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by Xcelerate
3637 days ago
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This is a very interesting article. Scott Aaronson touches on some of these ideas related to quantum cloning and the concept of "you" in his blog posts. I've always thought this kind of concept might define the limits of standard science, as currently practiced. Science requires reproducibility. But by whom? Well, other scientists of course. If every scientist tries your experiment and gets the same result, then you have a validated scientific theory. But suppose that you manage to set up an experiment where the perception of which measurement resulted depends upon who is perceiving the result (I can think of a few ways that this scenario might arise if we could ever figure out a way to generate macroscopic, human-scale, superpositions [which is unlikely, I'll add]). That would really throw a wrench in things. In that case, you would have to have each scientist convincingly prove to each other scientist that they all see something different, in which case perhaps the result could still be universally accepted. But there may be a limit on how much consensus we can ultimately get. |
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Actually, the reproducibility applies to the hypothesis (conclusion), not to the experiment. It's only that, since the observer is irrelevant, people simplify and call it "reproducing the experiment".
If your experiment depends on the observer, and you get to know that, that dependence will go on the conclusion, and the people reproducing your experiment will expect to see the result your hypothesis say they would, not the same one you got. If you have a correct predicting model, everybody will conclude it's correct.