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This piece arises
from the meeting of two images. One, from the world of physics,
of Schrodinger's cat. The other, from various contemplative
traditions, of the hermit in a cell.
My aim is to show
the connection between these two images, which at first seem
world's apart. In doing so I hope to point out a gap in current
scientific practice. I would also like to suggest the shape
of a possible future science - one which pays as much attention
to our fears and desires as to our ideas.
Of course, I'm
not suggesting that we should all shut ourselves away in boxes!
My action is simply intended to flush some thoughts and feelings
out into the open. The first ones to come are generally grotesque
and lumbering, but I hope that eventually a subtler understanding
follows.
You may well ask
why someone should want to do something so extreme. Well,
I want to demonstrate actual, practical commitment to an abstract,
philosophical position. My intention is not to celebrate some
sort of denial. I am not interested in the endurance of hardship
for its own sake. Nor am I advocating sensory deprivation.
On the contrary I want to fully engage the senses without
the distractions by which they are usually muffled.
Closer and closer
attention to the intricate detail of sensation leads to a
progressive falling away of distractions. The more clear and
undisturbed this focus can be, the more accurately can the
actual nature of things be seen. This is deep science. It
is a science in which the reactions and emotions of the scientist
are as important as the object "out there".
Conventional twenty
first century science is just on the brink of this practice.
Erwin Schrodinger was an Austrian physicist who first described
his now famous cat in 1935. He was writing at a time in which
alarming findings in quantum mechanics had led Einstein to
declare stubbornly that "God does not play dice with the universe".
Schrodinger's thought experiment was designed to illustrate
the problem that the world appears to be quite different than
we know it to be. Rationally we know, from the physics of
fundamental particles, that there are no fixed objects, nothing
can be measured beyond a certain degree of precision. There
are only hazy probabilities. Our actual experience however
is filled with solid objects and certainty. At what point
does that certainty come about? The story of the cat is about
that point.
The basic situation
consists of a cat shut in a box with a vial of cyanide. (It
should be stressed that this is a thought experiment. No "real"
cat is harmed!) A small amount of radioactive material is
left in the box which may or not decay within an hour. There
is no way of saying just when the unstable atom will release
its electron, only that it eventually will. If it does a Geiger
counter clicks, a hammer is released, which breaks the vial,
freeing the gas and killing the cat.
The problem is
that outside the box there is no way of knowing whether or
not this has happened. It is impossible to say whether the
cat is dead or alive until the box is opened. According to
all the physical calculations the cat is both dead and alive
until the act of observation determines that it is one or
the other. Alternatively, it could be said that it is neither
alive nor dead until the act of looking somehow creates it.
Or perhaps many, many diverging, meandering and parallel universes
split off when the door is closed, populated by all the possible
states of live and dead cat, of which ours is one.
However far down
we go, even right down to the sub-atomic level, it is impossible
to pinpoint exactly the moment when the fate of the cat is
sealed. The ordinary world of our experience, by contrast,
seems very clear and definite. It would seem, then, that the
mind is radically implicated in the material world. This is
quite a revelation when the world has so far been viewed as
an object, to be analyzed and manipulated like a machine,
quite separate from the disembodied spirit.
A science which
includes consciousness as an integral part of nature, which
feels what it studies, must surely have implications for our
sense of ethical responsibility, environmental awareness and
compassion. A science like this begins to look like religion
or art.
But such names
are less important than a practical method. The technique
known as vipassana is such a method. Traditionally taught
to beginners over the course of ten days, it consists simply
of calmly observing, without any trace of judgement or interference,
sensations of all kinds, as they arise from moment to moment.
This is what I
will try to do.
Ansuman Biswas
The Gateway
Project is generously supported by the National Endowment
for the Arts, The Arts Council of England, The British Council,
and the San Francisco Grants for the Arts Hotel Tax Fund.
Additional support for the project has been provided by Lois
Keidan, Live Arts Development Agency (London) and Rob LaFrenais,
curator, Arts Catalyst (London), Mrs. Ralph I. Dorfman, Alan
Millar, Michael Naimark, Steve Sekiguchi, and The Headlands
Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California.
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