What the #$*! Do We Know!? Part 8
While on my other blog "Open System" I am actually dealing with William Tiller’s part in "What the #$*! Do We
Know!?", here, on “Open System for Geniuses”, let us continue with the next piece from Cramer’s "An
Overview of Transactional Interpretation":
Q2: Are physical interactions involving observers different from other physical interactions?
CI: Yes. Physical interactions with an observer are qualitatively different from other physical interactions because they produce observer knowledge and cause state vector collapse.
TI: No. Physical interactions involving an observer are completely equivalent to any other physical interactions. A change in observer knowledge is a necessary consequence of state vector collapse, not a cause.
Discussion: In the Conference discussion Prof. von Weizsacker disagreed with this dichotomy. His point was that there is no distinction made in the formalism between observer interactions and any other interactions. That is of course correct, but my point here is that there is a difference in these interactions at the interpretational level precisely because the Copenhagen interpretation treats observer interactions differently, (e.g, by using them to collapse the state vector), even though the QM formalism does not.
And so, according to Cramer, a distinction between the system under observation and the observer is not necessary. What is then necessary? Apparently it is necessary to have a) emitters and b) absorbers. But what decides whether a given piece of matter is an emitter or an absorber? And what decides whether the emitter will emit a retarded wave at one time rather than at other, and whether the absorber will emit an advanced wave at one time rather than at some other? In CI it is an observer who decides whether to make a measurement or not, and when to make it. This is certainly unsatisfactory, because the observer is outside of the formalism, but it is at least clear. In TI these things are fuzzy - we are not being told why emitters emit and why absorbers absorb - and when. And then you can have many absorbers and many emitters - what then? These are all natural and important questions, and it is hard to believe that they did not occur to Cramer ….
