Title: Is Quantum Uncertainty All in the Mind? - SAND
Headings: Is Quantum Uncertainty All in the Mind?
Is Quantum Uncertainty All in the Mind?
“A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself.”
Frequently wrong
End of observers

Content: If not, what is so special about human consciousness? If our measurements truly do affect reality, that also opens the door to effects such as “spooky action at a distance” – Einstein’s dismissive phrase to describe how observing a wave function can seemingly collapse another one simultaneously on the other side of the universe. Then there is the mystery of how atoms and particles can apparently adopt split personalities, but macroscopic objects such as cats clearly can’t, despite being made up of atoms and particles. Schrödinger’s intention in introducing his cat was to highlight this inexplicable division between the quantum and classical worlds. The split is not only there, but also “shifty”, in the words of quantum theorist John Bell: physicists contrive to put ever-larger objects into fuzzy quantum states, for instance – so we have no set way of defining where the boundary lies. The Copenhagen interpretation simply ignores these quantum mysteries, famously leading Mermin to dub it the “shut up and calculate” approach in an article he wrote in 1989. He counted himself as an adherent. Although alternatives did exist – such as the many worlds interpretation, which suggests the universe divides into different paths every time anything is observed – none quite seemed to crack the central mystery. Frequently wrong
Now Mermin thinks one does.