I'm gonna be a bit obnoxious here and ask people to please consider before sharing Schrödinger memes, and for two reasons:
-
-
@xgranade Can we do like a Geordi meme "Schrödinger's rapist" vs "Schrödinger was a rapist" to get the point across, or is that just in too bad taste?
@dalias I'm definitely not the arbiter on that, but I would laugh, to be sure.
More seriously, though, I've seen "Schrödinger's rapist" jokes that work in context of the power dynamics by putting the Schrödinger in the joke in the role of the rapist. It's not an easy kind of joke to tell in a positive punch-up kind of way, but I do think it's possible?
-
@alter_kaker @Leendaal I mean, sure, but as with most humor, unpacking and problematizing the power dynamics that make a joke work is a useful exercise in inclusive thinking. That's why I said "consider" and not "abstain."
If you can punch up with a Schrödinger joke, knowing the power dynamics at play, then by all means. I'd nominate "Schrödinger's asshole" jokes as one potential category where you can do that analysis and come out with a joke that avoids hero worshiping and disinformation.
@xgranade the joke I'm thinking about kind of ignores Schrödinger entirely and treats the story as a pop culture phenomenon rather than a thought experiment in physics. In case you're curious:
https://www.tumblr.com/discworldtour/152679700373/greebo-had-spent-an-irritating-two-minutes-in-thatI suppose that in a way this joke highlights the absurdity you're talking about.
By the way, I haven't touched quantum physics at all since high school, and the only thing I did was solve Heisenberg's equation for a few things including an elephant. So basically I'm 100% out of my depth in this conversation, which is why the only thing I'm doing is bringing up a joke from a satirical fantasy novel. I appreciate your thread, I wish I was able to understand more...
@Leendaal -
You're not going to understand quantum mechanics without a little bit of work, sure, but that's not unique to quantum mechanics at all! That's kind of how learning works!
The learning required to understand quantum mechanics is not terribly out of line with other fields, but memes like Schrödinger's Cat prime us to believe that it's not understandable at *all*. Which I reject.
@xgranade hm. I'm mostly in agreement with this thread and yet I've found the Schrödinger thought-experiment not a totally useless or obfuscatory one. It invites reflection on what it means, at the level of nitty-gritty molecular biology, to be "alive" or "dead". neither state is a simple one but rather a great range of arrangements of matter which may be considered "alive" or "dead". and there's also "dying" in between: one can imagine a configuration of an organism which may probably lead to death but not necessarily.
-
@xgranade oh no. I liked it because of the cat.
-
I'm gonna be a bit obnoxious here and ask people to please consider before sharing Schrödinger memes, and for two reasons:
• Schrödinger was a serial pedophile, and should not be glorified.
• Schrödinger's Cat was originally posed as a thought experiment to try and make quantum mechanics more confusing, as a form of ridicule. Its use in the field today is a kind of institutionalized gatekeeping.@xgranade@wandering.shop to be fair, some of the schrödinger memes do mock the concept, with the cat meowing and him responding "shut up" and all. still, he deserves much worse than just that sort of mocking
-
@xgranade hm. I'm mostly in agreement with this thread and yet I've found the Schrödinger thought-experiment not a totally useless or obfuscatory one. It invites reflection on what it means, at the level of nitty-gritty molecular biology, to be "alive" or "dead". neither state is a simple one but rather a great range of arrangements of matter which may be considered "alive" or "dead". and there's also "dying" in between: one can imagine a configuration of an organism which may probably lead to death but not necessarily.
@mxchara The original intent and modern usage of Schrödinger's Cat are both obfuscatory, but that doesn't prevent one from taking something useful away in spite of the intentions behind the thought experiment.
In the case you highlight, I think that's pretty far outside the reflections that those wielding Schrödinger's Cat intend to cause, but it's awesome that you draw that anyway?
-
@xgranade@wandering.shop to be fair, some of the schrödinger memes do mock the concept, with the cat meowing and him responding "shut up" and all. still, he deserves much worse than just that sort of mocking
@creedow I mean, yeah, there's a reason I opened my thread with "consider" and not "just don't." I agree, it's possible to construct positive punch-up jokes and memes around Schrödinger's Cat, but doing so takes a lot of historical context and analyzing power dynamics. Possible, and I've seen examples that I'd argue fit the bill, but it's difficult and not something done casually.
-
You're not going to understand quantum mechanics without a little bit of work, sure, but that's not unique to quantum mechanics at all! That's kind of how learning works!
The learning required to understand quantum mechanics is not terribly out of line with other fields, but memes like Schrödinger's Cat prime us to believe that it's not understandable at *all*. Which I reject.
@xgranade my quantum mechanics class in undergrad was entirely and exclusively deriving the 3D equation for the location of an electron in a hydrogen atom.
It was a terrible class.Now, this has mostly nothing to do with quantum mechanics being purposefully mystified for the general public. I just wanted to complain that I took a whole class on it and learned nothing except Psi and operators
-
@xgranade my quantum mechanics class in undergrad was entirely and exclusively deriving the 3D equation for the location of an electron in a hydrogen atom.
It was a terrible class.Now, this has mostly nothing to do with quantum mechanics being purposefully mystified for the general public. I just wanted to complain that I took a whole class on it and learned nothing except Psi and operators
@Artemis201 Oh, gods, there's so much I could say here. The behavior of electrons in hydrogen is *incredibly* complex, and not where I'd ever suggest people start learning new mathematical techniques and new concepts. But that's where QM classes tend to start anyway, and so QM feels more complex than it is — we teach that QM is as hard as those examples.
-
@mxchara The original intent and modern usage of Schrödinger's Cat are both obfuscatory, but that doesn't prevent one from taking something useful away in spite of the intentions behind the thought experiment.
In the case you highlight, I think that's pretty far outside the reflections that those wielding Schrödinger's Cat intend to cause, but it's awesome that you draw that anyway?
@xgranade oh definitely! the Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment is good at demonstrating the limitations of thought experiments, maybe. it's a bit like a highly artificial "trolley problem": the debatable parameters of the thought experiment are what provoke the most thought, rather than the experiment itself =p
-
@Artemis201 Oh, gods, there's so much I could say here. The behavior of electrons in hydrogen is *incredibly* complex, and not where I'd ever suggest people start learning new mathematical techniques and new concepts. But that's where QM classes tend to start anyway, and so QM feels more complex than it is — we teach that QM is as hard as those examples.
@xgranade yeah I never felt that QM was particularly difficult. I just felt that we never actually learned much QM in that class, which was mostly just annoying
-
@xgranade yeah I never felt that QM was particularly difficult. I just felt that we never actually learned much QM in that class, which was mostly just annoying
@Artemis201 I didn't understand a bit about QM until I took a quantum computing class. After that, going back to QM it made a fuck of a lot more sense.
-
I'm gonna be a bit obnoxious here and ask people to please consider before sharing Schrödinger memes, and for two reasons:
• Schrödinger was a serial pedophile, and should not be glorified.
• Schrödinger's Cat was originally posed as a thought experiment to try and make quantum mechanics more confusing, as a form of ridicule. Its use in the field today is a kind of institutionalized gatekeeping.@xgranade Idk. I've always used it as a way of demonstrating principles in an easy-to-understand manner and clowning on Schrodinger's misunderstandings at the same time.
-
The first is bad enough on its own, but the second gets to why Schrödinger memes do so much damage now, today.
There's no such thing as two places at once, there's no such thing as alive and dead at the same time, whatever. Those were Schrödinger mocking the idea that one might ever develop an intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics. Today, that same mystery-cult style of gatekeeping gives power to some of the worst people in the field.
The Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment does not say "alive and dead at the same time" it says until we open the box we don't know if its alive or dead, and opening the box can change its state from alive or dead (also not meant literally, the cat is a symbol of a subatomic particle, not a real cat capable of ressurection).
-
The Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment does not say "alive and dead at the same time" it says until we open the box we don't know if its alive or dead, and opening the box can change its state from alive or dead (also not meant literally, the cat is a symbol of a subatomic particle, not a real cat capable of ressurection).
@brettm I assure you, I do have some clue about quantum mechanics, and that I am able to understand that thought experiments are not always literal.
Your explanation there is incorrect, though, in precisely the same ways that the Copenhagen interpretation fails if taken too literally.
-
@brettm I assure you, I do have some clue about quantum mechanics, and that I am able to understand that thought experiments are not always literal.
Your explanation there is incorrect, though, in precisely the same ways that the Copenhagen interpretation fails if taken too literally.
@brettm In any case, I'll kindly ask that you not mansplain quantum mechanics to me, of all people.
-
@brettm In any case, I'll kindly ask that you not mansplain quantum mechanics to me, of all people.
because you clearly know so much about it lol
-
because you clearly know so much about it lol
@brettm Yeah, I actually do. I have a literal doctorate in this shit and did it for twenty goddamned years.
I'm asking a bit less politely this time: don't be a fucking dick.
-
Here's the trick, though: quantum mechanics isn't inherently more difficult to learn than other technical fields, such as computer graphics. The big conceptual shift is in thinking of states like "the electron is here" or "the electron is there" in the same way you might think about directions.
You can understand a map in terms of north and west, but then you also have directions like northwest that are distinct from "north and west at the same time!!1!."
@xgranade The more I actually learn about QM the more all the "woo-woo, paradoxes, many-worlds, the photon follows all paths and interferes with itself!" falls away.
Just... it's so much misinterpretation and misrepresentation of phenomena that do not need to be this hard to understand. Gatekeeping obfuscation is absolutely the right description.
