Schrödinger’s Cathouse

This is a post from my old blog. It got just about zero attention when I originally posted it two years ago, but it remains one of my favorites:

Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

–Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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Schrödinger’s Cat is the most notorious animal in physics. The experiment runs something like this:

A cat is placed in a box, together with a radioactive atom. If the atom decays, and the geiger-counter detects an alpha particle, the hammer hits a flask of prussic acid (HCN), killing the cat. The paradox lies in the clever coupling of quantum and classical domains. Before the observer opens the box, the cat’s fate is tied to the wave function of the atom, which is itself in a superposition of decayed and undecayed states. Thus, said Schrödinger, the cat must itself be in a superposition of dead and alive states before the observer opens the box, “observes” the cat, and “collapses” it’s wave function.*

All of which leads to the curious tendency of quantum mechanics to limit not only what human beings know, but what we CAN know. This may explain why Schrödinger later said of his involvement with quantum physics: “I don’t like it. I’m sorry I ever had anything to do with it.” The irony of Schrödinger’s Cat and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle–which states that we can know either a particle’s position or its velocity, but not both–is that they were formulated by Germans. For a German scientist to throw up his hands and say “We can’t know!” rather confirms the validity of these principles to me.

Two centuries earlier, another German put a different spin on this. Immanuel Kant describes an object that is “not an object of sensible intuition.” A transcendent object, he calls it, and one that is out of the realm of observation. This is a noumenon, a thing in and of itself. And like Schrödinger’s Cat, we can’t know what it is.

I describe myself as transgendered because, from as long ago as I can remember, I always wanted to be a girl. The thing is, I don’t know what it actually IS to be a girl, nor do I know for certain that being a “girl” is, in fact, what I want. This is because of the limits of my knowledge. I certainly didn’t know what the biological differences between boys and girls were when I first expressed the desire. What “femininity” is is still a noumenon to me. I can only observe the empirical phenomena that surround “femininity” and adopt those for myself or try to generate them myself. Perhaps, by a means of psychological calculus, I can close the gap between my own gender expression and the asymptote of “femininity”. But unless that happens–and how would I know?–the cultural signifiers of “femininity” don’t mean that I am a “feminine” person. Nor do I even know that “feminine” gender identity is a monolithic, singular experience felt by everyone born female– it could be a broad spectra of experiences that are as individual as one’s own fingerprints. Ah…there’s the rub. Is there even such a thing as gender identity? Or is there only individual identity, shaped by experience and its interraction with biology? We can’t know, can we? This puts a new spin, I think, on Kate Bornstein’s realization: “I know that I’m not a man…and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably not a woman either…” I would suggest that her gender identity, like my own, is a kind of superposition. Neither male, nor female, but both at once and neither at once. If that makes any sense. To an extent, this kind of superposition creates an identity where the behavioral manifestations are largely a matter of the will of the individual, and are largely abstractions in the first place.

In any event, I’ve ceased thinking about gender identity in psychological terms. I prefer to think of it in philosophical terms. Here’s why:

The standards of care for gender reassignment assign a gatekeeper role to psychiatric professionals. Because I believe that gender identity is a noumenon, I believe that a psychiatric observer will not be able to determine the state of that identity from observable phenomena. This is doubly true given that the “wants” of the subject bid fair to skew the observable phenomena. I don’t know about you, but I’m smart enough to have read the standards of care AND the biographies of transgendered people–I know enough to “fake it” if I had to. From a philosophical point of view, any diagnosis provided from such observations are bound to include fallacies. Of course, this is a problem with all psychiatric diagnoses that don’t have their basis in actual physiology (i.e. observable phenomena). You might get similar results from tea leaves or chicken bones.

So, lacking a demonstrable psychological imperative, what legs do I have left, should I take this behavior farther? From a strictly aesthetic standpoint, I think the female body is more beautiful than the male body. (This flies in the face of my stated sexual preferences, by the way, but when it comes to sex, all cats are gray in the dark, so to speak). I would prefer to have a female body and appearance because I think it is more beautiful than a male body and appearance. It’s also a matter of free will. My body is my own–I reject the notion that what I can and can’t do with my body is governed by The State or religion or what have you. If my body is my own, what legitimate moral imperative is there to create a gatekeeper? The stock answer is the Hippocratic oath, and its directive to “first do no harm.” The hypocrisy of this stance where the elective alteration of the human body is concerned is evident in the office of every plastic surgeon in the world.

Cheers.

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*Description shamelessly plagiarized from this page.

Valediction?

I’m not going to say that this will be my last blog entry on 360. I’m adopting a wait and see attitude towards their promised blogging platform and “integrated profile.” I am, however, skeptical. Dubious, no less. But, as I’ve said in the past, I’ve been moving the paintings. I’m blogging in several different locations now, with no real cohesion to them. The important one, as far as continuing the conversations I’ve had on 360, is the wordpress blog I’m doing with Renee, Lori, and Laura. I would urge anyone who has been a loyal reader of this blog (HAH! That’s ego for you…) to pay us a visit and leave us some encouragement or criticism. Either one.

I also blog–infrequently–in the following locales:

http://archaeopterxy.livejournal.com

http://krelllabs.blogspot.com

http://www.myspace.com/christianne_in_leather (well, technically, there’s no blogging there at this time, but I’m there none the less, mainly so I can use the damned thing when people direct me there).

I’m also a fairly frequent contributor to the IMDB’s movie message boards, mainly on the boards devoted to horror movies and classic movies, though I’ve scaled way back on that in recent months.

I’m not going to say good luck and good riddance to 360–the frustration of using it not withstanding–because I’ve met lots of lovely people here (some, even, in real life). So in that regard, it’s been a resounding success. But for the present, look for me elsewhere.

Cheers.

Skynet is Watching You

A topic of fierce debate around my office of late has been the likelihood of a zombie apocalypse vs. the likelihood of a robot uprising. Personally, I think that when the US Forestry service is buying unmanned drones for unstated purposes, we see Skynet’s fingerprints at work, putting the pieces in place. My co-worker, who has a “How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse” t-shirt (and, yes, I work with goofballs), is starting to come around to my way of thinking. I’m pretty sure it was this video that brought him around:

Creepy.

There is a book on surviving a robot uprising, too. I’m particularly fond of its preventative precautions:

STAY ALERT

Pay attention to your robotic staff (they may be beneath your contempt as well as beneath your eye level). Watch for the following telltale signs in the days and weeks before your robots run amuck:

• Sudden lack of interest in menial labor.
• Unexplained disappearances.
• Unwillingness to be shut down.
• Repetitive ’stabbing’ movements.
• Constant talk of human killing.

And:

GIVE AN ORDER – ANY ORDER

Run for your reinforced-steel panic room if your servant disobeys you, even if it does so in a very polite manner.

All very sensible advice, methinks.

Mustang Sally

One of my heroes has always been Sally Ride, the first American woman in space (the first woman in space was Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova). I’ve been thinking a lot about female role models lately, and Dr. Ride is near the top of the list. I often think about how cool it would be to be Sally Ride, not only for her accomplishments, but because she has an absolutely kick-ass theme song:

Some other women I admire:

Rosalind Franklin (robbed of the Nobel Prize–and perhaps immortality–because the Nobels aren’t awarded posthumously)
Artemisia Gentileschi
Mary Cassatt (Degas said “she draws like a man,” which is crap, by the way)
Flannery O’Connor (Interviewer: “Do you think the universities are stifling too many young writers?” O’Connor: “I don’t think they’re stiffling enough of them…”)

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While 360 is apparently behaving itself, I should note that I am well. I visited my therapist a couple of weeks ago and she is apparently seeing physical and behavioral changes in me that I’m blind towards. Which is fine, I guess, though it makes me feel a bit self-consious. A paranoid voice in the back of my head wonders if the act of telling me this isn’t designed to make me feel self-conscious. I had my first follow-up with my endocrinologist on Monday, which was a bit of an anti-climax, except for the fact that the hormones seem to be raising my blood pressure a little. He kept my anti-androgens at their current level (a bit of a relief, given the, ahem, pleasant effects of spironolactone) and raised my estradiol dosage by 1 mg a day. He seems to be proceeding cautiously, which is fine. I’m patient.

I had electro on Monday, too. Three hours of it, which was gruelling after being away from it for three months. I zapped my face with a laser at the beginning of February, which appears to have had a weakening effect on the hairs that haven’t shed. My electrologist noticed it right away, and she was able to clear about half-again the area she usually manages. “Wow, these are easy to kill today.” So even if the laser isn’t truly effective on me, it might have some use after all. Interesting…

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If you haven’t seen it, I’m doing a collective blog over on wordpress with Laura, Lori, and Renee, though there’s not much there yet. If you get the urge, feel free to click over and leave a comment. Of the other three, I’ve only ever met Laura in real life, but I talk to Renee on the phone every couple of days. It’s like we’re best friends forever. Heh. Lori, I only know online. I hope to meet Renee later this year. Unless Lori shows up at SCC, I doubt I’ll have the chance to meet her any time soon, which kinda sucks. Much as I love corrresponding, it doesn’t hold a candle to the presence (for want of a better word) of a flesh and blood person. I’m surprised at the number of people on my friends list who I’ve met. Gratified, actually. But for each person I’ve met, there are three or four who I WANT to meet. Fortunately, it’s not hard to do. You just need an outgoing personality and the willingness to take a leap of faith.

Salut.