| > it can also predict the final states of collisions between other molecules. Even when that information just doesn't exist in the perfect a priori knowledge Obviously the special molecule is a thought experiment to illustrate an idea under certain simplifying assumptions and extreme parameters, to understand the consequences. Nobody expects to make one. And you are doing a proper job of arguing why it cannot work, as you are supposed to with a thought experiment. But... it's not correct to reason that "it can't predict" when the "information just doesn't exist [...] a priori". If the special molecule senses, computes and reacts entirely in the quantum realm itself, then its processing will be entangled with those other molecules. Despite the absence of a priori final states, the special molecule is, in principle, able to select an entangled reaction to those final states anyway. It's a bit like saying "I don't know if particle X will move to A or B later (and particle X hasn't decided either), but I can prepare myself into a state where if X moves to A then I will already be at A', and if X moves to B then I will already be at B'". And if being at A' when X moves to A, or B' when X moves to B, means that X can't actually move to A or B, that entangled reaction will affect X so the question of A or B doesn't even arise in the first place. |