calvin, hobbes and the schrödinger cat
By: Miguel de Asúa'Beauty is truth, truth beauty', -that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
John Keats
Ode on a Grecian Urn
We always arrive late (though, it is better late than never arriving).
When Bill Watterson, the author of the famous comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, decided to retire, a well known newspaper of the city where I reside, started to publish the news amongst it's readers (obviously, translated -in some form- to Spanish).
Calvin and Hobbes would soon be gone, and from that top of sensible intelligence they brought us, we can can not get down of easily.
Here, in my city of Buenos Aires (from which, I can not let go of, for historical or familiarity of, reasons) I have found a follower of "Hobbesian Calvinism" (my friend Carlitos), who also considers himself, devote follower of the sacred texts of this cult. Perhaps, because I am an optimist (except during Sundays at sunset), I hope this article will awaken a new interest in, and a legion of fans to Calvin and Hobbes, growing until the few transform into masses.
Calvin is a six year old boy, who lives with his desperate parents (the reason for their desolation, being Calvin). He has no siblings, however, he has Hobbes. Who (or what) is Hobbes, is what we will try to discuss here. Until then, lets just say that Calvin plays with a very charismatic tiger that speaks, moves, feels, to put it plainly, has life. When in the corresponding panel, however, an adult appears, Hobbes is then, at that moment only a stuffed tiger, like any other.
The comic strip revolves around Calvin's life, his indifference to the destruction of his family's property, during the course of his hyperactive runs through the house, his ambivalent relation, love-hate with Susie Derkins, his imaginary adventures as Spaceman Spiff or Stupendous Man, his scholastic and sometimes not scholastic tribulations with his teacher, his encounters with Moe, a big, dull-witted and prepotent classmate, and his never ending play with Hobbes, that adopts various forms: Calvinball (a ball game, with constantly changing rules, usually, depending on who is winning the game), various fights, logical- linguistic contests or time traveling and using the transmorgifier; card board box that -as the name indicates- transforms anyone that enters it. When he is in a benevolent mood, Hobbes is a cheerful companion; besides playing; he sustains with Calvin long and reflexive dialogues that, ironic o melancholic, are always a model of ingenuous alert.
Calvin and Hobbes, like all texts, is open to interpretation y leaves many queries, that go farther than the pure human pleasure that their reading constitutes, perhaps, being that, their last reason of being. One of the more interesting questions is of metaphysical order (the names given to the protagonists of this strip, already subliminally invite you toward philosophical reflection): What is the ontological status of Hobbes?, or to be less arrogant in my question, what is the grade of reality, that Hobbes possesses? Is he only a stuffed tiger, that only Calvin can behold as real? Or is the tiger real, who nobody else can regard as real? Let's analyze the possibilities more closely.
Hypothesis One. The most obvious interpretation coincides with the vision of the world that is offered by philosophic realism. The real Hobbes, is the stuffed tiger; the Hobbes that is seemingly alive, Calvin's best friend; is no more than the figment of imagination of a six year old boy, what most child psychiatrists would call an imaginary friend, a being, that the child considers existent, but in reality, does not exist. This would the hypothesis of common sense. No one, except Calvin, ever saw Hobbes as a real tiger. If we accept the intersubjective verification (a constituency) a requirement to affirm the existence of an object, than Hobbes does not exist, except as a stuffed tiger. Science not only admits empirical objects (intersubjective verification by direct observation) but, also, theoretical objects (such as quarks, black holes..). From this point of view, Hobbes the conversing tiger, could be a theoretical object and the stuffed tiger, the evidence of observing him, the empirical trace, that induces us to postulate about his existence. Here, however we will run across two inconveniences, that are very important: a) the real, live Hobbes is seen, at least by Calvin and b) there is no theory that demands the existence of the real Hobbes; and should a real, live Hobbes exist, there would be the problem of it being an ad hoc theory, to be clearer, a theory created to explain a particular phenomenon and incapable of explaining any more (a very poor and weak theory, by the way).
Hypothesis Two. The second possibility -sustained by my friend Carlitos, the local expert- is that Hobbes really does exist, accomplice to Calvin. This theory has illustratable antecedents . Remember Saint-Exupery, in Le Petit Prince, who sustains that the drawing that appears on the first page of the book is, in reality, a representation of an elephant inside a boa, and that only the incapacity of the adults to comprehend that the most things are invisible, did not allow the to see, things as they are, therefore, making them believe that the drawing was a representation of a sombrero.
From a point of view, a little more technically philosophical, this posture could be assimilated to the idealist empiricism of the Archbishop Berkeley, for whom; to be, is to be seen. Things, are the ideas we have of them. If they are to exist outside ones mind, it is because there is an infinite mind, that perceives them continually, when no other human does. This mind is of course, God. This way, the Hobbes that is alive, would remain so, as long as it is being seen by Calvin, and also, if it is being perceived by God always, being him the last guarantee that it exists. Hobbes, would then, in Borges own words, be one of those things/ that nobody sees, except Berkeley's God... and, in this case, Calvin. The only problem with this theory, is that it does not explain why others see Hobbes as an inert and silent creature.
Hypothesis Three. A third possibility, I believe, should bring light on this situation and appears free of objections. It is the solution associated with the paradox of the Schrödinger cat. This problem was planted by a famous physicist as a manifesto of the difficulties of the probabilistic (orthodox) version of quantum mechanics in 1935. First, we have a living cat and place it in a thick lead box. At this stage, there is no question that the cat is alive. We then throw in a vial of cyanide and seal the box. We do not know if the cat is alive or if it has broken the cyanide capsule and died. Since we do not know, the cat is both dead and alive, (though technically, 100% dead and 100% alive at the same time -- hence the paradox) according to quantum law, in a superposition of states. It is only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive).
However, according to the theory, none of these possibilitieshas a reality, until it is observed, or in this case, we open the box and see. What, then would be the real state of this cat, if we had not opened the box? Neither live or dead; but, since we, as observers, intervene, then the cat is either alive or dead. In other words, the state of indeterminacy, collapsed to either one state or the other, depending on the participation of the observer. In the same way, we can speculate, that Hobbes, if seen only by Calvin, manifests himself as a live tiger, but when observed by the adults, he appears as a stuffed tiger that Calvin plays with. The phenomenal form which is adopted by Hobbes, depends then on the observer. It could be argued, however, that whether Hobbes is real or not is not resolved. Nevertheless, that is one of the questions that have been tormenting the philosophers of science and physics, since the creation of the theory of quantics, and there is no reason for me, to solve such complicated ideas in this essay. I have done enough, by suggesting a possible explanation. The details, objections, contra objections remain to be resolved by the lector (like most math textbooks usually say, just when the reading gets interesting).
I do not wish, however, to close this essay without imagining the possibilities that some specialists could propose to the "Hobbes paradox". Some may recall, the classic distinction of Frege between sense (Uber Sinn) and reference (Bedeutung). His example concerns the planet Venus which was known as "the evening star" and as "the morning star" before it was realized that both were Venus. Frege argues: "the evening star" = "the morning star" does not have the same sense as "the evening star" = "the evening star" so "the evening star" does not have the same sense as "the morning star". However "the evening star" and "the morning star" refer to the same object so the reference of "the evening star" is distinct from its sense. Psychoanalysts may interpret that the lively, carefree Hobbes suggests the principle of pleasure, that presides the activities of Me, while the boring, serious stuffed Hobbes represents the principle of reality, characteristics of I, which takes care of relations in the external world. The art theorists; may grasp the idea of Gombrich and argue that all figurative representation is conventional, with which, the live Hobbes and the inanimate one are two forms to interpret the same reality using different codes of representation. A Spinoza reader may affirm that, in reality, the two Hobbes' are only two of the infinite modes of a unique substance, which is God and nature. Interpretations will continue, (for those who think all texts never say anything more than talk about the writer himself, and that Calvin is my friend Carlitos, and I am Hobbes). However, instead of continuing with this essay in vain, I prefer to occupy my Sunday (right before sunset) on reading and rereading my Calvin and Hobbes books, and to continue throwing myself into the world of these two, and entertaining myself with the adventures of Calvin and his tiger, and learning the wisdom these have to offer. In the end, what is intelligibility, but, one of the many forms of beauty?BACK TO TOP
