Internal environment: What is it like to be a Schrodinger cat?

TL;DR

This paper explores how internal degrees of freedom in a composite quantum object can act as an internal environment, causing decoherence and affecting the observability of quantum interference, with implications for conscious entities.

Contribution

It introduces a model where internal degrees of freedom serve as an internal environment, affecting interference visibility and offering insights into the quantum behavior of conscious-like objects.

Findings

Internal degrees can record which-path information causing decoherence.

Interference is observable only when the object is isolated from external and internal environments.

Implications for understanding quantum behavior of conscious entities like Schrödinger's cat.

Abstract

The possibility of quantum interference of a composite object with many internal degrees of freedom is studied, such that the internal degrees play a role of an internal environment. In particular, if the internal degrees have a capacity for an irreversible record of which-path information, then the internal-environment induced decoherence prevents external experimentalists from observing interference. Interference can be observed only if the interfering object is sufficiently isolated from the external environment, so that the object cannot record which-path information. Extrapolation to a hypothetical interference experiment with a conscious object implies that being a Schrodinger cat would be like being an ordinary cat living in a box without any information about the world external to the box.