.
If so, Bohr is referring to the possibility of "an influence on [the
experimental setup" as a resolution to the EPR paradox. But what
determines the experimental setup? It is the decision by the scientist,
the experimenter, about what to measure. Bohr's words, taken literally,
imply that he is describing an influence on the decision of what to
measure. That is, our choice of what to measure is not free, but is
somehow influenced by the non-local correlations.
This seems pretty implausible to me, and I also don't see how it would
resolve the EPR paradox. But it's typical of the often-impenetrable
language from Bohr.
Hal
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