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Old March 4th, 2006, 04:04 AM

Valandil Valandil is offline
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Default Re: Multi-Player Standard Community Terms

Out of curiosisty, I will investiagte the possibility that calling a dog a cat DOES in fact make it one.

Let us start from the assumption: all dogs are cats.
Then, by logical extension, all non-dogs are non-cats.
If assumption (A) is false, cats are not dogs. This is (B).
A bit of speculation then:
A cat and a dog are very similar: both are quadrupedal, mobile, fur-covered, mammals. Both have similar habits and both have been domesticated for many, many years.
Is it not possible that the only reason (B) appears true is that we believe it?
If (A) were the accepted norm, would it be true?
Based on theory, not fact, observing an object causes that object to be 'isolated' and cease to be a collection of prabablilities.
The question is whether belief also isolates prabability waves, without the object being observed.

(This is a fundamental part of quantum theory) The value of the observable A lies in the range B (*).
One possible reading of (*) is operational: "measurement of the observable A would yield (or will yield, or has yielded) a value in the set B ". On this view, projections represent statements about the possible results of measurements. Also, its possible to interpret (*) as a property ascription: "the system has a certain categorical property, which corresponds to the observable A having, independently of any measurement, a value in the set B".
in which the existance is indepentant of the observed, and which MIGHT allow belief modified existance.

So, maybe, depending on our interpretation of Quantum Probability, saying a dog is a cat, and BELIEVING it, causes the dog to be, or to have once been, or to possibly be, a cat.

Granted, I'm not exactly Feynman, so I might have gone a little overboard.

Valandil, in association with Schrodinger's Cat-Dog
Edit: Quote still not working
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