Erwin Schrödinger tackled the Copenhagen interpretation by using a Cat, which became known as Schrödinger’s Cat. His thought experiment presented a scenario where the cat in question was both alive and dead at the same time. Schrödinger explained that in his thought experiment he placed the cat in a box with a flask of poison and a radioactive source. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity then the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. Clearly Schrödinger was a dog man, not a cat man! The problem is that after a while the cat is seen to be simultaneously alive and dead. Yet if someone looks in the box, the cat is seen as either alive or dead, not both. 

Schrödinger’s Cat Becomes a Ghost

So, where am I going with all this I hear you shout! Well the basis of Schrödinger’s thought experiment is the question of when reality collapses into one possibility or another. This result usually becomes understood when observed. However what if in an environment with more variables, some of which are not entirely understood by us, reality doesn’t completely collapse into one possibility, but is shaped in part by the observer too?

Schrödinger’s Ghost – A Thought Experiment

Imagine a thought experiment if you will. Imagine a room situated in an old building that is several hundred years old. The room only has one access door, which you are stood outside. As you’re stood outside the room, which you’ve never been in before, you can imagine roughly what to expect when you open the door. This expectation is built from your experience, your belief system, your faith, your education and from information you may have been passed regarding the room. This expectation has set the probable boundaries of what the room maybe. At the very least you’ve an understanding of the shape and size of the room. As for the contents well that expectation is set by any information you may have on the room. However, what if the room is far from set. In fact what if the rooms location or at least it’s entrance is all we know. What if time in that room isn’t set either, which means any time frame within the room is possible, but only realised once we observe it. 

With these possibilities in place perhaps time and events only settle once we observe the room ourselves. Oddly if this is the case then maybe a room like this could echo events or individuals previously in the room. Hence they may sometimes overlap as the room settles to the observers understanding of that reality. Which in turn provides us with our ghosts. 

The Problem with Schrödinger’s Ghost

The fundamental problem with this is that we observe time as linear and trust our interpretation of the world around us. I suppose therefore that attempting to visualise the unseen world as currently at a state of flux at least as far as time is considered is a little bit of a leap of faith. Still let’s throw that linear understanding of time out of the window for this and buy into the concept that all time events exist within the room until observed when they collapse into a known singular reality. 

Now if we bring three people into the room; 1) The Believer, 2)The Non-Believer and 3)The Undecided. Now although the room will present itself as a particular reality that all three may agree upon, there may also be variations to that reality based on the perception of each person. The Believer for example may hear, see or receive types of communication from beyond the time based reality they exist in. This could be perceived as spiritual communication both localised in space and time, but may not necessarily be the case. The Non-Believer may see only a simple room located in their space and time, with no evidence that the contents of this room may have been anything apart from what is seen. However the Undecided person may have confused understanding of the room, perhaps constantly questioning the events and experience he has within it. Sound familiar? 

The Interesting Thing About Space and Time

The concept I’m suggesting here is that where we often attribute the survival of someone’s consciousness to a spirit and believe it exists in our own space time, we could in fact be mistaken. As much as we may believe and be convinced by communications from spirits which appear to prove knowledge from beyond the grave; can we really say that the source is that which we believe it to be. This paradox has continued to prevent proof of survival for many years and may continue to do so. 

Could our experience of ghosts and spirits be temporal shadows and echoes? Until we can truly observe them and understand them they may constantly remain just beyond our understanding, Schrödinger’s Ghost.