I Don't Want to Kill the Cat if it Kills Me

They say, “Curiosity killed the cat.”

The witty reply, “But satisfaction brought it back."

I suppose, but what if there’s no damn cat?

In theory, the idea of knowing the truth, the ultimate truth (whatever that implies) is extremely appealing. Isn’t it what we long to discover in hopes that the answer to man’s greatest question would make our existences feel more substantial?

Science, interestingly, turns many of those philosophical musings from asking with the intent of a “why” to that of a “how.”

And now, I present an anecdote: Schrödinger's cat and then some

My high school had a brilliant, brilliant idea to have ninth graders study a semester of physics and a semester of chemistry before picking one to study for a yearlong in tenth grade. In theory, once again, it was an appealing idea. We would be exposed to a cornucopia of knowledge and free to decide for ourselves (though freedom was limited to the two options). In reality, throwing a bunch of pre-teenagers who barely understand the phenomena of puberty into an introductory physics class was… stupid.

We couldn’t understand most of the principles without later suffering from a headache and whatever watered down physics we learned simply wasn’t retained (fall/winter/spring/summer break amnesia).

Perhaps, the only thing I vividly remember from ninth grade physics was my professor, a kind woman who was new to teaching. Prior to standing before a class and trying to get them to stay awake, she was a physicist (and her husband was a researcher for NASA, isn’t that such a lovely match?)

She saw the world with all of its forces; we didn’t.

One day, during lab, she introduced to us the Cat.

In retrospect, everything seems to be related to cats (and I’m allergic).

“The cat,” she said with gusto, “is simultaneously alive and dead!”

She was faced with blank stares.

“But even if it didn’t die because of the poison or radiation, then would it die out of hunger or suffocation?”

“It’s… theoretical.”

“So theoretical cats don’t die?”

“It’s alive AND dead.”

“But…it’s a cat…in a box…”

By the time class ended, we stuffed the cat back into its box and buried the box alongside other academic jumble until the thought receded.

The semester ended and I concluded: that was awful. At least whatever we learn next will be better in comparison.

I was wrong. Chemistry was a mind-rapist, and I was left with the only option of regurgitating the textbook heavy enough to use as a weapon to get decent grades.

Trying to remember the different bonds and how atoms were attracted to each other (in a non-romantic way) was hard enough but trying to balance equations and calculate the amount of molecules in a theoretical drop of such and such made me flinch with fear.

I don’t doubt that science can create and manipulate properties of the unthinkable or that we can discover more than we do and should know, but science, at times, makes me feel hollow.

Am I nothing more than a mass of molecules, which in turn are masses of atoms, which then are masses of subatomic particles? Is the body nothing more than a system that one day will cease to function?

Isn’t it unsettling to think that your prefrontal cortex is responsible for determining your personality, when we think it’s something we have shaped with our life experiences? Shouldn’t we be able to define our own existences?

Why is it that so much in life is predetermined?

FATE and SCIENCE...

...sometimes, I don’t see much difference between the two, and while I don’t want to live a life of ignorance and half-truths, I would much rather stumble blindly in search of a “why?” than be blinded by the answer to a “how?”