Schrödinger's Cat: The Quantum Mechanics of Speciesism
"It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated."
-Alec Bourne
Philosophy of Science
Let me preface this by saying that I have absolutely no expertise in complex scientific theory, but I understand enough about this particular one to offer some insight. Don't worry, I'm not going to be delving into the intricacies of quantum physics -- I don't know anything about it, really -- but instead, I want to explore the philosophy of "Schrödinger's cat."
The Cat in Question
The theory behind Schrödinger's cat is that if a cat were placed in a box with noxious gas that has a 50 percent chance of killing the cat within a certain span of time, once that time is up, the cat is both alive and dead. This is meant to serve as an example of superposition, a core principle of quantum mechanics in which multiple quantum states can be added together to form one quantum state. (But that's not really relevant to my argument, and, also, I don't understand any of it.)
Speciesism & Anthropocentrism
The primary issue with this thought experiment is its inherent speciesism. For one, the "object" being used is a cat, a living creature, instead of something inanimate. Of course, Dr. Schrödinger, as far as I'm aware, never used a cat to observe his theory in action, but the fact that a nonhuman animal is placed in this hypothetical position shows how we perceive their worth. Since this is an entirely imaginary situation, he could have placed anything or anyone in the fictional box -- a human child, himself, a chair with a bomb that may or may not explode -- but he chose an animal. Because that's what we do to animals. Even in a hypothetical, it's wrong to kill a human, but animals are expendable. Alive like humans, capable of suffering and dying, this makes them good for experimentation.
As I said above, I won't pretend to know anything about physics, but I find this experiment to be fundamentally flawed because it doesn't account for the fact that the cat is a sentient individual with their own consciousness and experience of existence. To them, it's impossible to exist in two opposing states; they are either alive or dead. But because we place them in this position and observe them from our limited human perception, we can proclaim that they are simultaneously alive and deceased. However, this completely overlooks that individual's own experience, and this anthropocentrism permits us to do many more, very real, harmful acts against animals.
If we were to instead use a different fictional scenario in which a chair is sealed in a box with a bomb that has a fifty percent chance of detonating, the chair would then, once the time is up, be both intact and destroyed. Its existence is dependent upon humans' perception of it and therefore can't experience being either whole or in pieces. It's only when we bring in living things and creatures that this theory becomes problematic because it ignores the sentience of its victims.
be conscious, be kind, be vegan
Related posts you may enjoy:
"Frankenstein Society: Animal Use in Science"
"Does the 'Ends Justify the Means' Argument Align with Veganism?"