Weekly Writing Prompt No. 61. In 1935 Erwin Schrödinger wrote a paper in response to questions about quantum mechanics originally posed by Albert Einstein. The paper titled, The Current Situation in Quantum Mechanics included a thought experiment involving an unassuming cat placed in a sealed box alongside the means of its potential demise. (By the way, there is no need to call the RSPCA, no cat was ever killed!)
Here’s the thing about the cat. It was a cat. And cats love boxes. I know, I have numerous pictures of Felix in boxes. He wasn’t Schrödinger’s cat. Perhaps if he had been, he might have been more wary of which boxes he chose. Certainly, he avoided those box-like thinks with handles and grated gates that could be locked that invariably meant a visit to the vet. But any cardboard packaging was a playground, a hidey-hole, a warren, a den, a curl-up comfort space.
Cat’s are witchery animals. They have wisdom and good instinct. So the thing is, Schrödinger’s experiment focussed on the wrong things. It just proved he knew more about physics than he did about cats. The question was never about whether the cat was alive or dead – the question was about whether the cat allowed itself to be sealed in at all, or whether it scratched its way out the second it saw the death-potion.
I’d bank on the former, but it could be the latter. Either way the cat lives. Either way the observer gets lots of new scratches. Either way, I’d rather be the cat.
We underestimate the desire of the cat to play ball in any given situation and fortunately, Msr Schrödinger never had to test the patience of his cat in reality as I fear he might have come away from the encounter rather badly. Nicely observed and deconstructed Lesley.
On the reflection piece, my honest answer has to be "I don't know" - for the very reason that you state in the prompt. Every decision we make closes out possibilities - at that point in time. Two things we don't know: (1) will we later get to make a choice that is effectively a re-set, that would get us back on the timeline we would have been on if we'd chosen differently and (2) if we'd made a different choice would that have led to a better or a worse scenario at this point in time (or anywhere along the timeline between there and here).
I would want to name people the world might have been better off without - but who knows how that world would have evolved. I would want to name historic activities that are rightly now seen as abhorrent - but what would have been the consequences of those things not having happened?
I wouldn't unwrite any of my own history because this is where it has led...and I like being here, now.
Like you, I like where the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have brought me. And you make an excellent point too, often a feature of sci-fi movies, which is what happens if the past is changed, how is the present and future impacted.
My reflection is that without our many layers of stories we wear life-long, we are all naked.
Is that because, like a new born baby, we have no history to speak of yet?
Or her-story. The clothes all tell a lot of stories: layers and layers. 😆
On Fashion Shows (or how we grows)
Forget the clothes
We're over those
They just don't matter
Even if fatter
Than average, I suppose.
Forget the clothes
We're over those
Though if you're thinner
Then your dinner
May just show, I s'pose.
Forget the clothes
We're over those
If young be bold!
(More circumspect if old,
Or can no longer touch your toes)
Forget the clothes
On cat walks pose:
Where feet are bare,
No underwear,
Just twixt your cheeks a rose!
Forget the clothes in fashion shows
No overdose - We're over those!
Forget the clothes, the clothes, the clothes
We're over, over, over those(Fading)
Comfort trumps everything when you realise it's all just an illusion designed to make money for some faceless corporation that doesn't deserve it!!!
Here’s the thing about the cat. It was a cat. And cats love boxes. I know, I have numerous pictures of Felix in boxes. He wasn’t Schrödinger’s cat. Perhaps if he had been, he might have been more wary of which boxes he chose. Certainly, he avoided those box-like thinks with handles and grated gates that could be locked that invariably meant a visit to the vet. But any cardboard packaging was a playground, a hidey-hole, a warren, a den, a curl-up comfort space.
Cat’s are witchery animals. They have wisdom and good instinct. So the thing is, Schrödinger’s experiment focussed on the wrong things. It just proved he knew more about physics than he did about cats. The question was never about whether the cat was alive or dead – the question was about whether the cat allowed itself to be sealed in at all, or whether it scratched its way out the second it saw the death-potion.
I’d bank on the former, but it could be the latter. Either way the cat lives. Either way the observer gets lots of new scratches. Either way, I’d rather be the cat.
We underestimate the desire of the cat to play ball in any given situation and fortunately, Msr Schrödinger never had to test the patience of his cat in reality as I fear he might have come away from the encounter rather badly. Nicely observed and deconstructed Lesley.
On the reflection piece, my honest answer has to be "I don't know" - for the very reason that you state in the prompt. Every decision we make closes out possibilities - at that point in time. Two things we don't know: (1) will we later get to make a choice that is effectively a re-set, that would get us back on the timeline we would have been on if we'd chosen differently and (2) if we'd made a different choice would that have led to a better or a worse scenario at this point in time (or anywhere along the timeline between there and here).
I would want to name people the world might have been better off without - but who knows how that world would have evolved. I would want to name historic activities that are rightly now seen as abhorrent - but what would have been the consequences of those things not having happened?
I wouldn't unwrite any of my own history because this is where it has led...and I like being here, now.
Like you, I like where the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have brought me. And you make an excellent point too, often a feature of sci-fi movies, which is what happens if the past is changed, how is the present and future impacted.