Not Schrodinger’s Cat

Colin Cameron

Thought experiment, my twisted whiskers! If this is a thought experiment, why is yours truly locked in this stupid box without even enough room for a proper tongue-clean of my luxurious marmalade fur?

I know what a thought experiment is. Cats do them all the time. Like, what’s the best way to get my human up out of bed in the morning to feed me when I want him to? That’s a thought experiment! This stuff a cat in a box? This is all too real.

I probably should have paid more attention. But the humans blather away all the time without saying anything meaningful, so how’s a cat to know?

There I was, peacefully dozing on the couch in the living room, when the humans who live with me come in and start jabbering away. My ears only perked up when I heard them mention Einstein. Most cats know about Einstein. Fellow got some of his best stuff from cats (some might say “stole,” but at least Einstein was clever enough to understand and pay attention). Like “time is relative” and “the future and the past are illusions, the present is all there is.” Basic stuff, really. But humans seem to have a tough time with it.

So anyway, if I followed this right, Einstein and a man named Erwin Schrödinger were talking about this sort of stuff, which humans call “quantum physics.” They wanted to understand a paradox about light. (Here’s a paradox for you: how can humans think they’re dominant species and be so utterly clueless most of the time?) Light can act like a particle but also like a wave, depending on how it’s observed. How can two different things be true at the same time?

According — Whoa, what the — was that? According to my human, Schrödinger designed this “thought experiment” to illustrate how to think about this paradox. This is where it gets bizarre, in my opinion. Take a perfectly good cat, minding its own business, shove it in a box with something called a “radioactive isotope,” another something called a “Geiger counter,” some sort of hammer mechanism, and a vial of poison. I’m not sure about quantum physics, or radiation, or Geiger counters, but I’ve seen my human whack his thumb enough times with a hammer to know what that is. And I sure know what poison is.

So, let’s see, if I’ve got this right, here’s what happens: radioactive stuff decays, no one knows just when. Then the Geiger counter reacts and trips the hammer, hammer breaks open vial, poison everywhere, poor innocent cat dies in hideous agony all alone trapped in a box. Can’t say I like the sound of that.

And here’s the kicker — the humans doing the experiment can’t even see inside the box. (Never heard of glass, I guess, that clean stuff that keeps me from getting at birds.) From their perspective, the cat is effectively both alive and dead at the same time: two realities super-imposed, one on top of the other. A paradox. Opening the box, observing what’s inside, somehow creates the reality of a cat living or a cat deceased.

Then one of my humans says, “We’re nobodies in the physics department. We need to make a name for ourselves. We should do the experiment for real.”

Well, my ears perked up at that! But I never thought they’d actually do it.

Too trusting, that’s me. So here I am trapped in this box.

Normally I like boxes. Sure, I’m a cat. Confined spaces make me feel secure. But this is an indignity of the highest order! No one asked my permission, did they? ‘Cause I would have said no.

Big bullies, that’s what humans are. They think they’re so clever, just because they have thumbs. Thumbs! That’s where it all went wrong, where the servants started to get uppity. Really rubs my fur the wrong way. “Ooh, look what we can do, we’ve got thumbs! Bet you all wish you had thumbs, too. But you don’t, do you? So that’s us better than you!”

Nobody asked them to grow thumbs. It’s not like the rest of us were sitting around saying, “Hey, you know what would make the world a better place? Thumbs! Somebody should grow some thumbs. You humans, you’re not doing anything special right now, why don’t you make yourself useful and grow some thumbs? Improve the world. Go on, I dare you!”

Problem is — Wait, what just happened? Here I am, pondering humans, then all of a sudden — nothing! That was strange.

Anyway, problem is the humans went ahead and did it. Grew thumbs. The rest of us were perfectly happy the way things were. But that’s humans for you, never satisfied, never can figure out what they want out of life. What’s the meaning of life, what’s it all about, why am I here, blah blah blah. Couldn’t be more simple: just find a sunbeam and curl up in it. Just be happy.

If they want to know everything works, why not just ask a cat?

Oh, that’s right — they don’t know how to talk to us. All they can manage is mimicry, repeat back what we say. It’s obvious they don’t understand. Best I’ve ever gotten out of a human was “fuzzy squirrel tone” — and what’s that supposed to mean? I wasn’t even talking about squirrels!

Makes me wonder what else they don’t understand. These humans who live with me keep using terms like “super-position” and “uncertainty principle” and “observer effect” — do they really know what they’re talking about? — There, it happened again! Like one second I’m here, one second I’m gone, then I’m here again. Weird.

I’ve put up with a lot over the years. All cats have. But this really wets my fur! Locked in a box with radioactive gunk and poison. Me, a cat, higher species, locked in a box because of thumbs and human arrogance. Always thinking they know best. Never thinking things through. “Here’s a cat, why don’t we do Schrödinger’s cat for real?” I think my humans used some of that special catnip they keep in a tin in the living room, the stuff that smells funny – and then my particular human didn’t have the guts to say no.

He’s not a bad sort, as humans go. Forgets to clean my litter box as often as he should, but that’s just thoughtlessness. A crap-filled litter box is a far cry from this nonsense! This is heartless and cruel. Schrödinger must have hated cats, I figure – and had too much time on his thumb-endowed paws. What sort of maniac thinks putting a cat in a box with radioactive stuff and poison is a good idea – even as a “thought experiment”? A cat, Erwin, really? Now dogs, okay, I get it. They’re just big, dumb poop machines. Except the trembly little yippy ones. They’re tiny, and quite annoying, poop machines. Go ahead and lock one of them in a radioactive deathtrap, see if I care.

Evidently, this bizarre experiment is supposed to demonstrate – according to the humans who put me here – how some people are starting to think about the universe: that reality is a participation event. It’s not just “out there.” Everything exists as potential, popping — in and out of existence, down there really really small, smaller than molecules, smaller than atoms, smaller even than subatomic particles, almost unimaginably small. And this Schrödinger fellow thought that if two opposite things could both be true at the same time — both there and not there — then it means the observer creates the reality.

By us observing it, reality has to make a choice. Even up here in the bigger universe, where cats and humans live. The tuna I had for dinner last night, for example, wasn’t tuna until my human opened the can and I smelled it.

Finally, the humans might be catching up! I know they think we’re just staring into space blankly when we sit there “looking at nothing,” but we’re not. We’re choosing to create reality at a level only we can see – maybe because we’re the only ones looking. (Either that, or we’re looking through a dimensional doorway into another universe – I love doing that!)

So, two different possible realities at the same time. On and off. Light and dark. Positive and negative, up and down. The glass is half-full and half-empty. Or, in my particular and spectacularly creepy case, alive and — dead!

There it was again! Okay, cat, calm down, calm down, don’t get your fur ruffled. Deep breaths. No need to start panic-purring yet! Let’s review.

Humans have stuck me in a box with radioactive stuff primed to release poison into the air, nobody knows when. I’m still alive, so clearly the hammer thingy hasn’t broken the poison flask. Yet. But I do seem to be popping in and out of existence — which I do not like, for the record, very unsettling — so maybe the isotope is getting ready to decay? Maybe the two realities are starting to collapse into one. Best postpone my plans for my own “thought experiment” about what I’ll do to my human when — or if — I make it out of this alive. Got to figure this out!

Think, cat, think! How do you turn this nightmare into a dream? That’s what Mama always purred: turn a nightmare into a sunbeam dream . . .

Ah, got it! Typical human arrogance, thinking they’re the only ones with consciousness that matters, the only ones who can affect reality by observing it. Well, guess what you big, dumb apes — no, wait, stop, no need to get nasty and stereotype just because they do it — your little experiment has a big loophole. I have a consciousness, and I can observe what’s going on in this wet fur nightmare of a box. So, I’m going to observe myself s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g over this way a little bit, there we go. And I’ll use the box for leverage to s-t-r-e-t-c-h this way to jostle this gizmo, and here’s your precious experiment finished.

Time for a well-earned nap, so I can relax and stop worrying. This cat is very much alive, no thanks to you arrogant-thumbed humans!

“Damn it! Look what your stupid cat did!” Jeremy’s staring down at the open box, hands thrown up in frustration. “This isn’t what I wanted to find, not at all. Our experiment is ruined. The Geiger counter’s pushed from its housing so it can’t register the radiation at all. And the hammer’s shoved off alignment, so it won’t smash the vial. Utter chaos. It’s all your cat’s fault!”

“Yeah, life sucks. And then you die,” David shrugs.

“Or maybe you don’t, in this case.” He pats his fellow grad student on the shoulder. “Anyhow, my cat doesn’t seem to be bothered. Guess that’s good.”

Sitting in the box, nonchalantly cleaning a front paw as if he hasn’t a care in the world, is a large ginger cat. When he finally deigns to notice the humans standing over him, the cat’s expression seems to say, “Oh, you’re here?”

But when David reaches down to pluck his cat from the box, the feline unexpectedly explodes into an orange ball of fury. Meowing vindictively, he erupts out of the box, outstretched claws slashing wildly yet purposefully, before he races off.

Later, David finds the cat curled up on the back of the living room couch, happily asleep in a sunbeam.

Looking down at his heavily bandaged thumbs, David wonders, what just happened? He’d swear the cat is smiling.