Ontology || Superposition

 

  • A particle is simultaneously in two different states.

  • An entity is simultaneously p and not p.

    STEM

    Schrödinger’s Cat is dead and alive at the same time.

    Literature

    A character is fictional and nonfictional at the same time.

    An event occurs and does not occur.

  • The extent to which an entity exists.

  • Analogous motifs in the storyline: Two entities that have been set in contrast are presented as interchangeable

    “Recitatif,” Toni Morrison

  • Analogous arrangements in narrative structure: characters that are both fictional and nonfictional; their ontological status at a given moment depends on the context in which they are observed

    Jim Henson’s Muppets

  • Trauvitch, Rhona. “Ontology and Superposition: Where the Muppets Meet and Do Not Meet Schrödinger’s Cat.” Jim Henson and Philosophy: Imagination and the Magic of Mayhem, edited by Timothy M. Dale and Joseph F. Foy, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015, pp. 199-208.