One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.1
Today, Billy was going to be the cat, well…sort of. Billy devised a deviously simple yet powerful spin-off experiment. He would be the creature in the box. Only he would be unconscious – after all, he didn’t want to observe anything and throw the experiment off – and the box would also be able to save him by means of another device that would be triggered by the presence of hydrocyanic acid. The device, upon triggering would inject Billy with an antidote, thus reconciling his living and dead selves into one coherent whole…without outside observation. The box would then open and he would be allowed to step out.
The brilliance of this was, of course, that with no intelligent observation performed on Billy while he was in the box, he would continue to be both alive and dead, because once the box was open, one state would not be distinguishable from the other.
Most scientists would have been content just to have hypothesized this experiment, and would have never gone through with it. What good could it serve the scientific community? The facts were proven without ever having to kill yourself to get them.
Well, Billy didn’t give a tiny rat’s ass about the scientific community or anybody else for that matter. He was doing this for himself.
Billy had his own hypothesis of what would happen when the box opened. It’s a fairly well regarded fact that matter in a wave function (matter existing in two simultaneous states as per the laws of quantum physics, such as Billy’s body be in this experiment) no longer follows the laws of classical physics. It, in fact, follows no laws. The matter within a wave function is essentially free from the laws of gravity, friction, mass, energy, and even density. It could be everywhere at once, or nowhere at all. It could fly across the entire universe in a matter of seconds. Its power is limitless!
And therein lies the reason for this mad endeavor. Billy’s body would be permanently stuck in a wave function. He would be infinitely powerful. He would be like a god.
Billy entered the box thinking that in the course of the next several hours, he would become a god. What Billy didn’t realize, however, was that his powers would also be uncontrollable. Control relates to observation, and that can’t be done on wave function, or else it ceases to be a wave function.
As Billy left the box, his mind stopped sensing his body. He couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t use it to interact. To everyone else his body had disappeared also. The box just opened to dead air. But Billy was still alive, his mind containing every known square inch of the universe. He could not feel his body but he could feel the center of the sun at the same time he felt the absolute zero of the coldest portions of the universe. Saw the brightest bright and the darkest dark at the same time; every color bombarding his non-existent eyes at once. He smelled every atom at every second. He even tasted them. He knew what the center of the sun tasted like. He could even have told you that the milky way actually tastes something like a red hot chili pepper with extra vomit. He could have told you that, if he could have talked. But he had no control over any of it. His mind became a passive input machine for every scrap of data that the universe put out. He wished that he could commit suicide, but his mind persisted. It persists even to this day. Coldly observing everything, wishing for death to come and end its endless torment.
If it’s a girl we’re going to name her Random Isabella Lynn Weirick. If it’s a boy, we’re going to name him Chance, but we haven’t decided on the middle names yet. Can you tell we’re wanting a girl? Either way, Random/Chance lived up to her/his name. Alicia passed out at work and got a cuncussion, so the next day we took her to the ER because she could barely stand she was still dizzy. A few hours and a few tests later, the doctor tells us she’s pregnant and her uteris pressing on an artery caused her to pass out. She’s ok now though. She’s due March 21, 2009. We’re a little scared, but overall, excited.
