The Catholic View of 'Schrodinger's Cat' theory

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Ben_Sinner

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I was wondering what is the Catholic view of Schrodinger’s Cat theory which says that nothing happens unless someone is there to observe it.

Is this a heretical belief? Is it true? What are we to make of it?
 
That is really a misrepresentation of ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ theory.

The idea being presented by the theory is just meant to parallel our inability to measure certain aspects of subatomic particles/events without changing them.

It isn’t meant to represent a real idea that an unobserved action has not really occurred, nor is anyone involved in the actual work revolving around this field of though really concerned with such an idea.

Regardless the church does not have any teachings on Quantum Theory, and I doubt it has ever taken the goofy observational philosophy (If a tree fall in the wood and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?) to be in anyway meaningful or serious enough to address since it has more or less zero impact on the subjects of faith and morals.
 
If you search the CCC or scripture you will find no mention of Schrodinger’s Cat nor of quantum mechanics.
I am not sure what you are asking.
I don’t think you have a correct interpretation of his thought experiment, BTW.
 
Aloysium said:
If you search the CCC or scripture you will find no mention of Schrodinger’s Cat nor of quantum mechanics.
I am not sure what you are asking.
I don’t think you have a correct interpretation of his thought experiment, BTW.
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I guess I meant not an official church teaching about it.

I’m just wondering if this would contradict any church teaching.
 
I see it as being sort of beside the point of theology/religion.
Although, it does allow us to contemplate further the mysteries of creation and our Creator.

The way I see it:
We have a built-in way of perceiving and interpreting the world
which develops as we mature and through the educational process.
It tells us what to look for and how to understand what takes place in nature.
However, once we go outside of the “level” that our nervous system was built for, the principles of nature are different.
When we get to very large things we find that there is no such thing as standing still and that the speed of light is the constant from which all other motion is related.
Where things are very small, we observe the oddities described by quantum mechanics.
One really should not apply those rules to the human environment that we occupy.
If for example one thinks that everything is mainly space because of the smallness of atoms in themselves, they may have a rude awakening when their face hits the floor.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
I guess I meant not an official church teaching about it.

I’m just wondering if this would contradict any church teaching.
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The answer is no.

As stated previously, ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ (which is a thought experiment, not a theory) does not necessarily mean that the cat doesn’t die or live until the box is opened, rather, it is simply a rather creative (and amusing) way to describe quantum superposition, which is a real “thing” and is actually a problem which quantum physicists are still trying to fully understand.

I don’t think there is anything to worry concerning Catholic moral teaching here.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
I was wondering what is the Catholic view of Schrodinger’s Cat theory which says that nothing happens unless someone is there to observe it.

Is this a heretical belief? Is it true? What are we to make of it?
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First of all, let the Big Bang Theory fan explain the theory (because, you know, Sheldon Cooper is an expert in this…lol):

Schrodinger’s Cat theory says that if you put a cat in the box and leave it there, the cat can simultaneously be thought of as dead and alive until someone opens the box.

This doesn’t change the fact of the cat being alive/dead, just that we cannot confirm it without opening the box.

It’s very true when you look at life. How many missing people are there in the world? Until someone finds them, they can be thought of as alive or dead. Thinking of them as alive or dead does not change the facts of life and death, but until that person is found it cannot be confirmed.

I don’t think it’s a heretical belief, but I’ll defer that to experts in areas other than television show trivia. 😃
 
I would guess that St. Francis would let Schrodinger’s Cat out of its box and give it a good home.
 
So does the same apply to quantum uncertainty in general?

Forgive me, I’m unsure if the cat experiment and this concept are interchangeable or not. It seems like they are.
 
Well, since God is everywhere and observes everything, and since He dwells in eternity and isn’t subject to the limitations of any system except His own innate Truth, Justice, Love, etc (which are not limitations), quantum mechanics uncertainty doesn’t really apply to Him.

So quantum mechanics and things that are matters of science and discovering how Creation works are not matters of faith and morals, per se.

Now, if some scientist tries to opine on faith and morals under the delusion he’s talking about science, then we can start to worry about heresy. But that’s not doing good science, either.
 
Way I see it:
Things being what they are, at a certain point to break them down into smaller pieces, one gets absurdity - Things that aren’t really one thing or another; they are only possibly there - maybe yes, maybe no.
I don’t know; it makes sense to see it that way, to me.
A cat being something that exists as itself - well, it is actually alive and can die.
 
Mintaka said:
Well, since God is everywhere and observes everything, and since He dwells in eternity and isn’t subject to the limitations of any system except His own innate Truth, Justice, Love, etc (which are not limitations), quantum mechanics uncertainty doesn’t really apply to Him.
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From the point of view of God, quantum uncertainty seems to be more of an issue of human perspective of this phenomena than a cat being dead and alive simultaneously. Try this from SciShow:
youtube.com/watch?v=uWMTOrux0LM

Or this:

youtube.com/watch?v=IOYyCHGWJq4

Or maybe we can just all agree that science is always wrong. Really, at least to some degree. Of course, I am defining “wrong” as being not completely correct. Each generation we draw closer to fuller understanding of the universe, and in doing so, have to discard something we thought was true, and add some knew things we think are true.
 
There is no Catholic Quantum Mechanics. The problem is that the cat is Newtonian. It started out as Newton’s cat, but wandered over to Schrodinger’s lab one day, and kept finding himself inexplicably enclosed in boxes with poison gas, Geiger counters, and radioactive materials. Newtonian objects don’t manage well with Quantum objects. The cat had a hard time adjusting, and ultimately abandoned Schrodinger for a full time career on YouTube.
 
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