Does Schrödinger's Cat collapse the wave function?

From what I’ve read, I gather that the cat itself is in both states simultaneously. Did you do your Wiki-research? They have a pretty good article on it.

Actually, I think @hghgbvvn asks an interesting question about the problem of observation – for us, it’s an epistemological problem, but for the cat it’s definitely not.

It’s easy to reformulate Schrödinger’s cat without the problem, though – the decay of a radioactive isotope could easily (in a conceptual sense) be set to fry an egg, or knock over a domino or cause any other event with non-conscious entities involved.

To return to the original question, which seemed to me to suggest some kind of common sense problem with the thought experiment (outside of the Copenhagen interpretation, which would poke us with a stick saying “it doesn’t matter anyway”) – it would seem to suggest some kind of rather strong idealism If we accepted both the wave-function interpretation of quantum physics and the reality of the cat’s experience.

What are you talking about?

Honestly, I think this is one of those questions that each individual has to answer for themselves. There isn’t really a “right” or “wrong” answer, because there are so many other theories circulating around this one that coming to a single conclusion would be impossible. At least for me.

Do you believe in the many-worlds theory? Do you believe in the objective collapse theory? Some theories hold that wave function doesn’t collapse at all, others hold that collapse is completely random and has nothing to do with observers…

Yeah. There is no answer. :P

Well, could it be that the wave collapse happens on an observer-by-observer basis? Can we really assume that once the wave function has been collapsed by a single incidence of observation that it’s then a done deal? I’m not sure that’s the case.

For instance, suppose the experiment is set up, as @the100thmonkey suggests, with an outcome that doesn’t involve a conscious entity, say the fried egg. Now say that a single observer comes in and peeks inside the box. He now knows the outcome, so the wave function has collapsed. But suppose he shuts the box again, and on his way to report the outcome to his colleagues, he drops dead of a heart attack. Now, what is the state of the egg?

Pick your poison.

The table is missing one important interpretation. The lack of interpretation. The motto being: “Shut up and calculate!” (attibuted to Dirac and Feynman, but actually uttered by David Mermin) Most physicists go this route. Feynman famously advised doing otherwise was to fall into an unproductive and inescapable trap.

Wow. Running for help to some of my geek friends….

@Val123 – You see, if you are running for help to some of your geek friends and not running for help to some of your geek friends at the same time your wave function hasn’t collapsed yet. You do it and not do it at the same time. It’s weird, yes. The quantum world is very weird sometimes. The cat is just the most famous example. I once got attacked by an animal rights activist in some other (unmoderated) online forum for mentioning the cat. He wanted to lock up Schrödinger. I’m not kidding. It wasn’t a pleasant discussion.

@mattbrowne What a retard! Yet…not. Perhaps the dude really did wave-collapse a real cat in another dimension. I DID come running to you!

Did you know that in some other universe I actually decided to settle in Kansas? I could stop by your house and visit a copy of @Val123. I mean there are supposed to be trillions of Vals and trillions of Matts. A few of them will meet in the real world as well. I’ll bring some cake. And find out what happened to your cat.

Their are an infinite number of Vals and Matts! (It’s a trippy kind of thing to think about. My dad introduced us to the concept when we were little….)