Re: Quantum theory: A resonance effect?

Hi Ron Baker,

Sorry for the slow response--I picked a bad time to post just before a
deadline which has now passed. And excuse me if my questions are naive,
this is not at all my specialty. But in my specialty (philosophy of
consciousness) there is a lot of nonsense spouted about quantum
weirdness as an explanation for the mystery of consciousness, involving
the mysterious "observer" responsible for the collapse of the wave
function. What would please me most of all is if you could give me a
reference I can cite, for whoever proposed an explanation similar to
mine, i.e. to show that the mysterious "observer" is not necessary, and
that alternative interpretations of quantum theory exist.

Thank you for the "Welcher weg" argument. I guess my explanation does
not eliminate *all* the weirdness of quantum phenomena, only the
strange "observer" idea, and the wave/particle duality. There is still
entanglement between particles. But could that not also be explained as
a resonance phenomenon?

Say the light was an analog continuous stream of waves that passes
through both slits at once, with detectors set up on both alternate
paths. Either detector could be triggered by that wave, depending on
the chance of constructive interference triggering the detector just
so. But if one detector *is* triggered by the wave, it would
immediately absorb exactly one quantum of energy from that wave, and
not just at the location of the elevated electron in the detector, but
from a wider region of the wave encompassing also the second detector,
and that in turn would make it much less likely for the same wave to
trigger the second detector.

I realize this explanation is far to vague to be a "theory", but I was
hoping that either somebody more knowledgable has already proposed it,
so I could just cite him as a reference, or that there is a simple
explanation that proves the idea to be impossible, in which case I
would like to know it. But as vague and perhaps "weird" as my
explanation might sound, it is far less weird than the notion of
photons flying through space as individual particles, while at the same
time being analog expanding shells from the source, or the concept of
an intelligent conscious observer being required to collapse the wave
function with an observation.

slehar

.

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