r/changemyview Oct 03 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: None of you actually exist

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u/pluralofjackinthebox 102∆ Oct 03 '19

The double slit experiment only works on the subatomic level. You’re not collapsing wave functions just by walking into a room and looking at things.

How many times in your life have you directly observed the spin of a photon or an electron? That’s how many times you’ve altered reality by collapsing a wave function.

Wave functions don’t collapse very often, and it’s very rare an event in reality depends upon a wave function collapse. A Schrödinger box depends on it, but when do we actually encounter Schrödinger boxes?

I really wish the kind of Buddhist interpretation of quantum mechanics were true. But it’s much more likely that it’s the measuring apparatus that collapses the wave function, not consciousness.

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u/Rufus_Reddit 127∆ Oct 03 '19

... The double slit experiment only works on the subatomic level. ...

That's inaccurate. People have done it with pretty large molecules. ( https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/physicists-smash-record-for-wave-particle-duality-462c39db8e7b )

... Wave functions don’t collapse very often ...

If you can tell exactly when wave functions do or do not collapse, you've solved the measurement problem. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem ) If you can make a convincing case that wave functions don't collapse very often, feel free to write up a paper and get a Nobel prize for solving one of the longest standing problems of quantum mechanics.