Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy

AN APPROXIMATE SIMULATION OF INSANITY

"Any false or partially false premise extended with accurate logic will generate an approximate simulation of insanity." Crossing Broadway at Seventy-second Street, still lecturing, it was Blake Williams.

"Yes, yes, of course, Professor, but if you'll listen a moment to what I'm trying to say," Natalie Drest protested.

"But you see, young lady, most of the premises of our current religious, scientific, and philosophical thinking must be false, or partially false, as judged by a more advanced civilization. What would a Higher Intelligence make of our doctrines of transubstantiation or charmed quarks or the categorical imperative?"

"Well, yeah, but, professor…"

"Then, dammit, will you listen? Most of our beliefs and behavior will appear clinically insane to a Higher Intelligence viewing this planet."

"Sure, it's all relative, I know that, but, Professor…"

"Look," Dr. Williams said with crushing finality, "do you want to fuck, or don't you?"

Her answer was drowned out by a siren racing up Riverside Drive.

"What?"

"I said, I been tryna tell you for ten blocks, Professor, I'm still getting over a case of the clap…"

"That's quite all right, my dear," Blake Williams pronounced suavely. "I'm a broad-minded man. I understand the exuberance of youth, the powerful hormones coursing through your vibrant young bloodstream, the noble refusal of your generation to regard the taboos of old as binding upon the free spirits of the 1980s, and besides, I've reached the age at which I'm not horny every night of the year. You are still invited to come along to my humble digs and listen to my old Joan Baez records."

"Gee, Professor, you know what you are? You're cool. You're not sexist at all."

"Urn, yes, thank you, my dear. I'm just getting old, actually. Now, about the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky gedan-kenexperiment …"