Schrodinger’s Cat

[Timmay]

Doesn’t Schrödinger’s cat deny objective reality?

Or at the very least denies God, since the act of observation or non observation determines the reality, thus denying there is always an observer (God)?


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[Charles Johnson]

No. God does not come into his knowledge by literal observation, but by divine foreknowledge of his decrees. When the scripture says that God sees it speaks in human terms for our comprehension. God, a Spirit, has neither body nor eyes.

 

[Timmay]

No. God does not come into his knowledge by literal observation, but by divine foreknowledge of his decrees. When the scripture says that God sees it speaks in human terms for our comprehension. God, a Spirit, has neither body nor eyes.

But doesn’t the thought experiment deny the existence of God? If something only becomes actual reality because it is observed seems to deny the act of God decreeing reality.


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[Afterthought]

There are various interpretations of quantum mechanics. At the end of the day, we have a mathematical tool that we are using to describe reality. How much reality we should attribute to the tool is something to which we will probably never know the real answer.

Taking the most realistic interpretation, it is not that something becomes actual reality by observation, but the observation instantaneously influences the state, turning it into a definite state. Observation is like a polarization filter that makes an indefinite state definite. We do not know which state will be chosen; we only know with some probability what state will be chosen.

In the most realistic interpretation, consider particles that do not have definite momentum before measurement. It is not that the particles have some momentum that we do not know, but rather, we cannot define momentum for them. How do we define momentum for something that is spread out like a wave? This is our limitation. The observation filters the particle's state into one of definite momentum.

Even if observation made the reality, as Charles said, God knows the future because he knows what he decreed. So whatever is going on in the black box of superposition and whatever happens after observation, it was decreed and providentially governed by God to bring to pass what was decreed.


Also, "observation" is tricky: what counts as an observation? It is something that counts as a measurement, but do other physical objects collapse wavefunctions? God does not know things by means of human observation or things that count as classical measurment devices, so the existence of superpositions does not prove God's non-existence.

 

[ZackF]

This is like the whole if there is no one in the forest and a tree falls, is there a sound thing.

 

[Tom Hart]

I read that the purpose of Schrödinger's illustration was to point out the absurdity of holding two contrasting propositions at once. The cat is either alive or dead, not both, regardless of observation.