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capri0mniSo, all right. Maybe not. I mean, I'm no physicist, Jim! I'm just an English Major!
But this idea popped into my head, the other day. And I think it's a pretty idea. And it makes me smile, the way it sits there, all cute-like in the corner of my brain. So I'll keep it. Even if it is utter nonsense.
Okay. So as I understand it, subatomic ... bits, such as electrons, and quarks, and nutrinos, and the like, prefer to exist as waves of probability, rather than definite particles, until the moment they're observed.
Right?
And until the moment they're observed, they can do all sorts of strange, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey ...stuff, like exist in two places at once, and communicate instantaneously with a partner thousands of light years away, and have effects happen before their causes, and stuff...
Right?
So the question is (if I understand correctly): "If subatomic particles can do all this, and everything we can see is made of subatomic particles, then how come nothing we can see is that weird?"
Right?
Well, it seems to me that the question is: What counts as "Observation"?
Does observation have to come in the form of some smarty-pants human physicist with a science lab and a notebook?
Or can one definition of "observe" allow atoms to join in this little game, too?
Say, for example, you've got a couple of hydrogen atoms, whizzing around "alone" the vast empty vacuum of space, and their electrons are being all fuzzy, and wavy, and probable (like bachelors afraid of commitment).
And then, they bump into an oxygen atom.
If the oxygen atom is allowed (in our little mind game of "definitions") to "observe" the hydrogen electrons (perhaps by the energy from a flash of lightning), then those electrons will stop being fuzzy and wavy and probable, and become solid and fixed in place in a [ta-da!] water molecule.
So the reason that everything big behaves like solid, predictable, things, is: By their very nature, they are observing themselves (if we broaden the definition of "observe" so that you don't have to be a human smarty-pants to do it).
Like I said, I may not be right. But this idea pleases me in its cute, little, simplicity.
But this idea popped into my head, the other day. And I think it's a pretty idea. And it makes me smile, the way it sits there, all cute-like in the corner of my brain. So I'll keep it. Even if it is utter nonsense.
Okay. So as I understand it, subatomic ... bits, such as electrons, and quarks, and nutrinos, and the like, prefer to exist as waves of probability, rather than definite particles, until the moment they're observed.
Right?
And until the moment they're observed, they can do all sorts of strange, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey ...stuff, like exist in two places at once, and communicate instantaneously with a partner thousands of light years away, and have effects happen before their causes, and stuff...
Right?
So the question is (if I understand correctly): "If subatomic particles can do all this, and everything we can see is made of subatomic particles, then how come nothing we can see is that weird?"
Right?
Well, it seems to me that the question is: What counts as "Observation"?
Does observation have to come in the form of some smarty-pants human physicist with a science lab and a notebook?
Or can one definition of "observe" allow atoms to join in this little game, too?
Say, for example, you've got a couple of hydrogen atoms, whizzing around "alone" the vast empty vacuum of space, and their electrons are being all fuzzy, and wavy, and probable (like bachelors afraid of commitment).
And then, they bump into an oxygen atom.
If the oxygen atom is allowed (in our little mind game of "definitions") to "observe" the hydrogen electrons (perhaps by the energy from a flash of lightning), then those electrons will stop being fuzzy and wavy and probable, and become solid and fixed in place in a [ta-da!] water molecule.
So the reason that everything big behaves like solid, predictable, things, is: By their very nature, they are observing themselves (if we broaden the definition of "observe" so that you don't have to be a human smarty-pants to do it).
Like I said, I may not be right. But this idea pleases me in its cute, little, simplicity.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-21 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-21 03:55 am (UTC)It's just that from what I've seen of the science (as it's been presented to the lay public, that is), all the focus and debate, and tears and giggles, seems to be about coming up with definitions of the things being observed, instead of what makes the moment of observation so powerful.
It's one of my pet peeves about our human-centric worldview: the assumption that humans are the only ones with the ability to observe, and everything else is inanimate. That's what inspired me to create this icon (A tree will fall in the forest, and the forest will hear) -- cause really, if a tree falls in the forest, then all the birds will hear it, and the squirrels, and ants, and the deer, and the raccoons, and frogs, and... If no one is there to hear it, then the tree is not in a forest! Ignoramuses!