Hi anon,
The wave function collapsed (OUCH). I seem to be stuck here under the wave function. Help get me out!!!
And, as the cow watched,
the car appeared.
Oh, did I get that wrong? 
Lots to puzzle about,
Ed
Wave function collapse is a the heart of every interpretation including MWI, Many Minds and Stochastic mechanics and shut up and calculate.
Hi Calrid,
If you could actually get this wave function off my back, I’m pretty sure that not only I, but quantum physicists around the globe, would be eternally grateful; and more importantly we could move this post to the Natural Sciences forum. 
Ed
Not up to me is it. 
Wave function works all you have to do is explain where it doesn’t.
Hi Calrid,
You’re right it works just fine (at least in its’ customary domain). But, since this is philosophy, – ontology, ontology, ontology. What is it; and I don’t mean what is the equation, I mean what does it physically represent?
Thanks Ed
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?
Sound waves would still be generated, no? just no hearing instrument around to pick it up, but the sound still exists…
Actually that’s not true sound is filtered by the human brain, what you are referring to is something that has a qualia like quality, sound is how we perceive disturbances in air pressures. So if no one is around to hear it just like a Copenhagenist, you would say a sound does not exist until it is measured.
Sound waves are not sound, they are a definition of human visualisation of how waves appear, they are no more a sound than that.
If I had said does it make a noise that disturbs the air in a wavelike pattern, you could say yes of course. Otherwise the question is one of being precise in what you are saying and indeed meaning. The semantics here are everything.
A Copenhagenist would say the sound wave, or noise wave created by the disturbance to the air is undefined, he would be agnostic about its existence per se.
To wich Einstein opined:
“Is the moon still there when I am not looking at it?”
Rather sarcastically.
And Schrödinger another enemy of quantum mechanics invented his somewhat sarcastic cat parody. Alive or dead? At the Solvey conference AKA the great meeting of minds though Bohr, Heisenburg, Pauli and Dirac et al, defeated Einstein Laplace, Schrödinger et al and the formalism of QM became widely accepted.
Are you suggesting the tree wouldn’t have fallen in the first place if no one way around to hear it?
Or did I just blow your mind
No, one thing we do know by the specifics of the question is a tree did fall, what we arguing about or debating about is the implications of that fall. Ontologically we know the tree exists and did fall, but what were the consequences and what implications do they have to the interpretation of that fall. It wouldn’t surprise you to know that both Einstein and Bohr had read Kant from an early age, Einstein at 12 and Bohr at a similar time, Kants views were widely discussed. What they disagreed on was what Kant was driving at or for. Bohr like Kant was an instrumental realist, he believed that measurement (and the inherent biases in that medium) was a very important thing in how and why we perceive what we do. Einstein was not, Einstein was looking for an underlying truth or absolutism that transcended human bias. He disagreed most famously when he said on the implications of QM: “God does not play dice with the Universe” by which he meant the probabalistic nature of QM was not the real ontology. Bohr et al disagreed and their formalism was accepted because it fitted with experiment, and mathematical models where as Einstein and Schrödingers assertions on a clockwork classical universe failed all the tests of empiricism and maths. Most importantly though empricism. You have to remember that Dirac and Heisenberg were mathematical prodigies, they were so good they blew the greatest minds of their day out of the water. The victory should not be underestimated.
“God does not play dice with the Universe.”
Einstein
“Stop telling God what to do with his dice Einstein.”
Bohr, in reply.
The issue is still not resolved though.
Incidentally I once met someone who was taught by Dirac at University, he said no one wanted him to turn up to their lectures: guest speaker or collegeate Proffessor, he had a habit of waiting patiently through a lecture and then destroying all the conclusions made in those hours with one question. Put simply he scared even the geniuses. He was just beyond a prodigy, he was 1 in a million. The guy was just terrifying to intellectuals. No matter how bright you thought you were, after talking to him for 5 minutes you realised you were just one of many idiots.
Being as Dirac was the Lucian Proffessor at Cambridge, much as Newton and Hawking is now, you can imagine just how good he was and how prodigious a talent he was. Even Feynman in the 20th century would probably be dumbstruck by his sheer mental puissance. It’s a real pity he is not alive now IMHO.
Ha, funny… I like that answer 
Caldrid - enough with the semantics of what we constitute as sound 
The vibrational wave generated by the tree falling (that we know as sound) would still be generated… is what I was getting at - regardless of whether there was an organ to pick up that wave and interpret it as sound, it would still exist on it’s own terms under the law of physics.
Well then you just rewrote the definition of words to make reality comply to what you said. I find that quite unnerving. This question is a valid question in quantum mechanics only if you define your terms properly, if you want to say - does sound - which is a precisely defined conceptual interaction after our brains have processed it happen - you have to say no. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it it makes an impression on the air (the air pressure is accordingly affected) but it does not make a sound. The observer has to be there for it to make a sound. You can’t just change reality to suit your own poorly reasoned answer to the question. If you are going to play God with language why bother philosophising at all.
This is the definition of sound, you can’t just change the definition at will.
No it has to have an observer to make a sound. That is why the question is asked in Quantum mechanics. When a wave function is unmeasured it is undefined.
I see and understand - if the object of aural reception is not present, then all will be as it would be, minus the aural receptor… such a dilemma for us but not for the falling tree.
Are we actually debating this question on a philosophy forum?
I thought only heavy stoners in thier first year of college had the tree - falling - sound debate!
Anyway, I would argue that Caldrid is right - the falling tree doesn['t make a sound. Sound is a sensation, not an event in the physical universe.
To carve the distinction: consider that the sensation of sound may or may not be caused by events in the universe. Take, for example, the experience of tinnitus (ringing in the ear). What you experience during tinnitus is definately a sound (normally a high pitched sustained note), but this sound has not been caused by a ‘mecahnical wave of oscillation in pressure’. The sound you hear in dreams is another (but maybe more contentious) example.
The audible soundwave stuff is just a description of the physical events that can cause us to experience the sensation of sound. But they don’t actually consitute a significant part of what sound is, because sound can be experienced with or without those events taking place.
Thus, the falling tree doesn’t create a sound. It just moves air around in a way that would create a sound if someone of good hearing was around to experince it.