My initial post to a question about causality…

After the deserved critcism of being too “poppy” I expanded the explanation…

Yes, perhaps a bit “poppy” in my brief post but the mystery remains.  Speaking of the observable disorder in molecules Schrodinger writes, “But whether any particular molecule, supposing you could follow, its course, will be among those which have reacted or among those which are still untouched, he [the chemist] could not predict. That is a matter of pure chance. This is not a purely theoretical conjecture. It is not that we can never observe the fate of a single small group of atoms or even of a single atom. We can, occasionally. But whenever we do, we find complete irregularity, co-operating to produce regularity only on the average.”

 “What Is Life”, pdf page 27

http://whatislife.stanford.edu/LoCo_files/What-is-Life.pdf

It is a bit of a wishful leap to suggest that the phenomena that Schrodinger observed on the quantum scale has been “explained”.  His supposition was that order arises out of chaos (peros from aperion) not unlike the thoughts of Plato, I might add.

I would submit that the slit experiment can actually strengthen my rather anemic response.  When individual photons are emitted through two slits (or more) to the photographic film, the apparent simultaneity of the photon passing through both slits introduces an uncertainty that has yet to be explained.   While Schrodinger referred to this “mystery” as entanglement, Heisenberg addressed the wave particle duality in his “uncertainty principle”.  Subatomic particles incessantly pop in and out of existence in a way that disallows determinism and can only be explained statistically with essential and inherent uncertainty.

Forgive the indulgence but according to the Copenhagen Interpretation (not pop) if you never measure the x-spin (box, i.e., Schrodinger) of an electron, it will never jump to an eigenstate of x-spin and thus will have a 100% probability of y-spin (a contradictory state).  The conclusion is that observable results depend on whether the electron is in an indeterminate state or determinate but unknown state.  Indeterminate states are not just determinate states we have no knowledge of.  Physical objects actually behave differently depending on whether their states are unknown or indeterminate.

One need look no further than quantum entanglement, the spooky action at a distance that Einstein despised and tried to refute with his EPR paradox only to end up showing the non-classical characteristics of the measurement process.

A Couple Quotes:

Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.

Niels Bohr

I think that I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.

Richard Feynman

I don’t like it, and I’m sorry I ever had anything to do with it.

Erwin Schrödinger