A chief problem in quantum mechanics is measurement. There’s a famous uncertainty in the process that leaves most, if not all, of us baffled. In the macroworld of our everyday lives, we can pull out a tape measure, wrap it around our waists, and say, “Oh! No!” By using the tape, we’re certain that something has changed, and we either start some abdominal exercises or, in reconciling to what the numbers indicate about a personal expansion, drink another beer. And, if we make comparison measurements with a very close friend by measuring waistlines, the measurement of one doesn’t change the measurement of another (“My waistline has gotten bigger while yours hasn’t changed since high school”).
In the very tiny quantum world, measurement isn’t so simple. Measuring one subatomic particle can lead to a disrupted measurement of another. As David Z. Albert writes in Quantum Mechanics and Experience, “Measureable properties [like the spin of electrons] are said to be ‘incompatible’ with one another, since measurements of one will…always necessarily disrupt the other.”* Seems we have to accept the superposition of entangled particles and our inability to know simultaneously both position and motion. Quantum measurements are different from those made on expanding waistlines whose position and outward movement can be known.
But there is an uncertainty in the macroworld of human measurements, and that is the one associated with comparative living. When humans live by comparison, their measurements of another’s life can affect both the measurer and the measured. Envy is a measure, and it is often an incompatible one. Taking the measure of another’s life can affect measurer and measured when they become as intertwined as entangled subatomic particles.
Envy is rarely an isolated, private phenomenon. The envious usually share envy or attempt to disrupt any objective measurement of the envied. (“He isn’t THAT rich, and he just fell into money”; “Nobody her age could look like that without a visit to the plastic surgeon and the beauty salon”) Incompatible quantum measurements of tiny subatomic particles appear to have an analog in macroworld measurements by micro-minded individuals. But, then, maybe my measure lacks certainty.
*Harvard University Press, 1992, p. 7.
In the very tiny quantum world, measurement isn’t so simple. Measuring one subatomic particle can lead to a disrupted measurement of another. As David Z. Albert writes in Quantum Mechanics and Experience, “Measureable properties [like the spin of electrons] are said to be ‘incompatible’ with one another, since measurements of one will…always necessarily disrupt the other.”* Seems we have to accept the superposition of entangled particles and our inability to know simultaneously both position and motion. Quantum measurements are different from those made on expanding waistlines whose position and outward movement can be known.
But there is an uncertainty in the macroworld of human measurements, and that is the one associated with comparative living. When humans live by comparison, their measurements of another’s life can affect both the measurer and the measured. Envy is a measure, and it is often an incompatible one. Taking the measure of another’s life can affect measurer and measured when they become as intertwined as entangled subatomic particles.
Envy is rarely an isolated, private phenomenon. The envious usually share envy or attempt to disrupt any objective measurement of the envied. (“He isn’t THAT rich, and he just fell into money”; “Nobody her age could look like that without a visit to the plastic surgeon and the beauty salon”) Incompatible quantum measurements of tiny subatomic particles appear to have an analog in macroworld measurements by micro-minded individuals. But, then, maybe my measure lacks certainty.
*Harvard University Press, 1992, p. 7.
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