ThirstyFish

Erwin Schrödinger, one of the pioneers of Quantum Mechanics, wrote: "I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously".

The human experience and human needs can not always be explained in a rational or a scientific way. But it turns out that science itself is also not always rational. Erwin Schrödinger repeatedly criticized the conventional Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics; he suggested the Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment: A cat is placed in a box with poison and a trigger that has exactly 50% chance of killing the cat. According to the Copenhagen Interpretation, the cat is "simultaneously alive and dead", yet, when one looks in the box, it is either alive or dead. So when exactly does reality "collapse" into one state or the other? According to the Copenhagen Interpretation, any "conscious observation" whether by a detector or the eye, collapses reality.

Even though I consider myself a "conscious observer", I could swear that the pictured gentleman was "simultaneously both alive and dead". I expected a "collapse" but it didn't happen. OK, I am exaggerating a little.

Song of the Day: Cheap Wine - Cold Chisel (1980)