Collin Jasnoch wrote:

The thought experiment provides one with the conclusion that both are true, at the same time.

No, it is given as a the expected result if you used Schrödinger's understanding of the Copenhagen interpretation. Schrödinger expected you to disregard the possibility of the cat being both alive and dead and work on quantum theory. You're not supposed to accept that the cat is both alive and dead.

Collin Jasnoch wrote:

Wether or not an individual 'believes' the cat is alive and dead at the same time, is irrelevant. The paradox is proof against its logic (thats why it is a paradox). It does not change the pardox or make the actual pardox itself false.

The point I was making was that he put the thought experiment up as a strawman argument, it wasn't supposed to be taken seriously.

<blockquote class="FQ"><div class="FQA">Collin Jasnoch wrote:</div>Again, that is the paradox. Back to what I said earlier<BR>"The only certainty
is there are no certainties". These are <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio\_ad\_absurdum">Reductio
ad absurdum</A>[<A title="New Window" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio\_ad\_absurdum"
target="_blank">^</A>]<BR> <BR>Wether or not an individual 'believes' the
cat is alive and dead at the same time, is irrelevant. The paradox is proof
against its logic (thats why it is a paradox). It does not change the pardox or
make the actual pardox itself false.<BR></blockquote>

It disproves the proposition. "Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: "reduction to the absurd") is a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence.[1]" I doubt he wished to kickstart the multiple universe theory movement.

Collin Jasnoch wrote:

Its funny that you say

Member 4523790 wrote:

I don't know why so many people don't get it.

when you clearly also don't get it.

Back at you.

I'll go by the wikipedia definition of paradox: a paradox is a logical statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which (if true) defies logic or reason it defies logic that the cat can be both alive and dead. If you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's\_cat (scroll to The thought experiment) you'll see that Schrödinger thought it was a "ridiculous case". Albert Einstein wrote: "Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the cat is something independent of the act of observation" Niels Bohr (one of the main scientists associated with the Copenhagen interpretation) "never had in mind the observer-induced collapse of the wave function, so that Schrödinger's Cat did not pose any riddle to him. The cat would be either dead or alive long before the box is opened by a conscious observer.[6] Analysis of an actual experiment found that measurement alone (for example by a Geiger counter) is sufficient to collapse a quantum wave function before there is any conscious observation of the measurement" So basically nobody involved thinks the cat is both alive and dead, I don't know why so many people don't get it. Everything is "an observer", there is no special flag in the universe on humans, cats, geiger counters etc.

The paradox is that the cat can't be alive and dead at the same time. The thought experiment was designed to pick holes in the Coppenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. He never believed that an unseen cat could be both dead & alive at the same time.

Norm .net wrote:

For those using c#, what do you prefer?
 
A.

SomeObject obj = (SomeObject) e;

or
 
B.

SomeObject obj = e as SomeObject;

What about secret option C. use the correct one for the circumstances. While you might have been interested in which of the two we prefer, thats like asking which do you prefer: A. for B. return You might have a preference, but they aren't interchangeable. You should use A if the object has to be of the correct type. You will get an exception and your exception processing will clean up for you as best as it can. You should use B if you are expecting different types. You get a null so you try the next type. This isn't very OO but it can be useful for optimising. The code will almost always be more procedural, so you have to be careful not to over complicate it. Trying to stop exceptions being thrown at all costs is like using ON ERROR RESUME NEXT in VB. Unless you know exactly how to process an exception you shouldn't try to catch it or defend against it.