This was actually the very first Grilled Atheist Question, posted on July 4, 2011. An oversight when I was setting up this blog prevented it from being included in the archive.
Dear Brother Sam,
As a critique of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger devised a paradoxical thought puzzle in which a cat is placed in a box with a lethal amount of poisonous gas that is automatically triggered to murder said cat should a Geiger counter detect a spontaneous decay of a radioactive substance. According to the paradox, it is only after the lid of the cat box is opened to an observer that the quantum wave function collapses to reveal whether the cat is alive or dead. This requires the cat to exist in a ghostly hybrid state of live/dead cat prior to opening the lid to let the cat out of the bag...er, box...letting the cat out of the box. Is this not an example of the human anthropic principle run amok that the cat, itself, is unable to be the observer that collapses the wave function long before Herr Schrödinger returns from his coffee break to open the lid?
Love,
Brother T. Scott Brown
Dear Brother T.,
Yes.
Love,
Brother Sam
