Tuesday, March 24, 2009

If Einstein Had Studied Yoma 68b: A Thought Experiment

It's too bad this blog I found seems to be abandoned:
UPDATE: Check out this awesome blog!

[...]
On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest performs a lottery to choose two he-goats, one of which is designated to be sacrificed as a sin offering, and one of which is sent off to the wilderness as a form of collective communal expiation. The goats must be qualitatively identical – of the same appearance and size, and purchased simultaneously. (Again simultaneity! – Minkowski would be pleased.) They are distinguished from one another only from the moment that the High Priest performs a lottery—playing dice, again--to determine which one will be for the sin offering (let’s call it A), and which one will be sent off to the wilderness (B).

Until the instant the lots are drawn, A is both A and B; and B is both A and B. Or, as E.S. would have it, the goat is both alive and dead. The wave (“tenufah”) function does not collapse until the instant the lottery is performed in the Inner Innermost.

If, following the lottery, one goat dies, the other goat automatically loses its status. A is not A if not for B. They exist thus in quantum entanglement. The consequences are manifold.

[...]

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm..

Pretty pretty pretty interesting (a la Larry David).

March 24, 2009 8:42 PM  
Blogger The back of the hill said...

Seems quite active to me - there are recent posts.

March 25, 2009 1:15 PM  
Blogger Baal Habos said...

Very cool

March 26, 2009 12:40 PM  

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