It is not possible that this unity of knowledge, feeling and choice which you call your own should have sprung into being from nothingness at a given moment not so long ago; rather this knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings.
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"We are thus faced with the following dilemma: either the organism is a purely statistical system, and then it is certainly not a quantum mechanical system, or it is a quantum mechanical system, and th…"
"The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees."
"The idea that consciousness is a phenomenon of the brain is an illusion. Consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, and the brain is merely an antenna that tunes into it."
"The scientific method is the best way to get at the truth, but it is not the only way."
"The world is not made of atoms, it is made of stories."
Austrian physicist who shared the 1933 Nobel for the wave equation that bears his name and the famous cat thought-experiment. Closely associated with Werner Heisenberg (matrix-mechanics rival who reached the same physics by different math) and Albert Einstein (his pen-pal on quantum interpretation). For an intellectual contrast, see Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and architect of the Copenhagen interpretation — Schrödinger's cat thought-experiment was specifically designed to ridicule Bohr's 'observer-dependent reality' reading of quantum mechanics — Schrödinger thought the Copenhagen interpretation was absurd; the cat was meant as reductio ad absurdum.
From 'What is Life?', a profound statement on the timeless and unified nature of consciousness.
Date: 1944
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Your consciousness — your thoughts, emotions, and will — did not appear from nowhere when you were born. These qualities are eternal and fundamentally shared across all conscious beings. Individual awareness is not a separate, isolated event but part of one continuous, timeless whole. What feels uniquely yours is actually the same consciousness expressed through many forms.
Schrödinger, architect of wave mechanics and quantum theory, was deeply influenced by Vedantic philosophy and the concept of unified consciousness. His 1944 book 'What is Life?' and later writings explored mind and matter together. He believed physics alone couldn't explain consciousness, and personally studied Hindu Upanishads, finding their monist view of mind scientifically compelling.
Schrödinger wrote during the quantum revolution of the early-to-mid 20th century, when physics shattered classical determinism. As scientists dismantled the mechanistic worldview, questions about consciousness and reality resurfaced urgently. Eastern philosophy gained Western intellectual attention, and thinkers like Schrödinger, Bohr, and Heisenberg wrestled publicly with what quantum indeterminacy implied about the nature of the observer and mind.
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