X OR (NOT X)

but NEVER

X AND (NOT X) 

But what of Schrodenger's Cat? The whole point of the thought experiment is that the cat is neither alive nor dead until the observation is made. WHy is this not the same as X AND (NOT X)? 

logic ›

Cogito ergo confusus You think atheists get a bum rap? Try being a heretical theist for awhile. I get smacked down by atheists AND Christians. Maybe I'm a cognitive masochist.
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But what of Schrodenger's Cat? The whole point of the thought experiment is that the cat is neither alive nor dead until the observation is made. WHy is this not the same as X AND (NOT X)?

But it's not. You see it's impossible to isolate a sytem from information, ANY form of data exchange will collapse the wavefunction.  

Sigs are for losers

...oh wait

But it's not. You see it's impossible to isolate a sytem from information, ANY form of data exchange will collapse the wavefunction.

But then what description can be assigned to a wave function that is not collapsed? The cat is not alive or dead, and we can certainly talk about the cat without observing it.

Cogito ergo confusus You think atheists get a bum rap? Try being a heretical theist for awhile. I get smacked down by atheists AND Christians. Maybe I'm a cognitive masochist.
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   I am confussed , again .... Law of non-contradiciton and Schroedenger's Cat

my cats were cool ....

Both X and not X is contradictory. 

Either X or not X is not contradictory.

You already appreciate the reason one is contradictory and the other is not, but I'm not sure this applies to Schroedenger's Cat as the thought experiment was meant to show the strangeness of quantum mechanics.  Subatomic particles are supposed to be able to exist in a superposition of states, a definite state is only settled upon once the particle is observed.  Clearly, that's not possible for cats and the cat is just used to make the point that quantum mechanics is very strange indeed.  I believe further to Schroedenger's Cat the double-slit experiments should be of interest as their implications are just as mind boggling and, I think, prove the point much more elegantly.

Specifically when the double-slit experiment is done with just one particle fired at two open slits, the interference pattern that is observed when more than one are fired is observed.  To preserve our understanding of the universe, the particle must have wave properties, for one thing cannot be in two places at once as would be suggested by the interference pattern (necessarily if one particle is fired at two slits and an interference pattern the same as when many are fired emerges, that particle must have passed through both slits to interfere with itself).  Further, it is unpredictable at what point on the detection screen the particle will be detected or in what order (when a number or particles are fired at once) the particles will hit the detection screen, which is as yet largely unexplainable.

I have only a basic understanding of physics, but I understand the implications of the thought experiment and the double-slit experiment and just how well they highlight the strangeness of quantum mechanics.  It is perhaps not comprehensible that something may be in two states simultaneously, but it seems that at the quantum level it is so.  As for the cat, of course it must be one or the other and as it is a cat even unobserved it cannot be both, it was just used to show how strange and counterintuitive quantum mechanics are.  I believe that Schroedenger understood and meant that.

Many more wondrous things in this universe exist than can be explained by religion or can be the responsibility of god(s). As with spaghetti monsters and flying teapots, ghosts and miracles, reason, intellect and science do away with irrational notions.

OK. Discard the cat (I looked. It's dead). This still doesn't resolve the fact that the Law od Non-Contradiction appears to not hold in quantum mechanics. Now some really smart people have been dealing with quantum mechanics for quite some time so I sure that they have already addressed this issue. I was hoping somebody here would know the answer. It seems obvious. A wave is not a particle. So until the wave function collapses, then a quantum level entity is bothe a wave and not a wave.

Cogito ergo confusus You think atheists get a bum rap? Try being a heretical theist for awhile. I get smacked down by atheists AND Christians. Maybe I'm a cognitive masochist.
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Well I found this:

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:Vj4jrp7Is-4J:philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001923/02/fqinafl.ps+schrodinger%27s+cat+law+of+non-contradiction&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us

and this:

http://arxiv.org/ftp/cs/papers/0411/0411094.pdf 

But it is way over my head. Anybody have anything more accesible?

Cogito ergo confusus You think atheists get a bum rap? Try being a heretical theist for awhile. I get smacked down by atheists AND Christians. Maybe I'm a cognitive masochist.
My hobby Graphite art