Marci Ansen
Schrödinger's Cat and the science of indecision. Or Psychology meets Quantum Physics
I don't know about others, but I can easily get to a state where I find it impossible to move forward on certain things, because the end result is almost certain to be a binary yes/no.
Examples include:
• Needing to talk to someone about something really really important, but knowing/fearing that when you ask, they will either say "yes" to that talk or "no"
• Wanting to propose something that's kind of critical to your ongoing happiness/peace of mind/mental health, and (again) knowing/fearing that they will either say "yes" or "no"
• Having an idea for a big creative endeavour, that maybe you've been living with for years, and knowing/fearing that if you start to talk about this with people who can actually tell you whether or not it's any good, or has potential, that the answer will be "forget about it, it's crap" or "wow, what a brilliant idea"
• And this (one that is probably familiar to so many of you): you'd like to tell your partner that you crossdress/are on the trans* spectrum. Maybe they'll be completely accepting and welcoming. Or maybe they'll freak out and leave you/forbid it ever again. But so long as you don't tell them, those two extreme and opposite reactions (there are other possible reactions, of course) can co-exist.
I'm sure most of you know that Schrödinger's Cat is a "thought experiment" to explain quantum physics, and how something (in this instance, a cat in a box, hence above) can simultaneously have two completely opposing qualities (alive or dead) until it's observed.
Forgive me if this is over-simplistic; feel free to add your own interpretation of the "theory". Or just Google it.
So, all my above examples (which are more or less things I'm dealing with, aside from the last one) are trapped in that box, just like Schrödinger's Cat.
While they are in that box, unobserved (or at least unexposed to the world), they can can be simultaneously both "dead" and "alive", "yes" and "no", "brilliant" and "crap", "rejection" and "acceptance".
That means you can live with the idea that the talk will go ahead and will go brilliantly, that your proposal will be accepted, that you are a fucking artistic genius, that your partner will just love the idea of continuing a relationship with someone on the trans* spectrum.
You know deep inside yourself that there's a very good chance that the opposite will happen, but you can still hang on to the hope (and dream) that everything will go well. One of those delusions we create to get by.
Because once these things come out, there's no going back, and your hopes and dreams and fantasies will be crushed. But but but ... just maybe they won't be.
So, here I am, in this pic, stuck in Schrödinger's (Cat)box, opening it up to see if I'm alive, not dead, that I can have that talk, that I am an undiscovered artistic genius.
Anyway at the very least, I can convince myself I've discovered a new branch of psychology (I did Google Schrödinger's Cat and psychology, and found this (which is not what I'm discussing): www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/how-quantum-co.... So, yay, such an original thinker!
Note: why the space and stars background? In Dan Simmonds brilliant Hyperion Canton sci-fi series, a major character was sentenced to death in a Schrödinger's Cat box in orbit around a planet; did he die or did he live? You'll have to read the books to find out...
Schrödinger's Cat and the science of indecision. Or Psychology meets Quantum Physics
I don't know about others, but I can easily get to a state where I find it impossible to move forward on certain things, because the end result is almost certain to be a binary yes/no.
Examples include:
• Needing to talk to someone about something really really important, but knowing/fearing that when you ask, they will either say "yes" to that talk or "no"
• Wanting to propose something that's kind of critical to your ongoing happiness/peace of mind/mental health, and (again) knowing/fearing that they will either say "yes" or "no"
• Having an idea for a big creative endeavour, that maybe you've been living with for years, and knowing/fearing that if you start to talk about this with people who can actually tell you whether or not it's any good, or has potential, that the answer will be "forget about it, it's crap" or "wow, what a brilliant idea"
• And this (one that is probably familiar to so many of you): you'd like to tell your partner that you crossdress/are on the trans* spectrum. Maybe they'll be completely accepting and welcoming. Or maybe they'll freak out and leave you/forbid it ever again. But so long as you don't tell them, those two extreme and opposite reactions (there are other possible reactions, of course) can co-exist.
I'm sure most of you know that Schrödinger's Cat is a "thought experiment" to explain quantum physics, and how something (in this instance, a cat in a box, hence above) can simultaneously have two completely opposing qualities (alive or dead) until it's observed.
Forgive me if this is over-simplistic; feel free to add your own interpretation of the "theory". Or just Google it.
So, all my above examples (which are more or less things I'm dealing with, aside from the last one) are trapped in that box, just like Schrödinger's Cat.
While they are in that box, unobserved (or at least unexposed to the world), they can can be simultaneously both "dead" and "alive", "yes" and "no", "brilliant" and "crap", "rejection" and "acceptance".
That means you can live with the idea that the talk will go ahead and will go brilliantly, that your proposal will be accepted, that you are a fucking artistic genius, that your partner will just love the idea of continuing a relationship with someone on the trans* spectrum.
You know deep inside yourself that there's a very good chance that the opposite will happen, but you can still hang on to the hope (and dream) that everything will go well. One of those delusions we create to get by.
Because once these things come out, there's no going back, and your hopes and dreams and fantasies will be crushed. But but but ... just maybe they won't be.
So, here I am, in this pic, stuck in Schrödinger's (Cat)box, opening it up to see if I'm alive, not dead, that I can have that talk, that I am an undiscovered artistic genius.
Anyway at the very least, I can convince myself I've discovered a new branch of psychology (I did Google Schrödinger's Cat and psychology, and found this (which is not what I'm discussing): www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/how-quantum-co.... So, yay, such an original thinker!
Note: why the space and stars background? In Dan Simmonds brilliant Hyperion Canton sci-fi series, a major character was sentenced to death in a Schrödinger's Cat box in orbit around a planet; did he die or did he live? You'll have to read the books to find out...