On Quantum Cats

 On Quantum Cats

and Feline Psychism

 

Cats have been associated with quantum mechanics ever since Shroedinger’s tale of a cat in a half-dead, half-alive quantum state. But Shroedinger did not mention that a cat can sleep all day, then lightly jump its own body length straight up; so cats are already half-dead and half-alive , by nature.

Cats reveal their quantum nature in many ways. For instance cats, like electrons, are easily excited by laser light. Felines display nonclassical behaviors such as superfluidity, invisibility, dematerialization, rematerialization, and tunneling through barriers.

Cats, like all quantum particles, display a dual nature; particle and wave. When observed, they’re particle-like, with a momentum and a localized position, albeit fuzzy; but when unobserved they propagate like waves, completely filling space.

Cats obey the uncertainty principle; you can specify a cat’s position or momentum, but not both. If you put a cat in a room and close the door, then you know where the cat is, but you have no idea how fast the cat is moving; and if you let the cat out and wait until the cat stops making noise, then you know that the cat is at rest, but you have no idea where the cat is.

In quantum mechanics, there is a distinction between two kinds of experimental ignorance. There is classical ignorance, where certain facts exist, but the scientist does not know them; and there is quantum ignorance, in which the facts in question are not known because they do not exist. Cats, in their dealings with us, experience classical ignorance; they do not know our thoughts, but those thoughts exist. We, in our dealings with cats, experience quantum ignorance; we do not know their thoughts, because those thoughts do not exist.

If a cat is observed at point A, and later at point B, then the cat propagated from A to B via every pathway. Spin action along each history; sum over all feline histories; the result is the cat’s quantum wave; which is, of course, the cat’s purr. If you are holding a cat and it is purring loudly, then its amplitude in your arms is large, so it is probably there.

Quantum mechanics is notorious for having multiple interpretations; so too with quantum cats. From one point of view, you can say that cats can teleport. This is the “classical” theory of feline door-tunneling. But from another point of view, you can say that cats merely seem to teleport, but in fact have superhuman intelligence in regards to stealth. In this “parapsychological” theory of feline door-tunneling, cats are smaller, swifter, softer, suppler, and sneakier than human; hence the illusion of feline teleportation.

By “parapsychological”, I mean any investigation where the (feline) subject is more intelligent than the (human) investigator. This is in distinction to “orthopsychological”, which describes an investigation where the investigator is smarter than the subject. Orthopsychology is classical, definitive, analytic and dualistic;  parapsychology is romantic, mysterious, intuitive and paradoxical. The former is a result of the investigator’s outwitting the subject; the latter is a result of the reverse.

Parapsychology is psychism; which refers to the mind; or in other words, being outwitted. Cats are often psychic in that sense; they can outwit you. They fit John Campbell’s definition of an alien; one who thinks as well as a human but not like a human.

Are other quantum particles also psychic in that sense? Do electrons have us psyched?