Superposition

For most of this term, the way I understood quantum mechanics was something like this:

Some particle is moving with some momentum "p" at some position "x". We at the outside world don't know either x or p, but we can measure them. However, since the particle being measured is tiny, any measurement we take will require hitting the particle with an electron, which knocks it out of its previous trajectory, and imparts onto it a new momentum, and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle thus arises. In my opinion, the particle had a definite momentum and position before we took the measurement; it knew them, but we didn't, because from the macroscopic world we're just too big.

And the way I pictured Schroedinger's Cat was like this: before we open the box, the cat is already dead or alive. The cat itself already knows its state before we open the box (or rather, doesn't know because it's DEAD). Opening the box doesn't changing anything more than a philosophical observation from the perspective outside the box, after which we can collapse a wavefunction from weighted probabilities of eigenstates to a single eigenstate.

Right?

Anyway, that's how I viewed it. And after explaining that to someone else in my class, the response I got, surprisingly, was that I was just WRONG. Apparently at the quantum level, particles really have no definite position and direction; give 'em a brain, consciousness, and self-gauging position-o-meter or momentum-o-meter, and STILL they have no definite position and direction. And Schroedinger's Cat? As the saying goes, dead AND alive.

Enough about quantum; I'm much more interested in the philosophical implications of this idea: that one can actually be in a superposition of states. Like, one single individual, not a weighted average of one person out of a million. For example, what is Alice's opinion toward Proposition 1? The thing is, Alice's idea can change a million times, but in the end all that counts is the way she votes.

I think what I'm getting at is, I've found that our opinions on people can change a million times in a short span of time as well. What practical difference this makes is questionable, because in the end, our "true" opinion is the very one that our actual action reflects. So it doesn't really matter what I THINK is right; my actions will speak for me.

So I guess the moral of the story is, think less and act more; be less like a quantum particle and more like a man.

... and a Two

... Every morning is new. We never live the same day twice, we are never afraid of getting up every morning. Why?"