The
hypothetical soul of Erwin Schrodinger
Was ushered into a small office by an efreet
Who had itself been recently hired. It gave
him
A mug of something brown and hot which proved
To be a Japanese fermented honey drink.
While he was drinking, his cat slowly coalesced
In the chair next to him and sat there, unspeaking
Schrodinger's soul absentmindedly scratched the cat
(If he hadn't been distracted by his own death
And the unfamiliar taste of alcoholic honey
He'd have reflected that souls, real or alleged,
Aren't supposed to drink or have cats or fingers)
The cat also sat at a desk, looking at a file
Which it put aside with a sigh, saying
"A few preliminaries, Dr. Schrodinger.
This is -- you probably realize this --
Not Heaven nor Hell nor Lua-o-milu nor, honestly,
Is it one of the otherworldly constructs
Properly authorized to receive souls.
Neither is it one of those mushroom afterworlds
Which spring up in a day and perish in the night.
No indeed! Where you are is, in a way,
Where you've always been: in a box --
A box quite similar to the one in which
You placed me in your famous thought-experiment.
There, you'll recall, unless or until someone
Came
by and actually looked in the box
My life hung upon an atomic event. As you put it:
"The cat still lives if meanwhile no atom
Has decayed. The first atomic decay would have
poisoned it.
The psi-function of the entire system would express
this
By having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the
expression)
Mixed or smeared out in equal parts." (Be assured;
I do pardon the expression). The Authorities,
If there are any, were or would have been impressed
By your understanding of our situation but
Perplexed that you didn't know it was yours
As well as mine. We live and we don't until
Someone outside the Box thinks to check on us.
Until then, we do our best while being
Living and dead and smeared out in equal parts.
That you're now in the same box as I am
Makes the experiment aesthetically pleasing."
Schrodinger's apparent soul was calm
As befitted one of the three or seven fathers
Of quantum physics though the only one of them
Who'd had the same daughter born three times
To three different women. He asked
"But will Someone check? Is there a God
Outside the universe who will reduce
All our possibilities to just one certainty?"
"Of course there is," said the cat.
"Of course there isn't," said the cat.
