Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox. For those hearing about this for the first time, a quick explanation is this.
In Schrodinger’s imaginary experiment, you place a cat in a box with a tiny bit of radioactive substance. When the radioactive substance decays, it triggers a Geiger counter which causes a poison or explosion to be released that kills the cat. Now, the decay of the radioactive substance is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. This means that the atom starts in a combined state of “going to decay” and “not going to decay”.
According to Dr. Christopher S. Baird “Schrodinger constructed his imaginary experiment with the cat to demonstrate that simple misinterpretations of quantum theory can lead to absurd results which do not match the real world. Unfortunately, many popularizers of science in our day have embraced the absurdity of Schrodinger’s Cat and claim that this is how the world really works.”. But no, the world doesn’t work like that, Quantum Physics and the Physical world are two different things despite how philosophers are trying to twist this thought experiment.
I thought about this thought experiment and how we often want to view life. We think that outcomes are based on whether we choose to observe/act them or not. We have constructed a world for ourselves that we think exists in a superposition state where two possibilities exist at the same time.
We think that if we don’t chase after opportunities then we have both succeeded and failed, that if we block people and possible outcomes that they both turn out well and bad. But the truth is, this is not how the world functions, whether you act and open up the box, your answer is already yes or no, you definitely failed or passed your exam whether you choose to check your results or not.
The outcome is already set, it’s up to you to have the guts to go ahead and face it.