Plato’s Apology is about Socrates’ trial for impiety and corrupting youth, for which he was subsequently sentenced to death. In this Dialogue, Plato has Socrates saying, "The unexamined life is not worth living.” Philosopher William Jamison disagrees with Socrates (or is it just Plato?). He argues that an unexamined life is not worthless (but I don’t think Socrates is saying it is).
Jamison (“Is the Unexamined Life Worth Living?”) goes further to say that an unexamined life is not only worth living but an examined life should not be encouraged because it produces a spiritual feeling in those who engage in it. If this is allowed, according to Jamison, it could endanger both the thinker and the entire society. For Jamison, “once you get a taste of this kind of thing, you do not want to give it up." (Sounds like a drug.) Someone who engages in self-critical examination eventually becomes entangled with it, according to Jamison. He notes that Socrates became entangled with self-examination which led to his being accused of corrupting the youth and eventually sentenced to death.
I thought of Socrates when Epworth UMC decided to have a series of “Wisdom Circle” meetings to examine Epworth’s past and present to eventually discern our future. And, God help me, I got entangled in this examination. But why should we at Epworth fear “spiritual feeling” and why would we want to give it up? And why should we fear asking questions just because it’s risky to do so?
Not everyone showed up at the Wisdom Circle from the beginning and fewer and fewer attended (for a variety of reasons) as the process continued. After each gathering, notes were shared so those congregants who had not attended could be kept in the loop but I think these were those “you had to be there” kind of gatherings. And yes, we asked risky questions that may change the way we think of our church. Dangerous stuff!
Near the end of the discernment process, I thought of Schrödinger's cat, a famous hypothetical experiment designed to point out a flaw in the Copenhagen interpretation of superposition. And if you find that confusing don’t bother to understand completely. It’s related to quantum theory but you don’t really need to know all of the science-y parts to get my point which I promise to get to eventually.
All you need to know is the Copenhagen interpretation goes something like this:
A living cat is placed into a steel chamber along with a hammer, a vial of hydrocyanic acid and a very small amount of radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the radioactive substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip the hammer, which will in turn, break the vial of poisonous gas and cause the cat to die.
It's about the role of the observer. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics proposed that different possible outcomes are possible and the possibilities, called superpositions, cannot be discerned until they are observed.
Schrödinger's thought experiment was designed to show what the Copenhagen interpretation would look like if the math used to explain superposition (in the small world of atoms) was replaced by terms the average non-scientist observer (in the larger world familiar to us all) could visualize and understand. In the experiment, the observer cannot know whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed. We cannot know whether the vial has broken and the cat has been killed or whether the cat is alive.
According to quantum law under the Copenhagen interpretation, the cat will be both dead and alive until someone looks in the box.
How does this connect to Socrates? Maybe some people at Epworth don’t want to examine what is in the box because they fear the cat will be dead. On the other hand, others perhaps don’t fear the consequences of opening the box. Maybe they have hope that the cat will still be alive.
There are several fables, folk tales, and stories with concepts similar to Schrödinger's cat. “The Lady or the Tiger?” by FrankStockton is one but I’m going to go with another one about a wise old man, a young boy, and a bird.
It goes like this:
In a small village there lived a wise old man to whom everyone turned for guidance and advice. One day, a young boy decided he would confront the old man with a question that he knew the old man would not be able to answer correctly.
His plan was to find a little bird and hold it cupped in his hands hidden from sight. He would then approach the wise old man and ask him to guess what he had buried in his hands. If the old man answered it correctly, he would then ask him the zinger – whether the bird is alive or dead?
If the old man said the bird was alive, the boy would crush the bird with his hands and kill it thereby proving the old man wrong. But if the old man said it was dead, the boy would open his hands and let the bird fly free demonstrating at last that the old man was not as wise as everyone thought him to be.
So the boy ventured off and found a little sparrow that fit neatly within his hands.
As he approached the old man, the boy said, “Wise old man, can you tell what I have in my hands?”
“Why of course I can,” the old man responded without hesitation. “From all the small feathers clinging to your jacket and pants it is plain to see it is a little bird that you have cradled in your hands.”
“Ah, that is so” the young boy exclaimed, “but is the bird alive or dead?”
The old man paused for a moment then rubbed his chin in contemplation of his response.
Looking the young boy in the eyes, the old man replied in a soft tone, “Whether the bird is alive or dead is in your hands.”
This takes us from the passive observer (of quantum physics theory) to an active participant (in the real world) who has a choice. Is Epworth yet alive or have we died? It’s in our hands to decide the answer.
The latest session of the process, as I write this, was an examination (back to Socrates!) of the bitterness and anger we carry and our own roles in the presence of these emotions. We were asked to listen as others spoke their truth and assured that others would listen as we spoke ours. The process was cathartic, I believe, and needed as a path to getting past experiences that keep us from changing and moving forward
This also led me to look at the question of the glass being half empty or half full.
You might have seen this one before. It’s often used to distinguish an optimistic (half full) mindset and a pessimistic (half empty) mindset.
Then there’s a song written by Lauren Aquilina with these lines:
“Glass half empty, glass half full.
Either way you won’t be going thirsty.”
I don’t much care for most of the lyrics because they tell you to count your blessings, that you’re flawed for seeing the empty half rather than the full half. This sounds too much like blaming the victim for not making the best of whatever situation you find yourself.
- “Stop wearing those shoes/that jewelry and you won’t be robbed.”
- “So, you were raped. Get over it already and put it behind you.”
- “Racism wouldn’t exist if you just stop looking for it."
- “Stop worrying about the problems of the world and just pay attention to the things that make you happy.”
It's this mindset that gives all my cute, funny, positive Facebook posts ten times more likes, more responses than the ones about the problems of the world.
Yet, some people choose to always walk on the sunny side of life. They usually bring joy to others just by showing up. I love them for their optimism and gift of joy -- even though it's not my gift. But the pessimist I am worries they will be too often disappointed and discouraged by the darkness lurking on the other side.
This brings me to a more recent concept about that glass: The glass is always full -- half water, half air. And don't we need both air and water to live? Of course, the water is visible to anyone looking at the glass but to see the air, you have to have faith. "Believing is seeing," wrote Madeleine L'Engle in her novel Many Waters, the 4th in the Wrinkle in Time quartet.
Shouldn't we just open the box and have faith that whether we find the cat alive or dead, we can deal with whatever reality we face and boldly move into the future? It's in your hands.
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