I think there’s a big difference between “you don’t know the answer until you look” and “the answer is not defined until you look.” Who’s misusing the paradox now?
Do you really think the answer is actually undefined until you look in the box? Tell that to the cat.
You can’t tell it to the cat. That’s kind of the point.
Tris
All you have to do is look at from the cat’s point of view. Let’s say we put you in a box under the same conditions. Would you say that your existence is undefined until someone else looks in the box?
As far as my understanding goes of the thought experiment, yes :
“The concept of superposition, one of the strangest in quantum mechanics, helped provoke Schrödinger’s conjecture. Broadly stated, the superposition is the combination of all the possible positions of a subatomic particle. The Copenhagen interpretation implies that the superposition only undergoes collapse into a definite state at the exact moment of quantum measurement.”
If my reading of this is correct and can be confirmed by one of our physicist Dopers, will you admit that your previous statement was wrong?
ETA: In your response to Tris, I think you’re allowing yourself to be confused by what Schroedinger only intended to be a thought experiment expanding the implications of quantum physics into the macro world. IOW, forget about the kitty, m’kay, and honestly address the underlying point?
Czarcasm has it right.
Translation of the “Cat Paradox Paper” by Erwin Schrödinger as translated by John D. Trimmer.Schrödinger was illustrating the absurdity of expanding quantum uncertainty to macrosystems by using an example that was “ridiculous” on its face. Ironically, it’s been used ever since to argue the opposite of what he was trying to say.
So it’s absurd and ridiculous to take our understanding of logic in the macro world and try to apply it to somewhere it patently doesn’t apply. Gotcha. Doesn’t that support Tris’s argument that it’s silly to try to apply our understanding of logic to something or someplace where (if it does exist) our logic would likewise be inapplicable–something that’s by definition infinite in nature?
According to the Koran,which is believed by over a billion Muslims, there is one man who went to heaven and back and his name is Muhammad who flew from Jerusalem on the back of a buraq and visited all seven heavens before returning back to Mecca.
chowder, are you suggesting all Muslims are nutjobs ?
I’m just sharing what Schrodinger said about his cat. As for saying what God didn’t say about his heaven, see post #7.
I’m with you there. In a lot of cases I think it comes down to sincere but misguided conflation of human writings and authority with the unknowable and infinite.
Since you are citing him as a source of information about the nature of Heaven, I think a more important question is: Do you think Muhammad’s answers about heaven are correct?
then maybe the answer is a very simple “I Don’t Know.”
yes there is free will in Heaven. see there’s a difference with people living on earth; people tend to do their “own will” which is not always in synch with God’s will… such as murder, stealing, rape, destroying another person’s reputation, and so on. In heaven, people are without sin… they are pure… the souls in heaven love God and only want to do his will…so as a result, there is no suffering there.
God loves everyone so much that he gave us a free will; he is not an oppressive God where he would force us to follow his will because God is love, (make no mistake about it: his will is for us to love one another and to follow his commandments). If we followed his commandments, there would be no suffering on this earth; at least the suffering would be marginalized to an extremely low level… But mankind, having a free will, sometimes screws up and sins.
Anyway, from personal experience, I find that I’m more at peace when I am following God’s will… which explains why I’m almost always in turmoil. 
If there is free will in heaven why was Lucifer and the other angles thrown out?
As I see it if a person has free will there should not be a punshiment, as an example: A child wants to go to the movies or somewhere and the parent says," You can go if you wish but I do not want you to go so if you do I will kill you". To me that is not free will but doing the parents will or else!!
Monavis
Because Lucifer was acting on his free will and going against God’s will… Lucifer wanted to be God. That was his sin… There is only one God.
Here is how the story goes… God told the angels that at some point in the future, he was going to have his son become man and that all the angels were to adore his son… Lucifer refused to adore Christ whom he considered to be a mere human. The whole notion of an angel having to adore a mere mortal human made him ill. So he rebelled against God. It was the sin of pride that brought down Lucifer… pride and stupidity.
Lucifer and his rebel angels were sent straight to hell… a place were the absense of God renders no hope. So that’s how it went down, apparently…
In Judeo-Christian theology, do angels have free will in the same sense that humans are supposed to? Somehow I got the impression that there was a difference, but I can’t remember where. Something to do with how humans have both spirit and animal nature, making them uniquely able to choose to obey or disobey vs. angels purely spiritual nature.
I see it more like “as long as you live under my roof, you’ll abide by my rules.” The kid is free to choose, but not free to avoid the consequences of his choice.
An imaginary cat in an imaginary box has, at the very most, an imaginary point of view.
You examine the import of Shrodinger’s cat and, while simultaneously maintaining “If the true nature of Heaven is that it is not limited by logic, then perhaps any answer given is . . . useless.”
Perhaps the criteria used in categories that you find agreeable are different.
Tris
“Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.” ~ Erwin Schrodinger ~
No, it’s just a simple matter of being able to tell imagination from reality, knowing that “I don’t know” does not equal “Anything is possible”, and realizing that sometimes you just have to be willing to tell people that you think they are wrong(while being open to future evidence that you may be wrong). I’m just not of the opinion that telling everyone that they might have the answers to unknowable(as yet) questions is a wise move. IMHO.
Do you want a good example of what can happen if you are open to all points of view about a subject? Go down to a “Psychic Fair” and see all the people that worked harmoniously to put it together. Then check it out closely to see how many of their methods and ideas conflict with each other. Because there is a “You don’t comment on my ideas, and I won’t comment on yours” approach, they will not critique each other and thus nothing of substance can be learned from each other(providing there was anything of substance there in the first place, of course.)
The same goes for threads like this one. It might be “nice” to put out the belief that all ideas are equally valid, in hopes that everybody gets to feel good afterwards, but what can really be gained by such an approach? You come in with an idea, someone says “How interesting!”, and you go out with an idea.
To boil it down, if everyone comes up with a different answer to a specific question, it is more likely that one(or even none) have the correct answer than that all(or even most) have the correct answer.