A moment for belief

I am not looking for religion.

I am not looking for religion, but I understand why it exists. I mean, look around. Do you know how absolutely absurd it is that this all exists, that you exist? It is terrifying to contend with the fact that not only do we have consciousness and walk on two legs, but there are these giants we call trees, formations we call mountains, expanses we call oceans. Theoretically, none of this should exist, but by mere happenstance of being in the right place at the right time it all does. So, I understand needing religion, needing answers, needing something to believe in.

We exist due to a seemingly infinite number of improbable outcomes.

I’m not saying I believe there are multiple universes that branch out from every decision ever made. I am saying that the fact I am writing this is a result of trillions of instances where an improbable option became the outcome against a million other equally improbable potentials. Humans are a species made up of near misses, of photo finishes. So, of course, we shout, “Thank God!” whenever we live to see another day. It gives us peace of mind to assume that there is some type of persuading force that is encouraging our continued existence. Something out of our control that is controlling our future and has controlled our past.

The parable of Schrodinger’s cat is often misrepresented.

We often hear that if we were to lock a cat in a box, without being able to observe it in any manner the cat is either alive or dead. There are two options, equally likely, and one of them has occurred. I have never understood this version of the story. If he just sticks his perfectly healthy cat in a box, why on earth would it be dead when he opens it? It seems far more likely that the cat will stay alive because obviously that potential outcome is more probable given the details provided. The way the original story was told was that Schrodinger hypothetically poisons his cat and then sticks it in the box. First of all, now it seems like the two options are more equally weighted, so I have always preferred this version. In this telling, while the cat is in the box, unobserved, we know of the two potentials and they exist simultaneously. The cat is both alive and dead. Until we open the box, until we make the observation, until we interpret one of the two potentials to have occurred, the cat is alive and dead.

It is our interpretation that finalizes an outcome.

We see the same phenomena occur when dealing with light. Light being both a particle and a wave, simultaneously, until we interpret it as just one. I have always found it funny that people believe that observation precedes interpretation. That is not what history tells us. Back in the 17th century, the scientists of the day were all arguing about whether light was a wave or a particle. They picked their sides and developed experiments to prove they were correct. The point is they had their interpretations before they ever made an observation. They designed experiments that would without fail show that they were either correct or incorrect, nothing in between. While there was always a chance that they could be incorrect, as many scientists have been, I believe their steadfast, powerfully back interpretation of the outcome that still existed in potential form, swayed the scale. Those who set out to find particles found particles, and those who set out to find waves found waves. The effort expelled to hope that a potential would come to reality, to interpret a potential as a future outcome, is what swayed the scales. That’s what I believe.

I believe that anything is possible, but nothing happens for a reason.

There is no reasoning or logical-izing our way through life or creation of new futures. We can learn and observe and grow our minds to understand all of the potential that exists, but that alone will not bring it into reality. Someone has to open the metaphorical box in their mind and make a determination that the cat is either alive or dead. Maybe if enough people believe with their whole heart that the cat is alive and they design an experiment to look inside the box without opening it that will prove that the cat is alive, then the cat will live. We have to not only have hope and think about the potentials we wish to exist, but we have to take action. We need to create the opportunity for the potential we wish to become a reality to become reality. We need to design a life where the scale is in our favor, but also remember that there is always an equally improbable option that exists as a potential we don’t want.

We are the result of unlikely outcomes, with the power to choose what is preferable, but always at the mercy of chance.

That’s what I believe in.