Not only do I agree with your objection, but i do not think you take it far enough. There is nothing in quantum theory that says a blind thing about consciousness. Even a dead cat is in physical terms a perfectly good "observer". Irrespective of the living or dead state of the cat, every fundamental particle in and about that cat, as far as any measurement can tell, goes about its business according to the same "laws", or according to it intrinsic "nature" as before it died or did not die (pardon the hand-waving, but if you know of better ways of putting it, feel welcome to tell me!)

An event of observation as I see it, is simply an interaction that is macroscopically irreversible without a penalty in terms of increased entropy. We might argue about how many times the spin of a particle has flipped between observations, but we cannot argue about whether a glass vial has been broken, no matter whether this is to prove bad news for the cat. Suppose that the cat were in a box with a glass back on an island remote from any human or vertebrate witness. Will that cat remain in superimposed stasis till someone goes to have a look? But what if a camera were to take periodic photos? Is the camera conscious? If so, why is the floor of the cage not conscious? But we could examine many kinds of floor to see when the cat had died?

But no, someone insists, floors and floors don't count. They don't hm? Well, what if my friend had accidentally remained behind on the island with the cat, and when the vial broke he observed poor pussy. They insist that NOW the cat collapses at the same time as the superposition. Oh riiight? But *I* wasn't there.  *I* didn't see it happen and my pal didn't send me a message because he was too grief-stricken. So as far as I was concerned, there simply is a more elaborate superposition: cat dead or alive and friend watching or not watching and crying or not crying. How many levels of regression must we follow before we accept that any thing anywhere has definitely happened?  Suppose that instead of just my pal on the island, there were a group of quantum physicists watching pussy's convulsions. They say that the superposition has collapsed, right? But *I* don't see any dead cat. How many spuperpositions must collapse before the cat really is dead. In fact, I could be in the room with them, but not looking through the glass wall. What is so special about their observations, compared with my superior powers?

One can think of variations on those themes without any constraint beyond one's creativity. But the problem goes away as soon as one accepts a different point of view. (Well, some other problems remain, such as whether QM implies a Multiverse, but you can't have everything every time.) But it seems that Nature (Note the Mystical, Anthropomorphic Capitalisation, because I don't know what Nature is) does not decide that a state or an event is real until one alternative has a different implication from an alternative in terms entropy. Killing pussy has drastic, macroscopic entropic effects.

Sorry about that, Kitty! But don't blame ME! You were dead (or alive) before I knew anything about it. Read "Physics from Fisher Information" by Roy Frieden. It's obviously his fault.

Jon

I would very much like someone who has access to the necessary equipment to perform the following suggested experiment or let me know if this has already been done and what the results were.

I should apologise in advance for my lack of proper scientific terminology as I have had no formal physics training other than the thought experiments I have posed to myself and reading a few books on physics and astronomy and articles online.

Firstly, I understand that when light is shone through two slits it causes a pattern of light and dark on the screen behind thus suggesting that light is a wave.  

Secondly,  when the rate at which the light is emitted is slowed down so it can only be a photon(?) at a time there is still an interference pattern.  Suggesting the photon goes through both slits at the same time and somehow interferes with itself….giving birth to quantum physics and a whole lot of outlandish theories (I have an even more “outlandish” theory myself)

Finally, it gets even stranger, when any kind of device is put in place to measure or count which slit each light particle is going through, the pattern changes to diffuse. At last being what you would expect to see from individual particles. 

The strange part is, of course is how can just the act of observing cause a diffuse pattern. If the measuring device is switched off it goes back to bands of light and dark. 

I hope I have this reasonably correct so far ?

SO…..what would happen if the device that measured which slit photons went through was powered by some kind of voltaic cell that was placed where the light bands are. 

That is to say only when the light was making the banded pattern would the power be sufficient to switch on the device measuring which slit the light particles went through….which will then make the pattern diffuse….which will switch off the machine…….which will then make the pattern banded……which will switch on the machine…..ad infinitum. 

This seems to cause the same paradox as Schroedinger’s Cat but a lot easier to test and more animal friendly…..a bit of Hawkins style humour there…haha. 

If this is the first time someone has suggested this and it does prove useful in any way I would very much like to make my parents proud and have this referred to as the “McTavish Twist”.   The first part being my surname and “twist” because I love twists in both science and cocktails !!!  Both are refreshing and alleviate the boredom..

One suggested result is that the measuring device switches on and off at the speed of its slowest component. If there was nothing slowing down its rate of switching then it would be very interesting to measure the number of times it changes state per second ?  Although I imagine this may take some clever machinery indeed as the resulting figure should be the smallest possible measure of time.  A “universal tick” ?  (maybe we can call it a “McTavish Tick” or am I getting greedy !!).  I imagine this should link mathematically to the maximum speed of light in some way.

Another possible outcome is that the machine will not switch on even though the light level appears sufficient to power it.  This could happen because it is only really at half power…..being half in the diffuse pattern (that is to say half in another state/universe).  It may be interesting to note where the “tipping point” is ?  Does it really work out to be exactly one half or does it lean more towards one state ?  Again this ratio may link mathematically to another well known number.

I imagine the actual results of the experiment will lead as usual to more questions.  I would very much like confirmation of the results so my own thought experiments move on to new questions too. 

Thank you sincerely for your attention.

Ian McTavish