Evolution of love

THE LIMITS OF LOGIC

Few pause to consider the limits of logic and language as the tools we generally employ in our quest for knowledge. As quantum theory increasingly gains ascendancy in everyday technological applications, as when we create tunneling microscopes and quantum- based computers, those actively working to find applications for its marvelous facets often confront its illogical or non-rational nature but ignore it. After all, only the math and technological applications matter to them. They have a job to do; leave meaning to the science philosophers. Moreover, one needn’t understand something in order to enjoy its benefits, as men standing at the altar have realized since time immemorial.
Still, the more one deals with quantum theory, the more amazing (meaning counterlogical) it becomes—even beyond the experiments discussed in earlier chapters. To illustrate this, recall that in everyday life, choices are normally narrowed down to specific possibilities. If you’re looking for your cat, it is either in the living room or not in the living room. Or, perhaps, partially in and partially out, if it is napping in the doorway. Those are the only three possibilities, and no one can conceive of any others.
But in the quantum world, when a particle or bit of light has traveled from point A to point B, and there are mirrors that allow bounces so that it can reach its destination by either of two routes, an amazing thing happens.
Careful experiments involving blockable mirrors and such show that the particle has not taken path A, nor taken path B. It also has not somehow split itself up and taken both paths, nor has it gotten there by taking neither path. Because these are the only choices we can conceive, the electron has defied logic and done something else, something that we cannot imagine. Particles doing such seemingly impossible things are said to be in a state of superposition.
Now, superpositions are routine in the real quantum universe, but they seem extraordinary because they show, without any doubt, that our ways of thinking simply don’t work in all segments of the cosmos. This is a very important realization, one that is unique in human history and inarguably one of the great revelations of the twentieth century.
Or consider this, told to a condemned man: Speak! If you lie, you will be hanged. If you tell the truth, you will be put to the sword. So the prisoner says: I will be hanged! After much tortured discussion, the jailors decide they have no choice but to release him.