

Epistemology of Wave Function Collapse in Quantum Physics [pdf] - user_235711
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1307.0827v1.pdf

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trurl42
A note: This is not about standard quantum theory, but about GRW theories.

Basically it's an ad-hoc modification of quantum theory, in which you
postulate that the wave function collapses at random with some probability.

As long as you say the probability is low enough, the theory is not really
experimentally verifiable. (Currently there is no experimental evidence for
GRW type theories.)

~~~
pekk
There is no experimental evidence that the collapse is caused by magical
consciousness, either, but that doesn't stop people from perpetually claiming
exactly that.

~~~
ajcarpy2005
There are hypotheses that say that the collapse of a quantum wave is involved
in producing some sort of intelligence and in some cases consciousness. But
I'm not aware of any that say that intelligence is involved in producing or
guiding the collapse. See Orch-OR theory by Penrose and Hameroff.

~~~
maaku
There are also much more sane theories that involve no collapse at all (many-
worlds).

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Steuard
For arXiv.org links, please link to the abstract page rather than directly to
the PDF: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.0827](http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.0827)

Also, it's often good practice not to link to a specific version (the "v1" in
the original link here), since papers are often updated with corrections or
additional references. (That's _sometimes_ desired, of course, but it's not
the usual case.)

~~~
user_235711
Thanks for the tips. I will definitely use them next time I post an arXiv
link.

