[WikiEN-l] fictional categories

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Ian Woollard wrote:
> On 04/11/2009, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>     
>>> Schroedinger's cat very definitely is fictitious; it's not an
>>> experiment you can actually do and get an alive/dead cat that you can
>>> actually see, you would get either an alive cat, or a dead cat.
>>>       
>> I agree with the statement that it should not be in that category.
>> Essentially, because schrodinger's cat is not a cat.
>>     
So a tree that falls in the wood, without nobody recording
it isn't really a tree.

>
> Schrodinger's cat is a fictitious cat that is in the Schrodinger's cat
> thought experiment.
>
> It is fictitious because it is not a factual cat; it is countrafactual.
>
>   
>> There is no notable fiction in which
>> Schrodinger's cat features heavily, for example.
>>     
>
>   
This is actually very prominently false. Just off hand
I can think of Fred Pohl using it quite prominently,
in his Heechee universe stories, and there are most
likely any number or very more crucial uses of the
particular metaphor or its more corporeal instantiations.

In fact it would not be grossly unfair to say that featuring
Schrodingers cat in science fiction was more of a rite of
passage, rather than a perversion.
> It is notably in "Schroedinger's cat" thought experiment.
>
> That's what a thought experiment is; it's a made up story about what
> would happen if you did X,Y,Z which is used to illuminate aspects of
> physics.
>
>   


Sorry for replying on such a silly issue, but I too am
just human... (and not feline)...


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen