Quote from: shorena on January 07, 2017, 07:39:57 PM

Quote from: AgentofCoin on January 07, 2017, 07:11:14 PM

Quote from: DannyHamilton on January 07, 2017, 06:48:11 PM

Quote from: franky1 on January 07, 2017, 09:09:54 AM

schrodinger's cat

if you cant see it, did it really happen?

Actually, from my understanding of the schrodinger's cat Gedankenexperiment, if you can't see whether it has happened or not then it simultaneously BOTH did and didn't happen until it has been observed by someone.

If the state of possible collision is never observed by anyone then it will remain indefinitely in this state of superposition.

If it the state of possibile collision eventually is observed then the wave function will collapse and it will either have happened or not have happened.

During the state of superposition, it will have some percentage of having happened and some other percentage of having not happened. Those percentages will be determined by the likelihood of it having happened.

Also, if i recall correctly, there is highly radioactive material in the box, so the cat will die at some point and that
is what is being determined. So the percentage of having happened versus having not happened, is of the death
of the cat, which is a sure eventuality in this experiment.

It doesnt really matter whats in the box, whats important is that there is a chance for it to be in one state and a chance for it to be in another. In Schrödingers Gedankenexperiment he used a very small amount of radio activ material which could decay a single atom within a given time span. This was used as switch for a deadly gas which would either kill the cat or not depending on whether an atom decayed or not. This was constructed to be of equal chance. An address collision is not of equal chance to it not happening, but its still the same general principle I think.

Yes, I forgot about deadly gas.
The example is not about equal chance. It is used to describe quantum superstates.
In quantum theory, there is an equal chance of address collision happening and not happening.
In this theory both has occured, until an observer can observe otherwise.
Address collision as a probability or chance is different than it as a superstate.
Address collision as to probability or chance is definitely not equal.

Quote from: shorena on January 07, 2017, 07:39:57 PM

Quote from: AgentofCoin on January 07, 2017, 07:11:14 PM

-snip-
But yes, address collision only exists when it is observed in the wild, like when a superposition ends and the
observed result is determined. Problem is that under normal circumstances, whether it is ever observed and
how to prove it is true collision (outside of random number generator errors and etc) is another issue.

Id say the collision happened even when no one noticed it. Shit already broke you just didnt realize it yet. Whoever sends coins to the address in question first will reveal the information to the other person also in control.

Not according to quantum theory. The superposition exists because no observation has occurred.
The observation can either be by human, animal, or machine. It is the act of observation that
causes the superposition to literally "transform" into one of the potential states. Before the observation,
it is actually both in real time. It is complicated, but for example light can be a particle and a wave in real
time, but once it is physically observed by an observer, it changes to one or the other, but prior to that change,
it is actually both in real time. The cat example is just a simple way to visualize it (Cat is both alive and dead).

Collision, in the context of Superposition states, can only be observed, when the superposition is transformed,
such as when your privatekey (that is 100% impossible for another to have by any other means other than wild
collision), is used to move your coins to another address. It would thus transform that address privatekey from
the superposition to the state of collision.

In quantum theory, it is currently believed that the observer is actually the creator.
So, in a way, if tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? the answer is no, not without a single observer.
But it could be argued as to Bitcoin, that address collisions is always observed by the blockchain itself.