What it means
Reality as described by physics is not where consciousness actually lives. Our minds observe the physical world from outside it, like an audience watching a play. We mistakenly think we are inside this world only because our bodies are physical objects within it. Bodies are the interface, the only channel through which one mind can reach another mind, whether human or animal. Subject and object are fundamentally separate.
Relevance to Erwin Schrodinger
Schrodinger, who formulated wave mechanics in 1926 and won the 1933 Nobel Prize, spent his later years grappling with consciousness and Vedanta philosophy. His 1944 book What Is Life? and 1958 Mind and Matter argued the observing mind cannot be located in the physical equations he helped write. A devoted dog and cat owner, he genuinely puzzled over how separate minds connect through mere bodies, an obsession dating from his Vienna upbringing.
The era
Mid-twentieth-century physics had just dismantled classical certainty through quantum mechanics and relativity, forcing scientists to confront the observer's role in measurement. Logical positivism dominated philosophy, insisting only empirical claims had meaning. Against this, Schrodinger and Heisenberg pushed back, drawing on Eastern thought as Europe rebuilt after World War II. Watson and Crick's 1953 DNA discovery raised fresh questions about whether biology reduced mind to molecules, the exact reduction Schrodinger resisted.
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