> You are once against picking a specific time as to when exactly collapse happens.
Well Many Worlds assumes multiple universes that's kinda big assumption too. But I agree it's the most elegant interpretation.
> All of these points in time are arbitrary.
If we exclude Many Worlds then collapse happens. We have to conclude it can happen for microscopic objects at least.
What I cannot understand is how people then jump to assume it's consciousness that is the important distinction. What's the reasoning here? We can't even define it, we don't know if we have it, we don't know if it's important, why put it it physics?
> There is nothing retroactive about any of this. Before collapse, it exists in a state of it not happening and happening at the same time. That's not retroactive.
Ok, if you don't go back and recreate everything that happened when I observe it then you have to remember all the possible paths and chooses one of them when I look at it.
If I had to code the universe I wouldn't write it in such a way that it needs to remember everything that could happen but was never observed by a player :) Seems like a huge waste of resources if I could just as well cull the statetree early.
We even have an interaction that AFAIK cannot be isolated (gravity) - how's that working with the cat in a box? When it falls dead it curves spacetime outside of the box differently after all.
> AFAIK cannot be isolated (gravity) - how's that working with the cat in a box?
If you want to argue that the gravitation effect of something, causes the act to be "observed" by the person, that's fine. But that's still an observation.
That is still the person "observing" the effect, because they are now effected by it. And you have no way of knowing when exactly the wave function collapsed.
It could have collapsed at any time.
So back to your original example, it would not be the camera recording it that collapses it, it would be the gravity waves being "observed", or whatever.
Well Many Worlds assumes multiple universes that's kinda big assumption too. But I agree it's the most elegant interpretation.
> All of these points in time are arbitrary.
If we exclude Many Worlds then collapse happens. We have to conclude it can happen for microscopic objects at least.
What I cannot understand is how people then jump to assume it's consciousness that is the important distinction. What's the reasoning here? We can't even define it, we don't know if we have it, we don't know if it's important, why put it it physics?
> There is nothing retroactive about any of this. Before collapse, it exists in a state of it not happening and happening at the same time. That's not retroactive.
Ok, if you don't go back and recreate everything that happened when I observe it then you have to remember all the possible paths and chooses one of them when I look at it.
If I had to code the universe I wouldn't write it in such a way that it needs to remember everything that could happen but was never observed by a player :) Seems like a huge waste of resources if I could just as well cull the statetree early.
We even have an interaction that AFAIK cannot be isolated (gravity) - how's that working with the cat in a box? When it falls dead it curves spacetime outside of the box differently after all.