Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Schrodinger's Cat


"In 1935, Erwin Schrodinger, in an attempt to explain the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics; he proposed an experiment where a cat is placed in a box with a sealed vial of poison that will break open at a random time. Now, since no one knows when or if the poison has been released until the box is opened, the cat can be thought of as both alive and dead...
Just like Schrodinger's cat, your potential relationship with Leonard right now can be thought of as both good and bad. It is only by opening the box that you'll find out which it is."

This comes from an episode of Big Bang Theory. Two of the characters are thinking about going out on a date, but they are worried about awkwardness, so they both go to a friend for advice. The advice they get is Schrodinger's cat. And it's brilliant.

Dating, and all relationships are that way. You never know unless you take the plunge. Yes it could be bad, but you don't know unless you try.

The best thing about this concept is that there are myriad applications. It really applies to everything in life, although at this point in my life, dating sticks out the most.

1 comment:

Kristopher said...

The cat is always dead. ;-) Seriously, though, you can usually tell the cat is still trying to get out on its own if there’s hope for anything other than a stinking carcass. Now, either the act of opening the box or catty behavior (which I won’t brook) will generally wind up giving you a massive whiff of poison.

For the sake of this example, let’s say that, not being a big fan of cats (dead or alive), I strive to walk on the plane of a different kingdom with a kinder law. There, the boxes don’t necessarily exist. I think and live outside of the box. :-) Yet one continues to perceive unfortunate feline corpses which—though we dwell within better parameters, “bounds . . . and conditions”—we often cannot animate without doing violence to the times and seasons, remaining independent in their sphere, however contracted an orbit they may describe.

On the whole, how great and glorious is acceptance of the universal unified field theory, embracing those “principles” upon which “the powers of heaven” can be controlled or handled! This is liberty “unto those who sit in darkness and in the region and shadow of death,” as we watch that Light “[lead] captivity captive.” Even quantum mechanics, throughout “the immensity of space,” resolve themselves into order, “the peaceable things of the kingdom,” the mainstay of “the temple which is in heaven.” Nonetheless, Talmage has remarked on the severe loneliness of the one who chooses to see those things while yet walking this plane. It’s something like being trapped between two worlds, if one permits oneself to evaluate one’s life by population statistics. In a curious reversal, most of what appears substantial is proven insubstantial, and vice versa. But there is mastery in the higher realities.

In a more constructive vein, a growing relationship ought to be like scaffolding to a grander edifice, not a confining space. In one supreme expansion of view, we can DTR (“drop the ruse”) on our lives, since surely with each passing day we’re defining something anyhow. How preferable to “abide in . . . liberty” and not remain “under the law” of this world. From what I see, unless we “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” Murphy’s Law remains operative and it only distributes Occam’s razor (in accordance with that parsimonious jurisprudence) as the wherewithal to expose what turns out to be so much kitty litter. In summary, I let cats out of bags and leave them in boxes.