Monday, January 18, 2010

And Then It Got Philosophical.

Firstly, thanks to anyone who reads my blog. I know it's quite few right now, but still, at least there are people. =)

Secondly, I'm just so glad to have resolved a niggling feeling that's been occupying my brain since late last year.

A while ago, I was musing whether I should take up physics as a career. Maybe an astrophysicist or something in the quantum mechanics field. Theory and all that, or carrying out experiments to do with smashing atoms and stuff. But then for a long time I've also wanted to do medicine.

For a while all I did was think about it. You can say I thought myself crazy.

Then a few days ago, while reading about dark energy and the universe, it dawned on me that maybe I didn't want to do physics after all.

You see, the reason I like weird things like spacetime and wave-particle duality is because it's something to think about, a puzzle. And I think in a freaky philosophical sense, I associate it with death. Quantum theory speaks of our consciousness observing things. Is there really such a consciousness in animals?

If you put a cat in a box, and it has the probability of dying or being alive in the next hour, and you need a consciousness to observe just one result, does the cat have its own consciousness?

Or does it need a human being to observe it? And what happens to this consciousness when you die? It is still there?

And where did the universe come from? What happens down a black hole?

If I were a physicist I'm afriad I would be thinking all day. I'll probably think myself to insanity; that's just what I tend to do.

On the other hand if I pursued medicine I would be busy at the least. I would be doing things everyday. I would be doing things that would help people. I would be doing things my whole life, and I wouldn't have the chance to think myself to insanity.

And then perhaps I could read and think about physics in my spare time. =)

I think this is the best resolution I have come up with. I'm happy with it.

1 comment:

sparkle dust said...

... wow.
the think till you're insane part is damn true.