Dull Unhappy People :-)

Observation causes change, because to observe an object you need to get something from the object being observed (usually a photon) and the act of the photon hitting the object - and then proceeding to your measurement instrument - changes whatever it is that is being observed.

Are you suggesting the measuring device needs to "touch" the object in some fashion, such as sending a photon to hit the object and be returned? Then in that case the observation is not entirely benign. A more interesting question would be this: let's say the measuring device was entirely passive. It simply received whatever the object emitted. The encrypted waveform goes down the optical cable. As it goes, it emits tiny amounts of photons. The measuring device simply picks up what is being emitted. Does the waveform state change then? If so, then let's go back in time and remove the measuring device from the picture. Photons still being emitted. But nobody is there to see them this time. Waveform state the same.

And I can guarantee you (as much as I can guarantee anything) that any Jewish, Muslim, Christian or Buddhist person doing the fibre-optic experiment would find the same thing.

I'm sure they would. But that wasn't my point. My point was that this notion of quantum mechanics offering an uncertainty principle can easily be taken too far. Take, for instance, the ethics of infanticide. Darwinism can clearly be used to state: "Survival of the fittest. This child is not fit. Therefore it should be killed." Similarly, it's not impossible that someone can say: "Quantum mechanics says there is a fundamental uncertainty about things. Whether this child should live or die is uncertain. Therefore it doesn't matter if we kill it."

You laugh? Darwinism was definitely part of early 20th century eugenics, which provided a root for Hitler's thinking on the same subject.

Yeah, I know -- extreme. But do you see my point? Quantum mechanics is fine within the realm of atomic level behavior; less so at larger scale behavior; but not applicable in the realm of other disciplines such as ethics.

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Clairvoyants? Good or bad?

I don't really believe people are all that clairvoyant. There's some degree of it, I think, but I just don't believe those people who hang out a shingle and say, "Hey, I'm clairvoyant. Pay me money for this service." So those clairvoyants are bad.

But to the degree that some degree of clairvoyance is within a person ... I don't think it's necessarily bad. But I just don't really know.

What's your thinking?