WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.980 Imagine you're opening an encyclopedia, right? 00:00:03.259 --> 00:00:05.120 Because you want to learn about advanced quantum 00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:07.440 physics. As one does. Yeah, exactly. And you 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:09.199 flip to the right section. You run your finger 00:00:09.199 --> 00:00:11.640 down the page. And instead of, I don't know, 00:00:11.779 --> 00:00:15.000 a bunch of equations, the book hands you a 1990s 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:20.770 indie film and a trick -taking card game. aggressive 00:00:20.770 --> 00:00:23.670 grunge parody song about a feline. It's just 00:00:23.670 --> 00:00:26.170 total information whiplash. It really is. That 00:00:26.170 --> 00:00:28.309 is the exact whiplash we are looking at today. 00:00:29.210 --> 00:00:31.609 Welcome to this deep dive custom tailored just 00:00:31.609 --> 00:00:34.729 for you. We've got a stack of your sources here 00:00:34.729 --> 00:00:37.570 and our mission today is to, well, basically 00:00:37.570 --> 00:00:40.369 extract the signal from the noise of one very 00:00:40.369 --> 00:00:43.070 specific seemingly simple phrase. And that phrase 00:00:43.070 --> 00:00:46.030 is cat in the box. Yes. Cat in a box. Because 00:00:46.030 --> 00:00:48.649 if you look at the Wikipedia disambiguation page 00:00:48.649 --> 00:00:51.170 for this phrase, you don't get a clean definition 00:00:51.170 --> 00:00:54.229 at all. Not even close. You go in looking for 00:00:54.229 --> 00:00:57.369 a singular objective truth, and you find absolute 00:00:57.369 --> 00:01:00.590 cultural chaos. It's just a wildly fractured 00:01:00.590 --> 00:01:03.329 map of human curiosity. So we're going to explore 00:01:03.329 --> 00:01:06.030 how one single scientific thought experiment 00:01:06.030 --> 00:01:10.390 managed to mutate into vastly different cultural 00:01:10.390 --> 00:01:14.329 artifacts. across science, media, and everyday 00:01:14.329 --> 00:01:16.209 language. And what's really fascinating about 00:01:16.209 --> 00:01:18.870 looking at a disambiguation page this way is 00:01:18.870 --> 00:01:22.010 that it acts as this unintentional historical 00:01:22.010 --> 00:01:24.090 record. Right. Like it doesn't just tell you 00:01:24.090 --> 00:01:26.569 what a phrase means. It shows you exactly how 00:01:26.569 --> 00:01:30.879 a concept escapes the... the sterile environment 00:01:30.879 --> 00:01:33.640 of a laboratory and just gets completely digested 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:36.420 by popular culture. Completely digested. So to 00:01:36.420 --> 00:01:38.319 understand the branches of this very weird tree, 00:01:38.519 --> 00:01:40.840 we really have to start at the root. We do. The 00:01:40.840 --> 00:01:43.659 source notes that the primary definition of cat 00:01:43.659 --> 00:01:45.859 in a box, the anchor that shadows everything 00:01:45.859 --> 00:01:47.859 else on this list, is Schrodinger's cat. Yes, 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:49.780 the classic. Which is described as a thought 00:01:49.780 --> 00:01:52.180 experiment concerning quantum superposition. 00:01:52.459 --> 00:01:54.980 Right. Which, I mean... It sounds incredibly 00:01:54.980 --> 00:01:57.019 dense when you say it like that. Oh, for sure. 00:01:57.099 --> 00:01:59.439 It sounds terrifying. But the core mechanism 00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:03.200 is actually quite elegant. So quantum superposition 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:05.939 is a fundamental principle in quantum mechanics. 00:02:06.620 --> 00:02:09.979 It basically suggests that a physical system, 00:02:10.340 --> 00:02:13.560 like a subatomic particle, it doesn't just exist 00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:17.240 in one state. OK. Until you measure it or observe 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:20.379 it. It exists in all of its theoretically possible 00:02:20.379 --> 00:02:22.639 states simultaneously. All of them at the same 00:02:22.639 --> 00:02:25.379 time. Exactly. And the act of observation is 00:02:25.379 --> 00:02:30.360 what forces it to collapse into one single definite 00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:32.780 reality. So until you actually look at the thing, 00:02:32.819 --> 00:02:35.180 it is basically doing everything at once. Right. 00:02:35.300 --> 00:02:37.800 It's the ultimate hidden uncertainty. I always 00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:40.080 try to ground this in reality for myself. So 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:42.139 imagine you get a text message from your boss. 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:45.840 Oh, no. Right. It's like 8 .0 p .m. on a Friday. 00:02:46.060 --> 00:02:48.280 And all the text says is, We need to talk on 00:02:48.280 --> 00:02:50.879 Monday. Oh, that is a deeply uncomfortable superposition. 00:02:51.060 --> 00:02:53.419 It totally is. Because until you actually walk 00:02:53.419 --> 00:02:55.180 into that office on Monday morning and have the 00:02:55.180 --> 00:02:57.159 meeting, that text message is simultaneously 00:02:57.159 --> 00:02:59.379 a promotion and a firing. Yeah, you spend the 00:02:59.379 --> 00:03:01.900 entire weekend existing in a state of dual reality. 00:03:02.180 --> 00:03:04.400 Exactly. The uncertainty is the entire point. 00:03:04.620 --> 00:03:06.419 That's a really great way to physicalize the 00:03:06.419 --> 00:03:08.699 anxiety of the unknown. And that is actually 00:03:08.699 --> 00:03:12.159 very close to why the physicist Erwin Schrödinger 00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:14.460 devised his famous thought experiment back in 00:03:14.460 --> 00:03:18.629 1935. Wait, really? To physicalize anxiety? Well, 00:03:18.710 --> 00:03:21.009 no, not exactly anxiety, but he wanted to point 00:03:21.009 --> 00:03:23.509 out how utterly absurd the physics theories of 00:03:23.509 --> 00:03:26.349 his time were when you applied them to the macro 00:03:26.349 --> 00:03:28.669 world. You know, the everyday world we live in. 00:03:28.729 --> 00:03:31.610 Wait, he was making fun of it? Essentially, yes. 00:03:31.849 --> 00:03:34.849 He was illustrating a massive flaw. He proposed 00:03:34.849 --> 00:03:38.469 placing a cat in a sealed box with a mechanism 00:03:38.469 --> 00:03:42.669 like... a vial of poison that has a 50 % chance 00:03:42.669 --> 00:03:45.110 of being triggered by a random subatomic event. 00:03:45.169 --> 00:03:48.469 OK, poor cat. Right, poor cat. But because the 00:03:48.469 --> 00:03:51.050 subatomic event is in a superposition of states, 00:03:51.389 --> 00:03:53.530 so it's both happening and not happening, the 00:03:53.530 --> 00:03:55.550 strict mathematical interpretation suggests that 00:03:55.550 --> 00:03:58.330 until you open the box to check, the cat itself 00:03:58.330 --> 00:04:01.099 must be simultaneously alive and dead. both alive 00:04:01.099 --> 00:04:03.319 and dead. Right. He was using the absurdity of 00:04:03.319 --> 00:04:06.139 a zombie cat to say, look how ridiculous this 00:04:06.139 --> 00:04:08.400 sounds if we scale it up to normal sized objects. 00:04:08.539 --> 00:04:10.240 OK, hold on. I need to stop you there. Because 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:12.639 if he was essentially trolling his colleagues, 00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:15.319 showing how absurd their math was when applied 00:04:15.319 --> 00:04:18.500 to the real world, why did this specific imagery 00:04:18.500 --> 00:04:21.600 become the defining cultural touchstone? Well, 00:04:21.899 --> 00:04:23.699 I mean, we're talking about subatomic particles 00:04:23.699 --> 00:04:27.060 and probability waves here. Is it the underlying 00:04:27.060 --> 00:04:29.779 science that's sticky to the human brain, or 00:04:29.779 --> 00:04:32.019 is it just the imagery of a cat in a container? 00:04:32.360 --> 00:04:34.680 I would argue it's almost entirely the imagery, 00:04:35.480 --> 00:04:38.180 largely because of what a sealed box represents 00:04:38.180 --> 00:04:40.779 psychologically. Right. Think about it. A box 00:04:40.779 --> 00:04:44.120 is a universal symbol for a boundary. It's the 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:46.379 physical barrier between the known and the unknown. 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:48.759 Oh, that's true. And human beings are hardwired 00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:51.610 to solve puzzles. When you put something inside 00:04:51.610 --> 00:04:54.250 a closed container, you are practically demanding 00:04:54.250 --> 00:04:56.689 that the brain engage with the mystery. And throwing 00:04:56.689 --> 00:04:59.589 a live animal in there just adds, you know, literal 00:04:59.589 --> 00:05:01.910 life or death stakes to the puzzle. Precisely. 00:05:02.209 --> 00:05:04.970 You take this high level, mathematically exhausting 00:05:04.970 --> 00:05:07.610 quantum debate, you strip away all the equations, 00:05:07.949 --> 00:05:10.850 and what are you left with? A mystery box. Pure, 00:05:11.189 --> 00:05:13.189 visceral narrative tension. What is inside the 00:05:13.189 --> 00:05:16.350 box? And that narrative tension... completely 00:05:16.350 --> 00:05:18.769 hijacked pop culture. Which, I mean, it makes 00:05:18.769 --> 00:05:20.430 perfect sense when we look at the next set of 00:05:20.430 --> 00:05:22.670 sources you provided. We're moving away from 00:05:22.670 --> 00:05:25.410 science and into film and television. Right. 00:05:25.629 --> 00:05:27.649 Because what happens when you take that pure 00:05:27.649 --> 00:05:30.089 narrative tension, that feeling of the boss's 00:05:30.089 --> 00:05:32.670 unread text message, and you put it on a screen? 00:05:33.069 --> 00:05:35.449 Well, creators immediately start using the phrase 00:05:35.449 --> 00:05:38.629 to explore unseen or compartmentalized narratives. 00:05:38.839 --> 00:05:41.879 Visual media is fundamentally a game of showing 00:05:41.879 --> 00:05:44.439 versus hiding. Showing versus hiding, yeah. A 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:47.160 director's entire job is deciding what stays 00:05:47.160 --> 00:05:49.860 in the frame and what gets left out. So naming 00:05:49.860 --> 00:05:52.459 a project Cat in the Box is doing a massive amount 00:05:52.459 --> 00:05:55.180 of thematic heavy lifting before the viewer even 00:05:55.180 --> 00:05:57.560 presses play. Oh, absolutely. It sets a tone 00:05:57.560 --> 00:06:00.060 immediately. But what I just cannot get over 00:06:00.060 --> 00:06:03.199 is the sheer whiplash inducing range of screens. 00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:05.439 This phrase targets on our list. It's pretty 00:06:05.439 --> 00:06:07.899 broad. Broad is an understatement. Our source 00:06:07.899 --> 00:06:09.939 lists an episode of a television series called 00:06:09.939 --> 00:06:12.949 You Me Her. Right. Which is an adult relational 00:06:12.949 --> 00:06:15.769 comedy drama that deals with complex polyamorous 00:06:15.769 --> 00:06:18.730 dynamics. So a setting where hidden information, 00:06:19.009 --> 00:06:21.389 secrets, and emotional boundaries are basically 00:06:21.389 --> 00:06:24.170 the entire driving force of the plot. Exactly. 00:06:24.250 --> 00:06:27.889 Very adult themes. But right below that on the 00:06:27.889 --> 00:06:30.870 disambiguation page, it lists Cat in the Box 00:06:30.870 --> 00:06:34.290 as an episode of Super Wings. Super Wings. Yes. 00:06:34.709 --> 00:06:36.889 Which, if you aren't familiar, is a children's 00:06:36.889 --> 00:06:39.189 animated series about transforming airplanes 00:06:39.189 --> 00:06:43.069 that deliver That is quite the jump. Right. We 00:06:43.069 --> 00:06:46.470 are jumping from complex adult polyamory straight 00:06:46.470 --> 00:06:49.709 to animated airplanes for preschoolers and they 00:06:49.709 --> 00:06:53.139 are using the exact same metaphor. I'm really 00:06:53.139 --> 00:06:55.660 struggling to see how a preschool show is utilizing 00:06:55.660 --> 00:06:57.819 high -level quantum mechanics. Isn't it just 00:06:57.819 --> 00:07:00.540 a cute name for a literal package? I mean, I 00:07:00.540 --> 00:07:01.920 definitely wouldn't call it high -level quantum 00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:04.019 mechanics at that point, no. But the underlying 00:07:04.019 --> 00:07:06.920 function is identical. How so? For the adults 00:07:06.920 --> 00:07:10.220 watching You Me Her, the box represents emotional 00:07:10.220 --> 00:07:13.060 entrapment or hidden relational dynamics. For 00:07:13.060 --> 00:07:15.120 the toddlers watching Super Wings, the box is 00:07:15.120 --> 00:07:17.819 a literal cardboard package holding a physical 00:07:17.819 --> 00:07:20.759 mystery. Okay, yeah. But in both cases... The 00:07:20.759 --> 00:07:23.540 title signals to the audience that there is a 00:07:23.540 --> 00:07:27.100 hidden state waiting to be revealed. It proves 00:07:27.100 --> 00:07:29.480 that the tension of the unknown is this universal 00:07:29.480 --> 00:07:32.139 storytelling trope, whether you are 3 years old 00:07:32.139 --> 00:07:34.129 or 30. That makes a lot of sense, but I have 00:07:34.129 --> 00:07:36.730 to say, the best entry in the film section isn't 00:07:36.730 --> 00:07:39.490 a TV episode at all. Oh. No, it's a film from 00:07:39.490 --> 00:07:42.730 1993, directed by the actress Valeria Galino, 00:07:42.910 --> 00:07:45.769 titled Cat in the Box. Ah, yes. And the Wikipedia 00:07:45.769 --> 00:07:49.129 page includes one very specific, incredible adjective 00:07:49.129 --> 00:07:51.730 to describe this movie. It is an unreleased film. 00:07:51.850 --> 00:07:54.730 The irony there is almost too perfect to be real. 00:07:54.829 --> 00:07:56.970 Right. Isn't an unreleased film called Cat in 00:07:56.970 --> 00:07:59.730 the Box the ultimate real -world Schrodinger's 00:07:59.730 --> 00:08:02.279 cat? It absolutely is. Think about it. The public 00:08:02.279 --> 00:08:05.060 has never seen it. Does the movie even really 00:08:05.060 --> 00:08:08.060 exist? It is permanently suspended in a state 00:08:08.060 --> 00:08:09.879 of potential. Yeah, it could be anything. It 00:08:09.879 --> 00:08:12.120 could be a cinematic masterpiece, or it could 00:08:12.120 --> 00:08:15.000 be an absolute disaster. But because nobody has 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:17.750 ever opened the box to observe it... It remains 00:08:17.750 --> 00:08:20.470 both simultaneously. That's a brilliant observation. 00:08:20.850 --> 00:08:22.930 And it really highlights how the digital age 00:08:22.930 --> 00:08:26.589 catalogs information. Wikipedia dutifully records 00:08:26.589 --> 00:08:30.170 the existence of this 1993 film, effectively 00:08:30.170 --> 00:08:33.450 putting a permanent label on a metadata box that 00:08:33.450 --> 00:08:35.909 none of us can ever open. Exactly. We just have 00:08:35.909 --> 00:08:38.710 the label. It preserves the superposition indefinitely. 00:08:39.129 --> 00:08:42.350 The film only exists to us as the idea of a film. 00:08:42.509 --> 00:08:44.889 It's poetic in a weird, bureaucratic internet 00:08:44.889 --> 00:08:47.529 way. It really is. But visual media is only half 00:08:47.529 --> 00:08:49.350 the story here. We've talked about passively 00:08:49.350 --> 00:08:51.970 watching this tension on a screen, but the metaphor 00:08:51.970 --> 00:08:54.190 shifts completely when we move into the literature 00:08:54.190 --> 00:08:56.250 and music sections of our sources. Right. We 00:08:56.250 --> 00:08:59.289 transition from visual mystery to tonal expression. 00:08:59.529 --> 00:09:01.710 And we also get a very condensed, fascinating 00:09:01.710 --> 00:09:04.230 timeline here. I do. The entries span primarily 00:09:04.230 --> 00:09:07.129 from 2008 to 2019, and they demonstrate just 00:09:07.129 --> 00:09:09.870 how elastic the phrase has become. Yeah. In literature, 00:09:09.870 --> 00:09:11.750 for instance, there's a short story titled Cat 00:09:11.750 --> 00:09:14.230 in a Box by Gareth L. Powell, and that's found 00:09:14.230 --> 00:09:17.289 in his 2008 collection called The Last Reef and 00:09:17.289 --> 00:09:19.669 Other Stories. Which, just based on a title like 00:09:19.669 --> 00:09:21.950 The Last Roof, it sounds like speculative fiction 00:09:21.950 --> 00:09:24.480 or hard sci -fi. Right, which makes total sense. 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:27.580 Sci -fi regularly borrows from and explores quantum 00:09:27.580 --> 00:09:29.399 physics. It's a natural fit. But then you jump 00:09:29.399 --> 00:09:32.620 to 2019, and you have a book simply titled The 00:09:32.620 --> 00:09:35.759 Cat in the Box by Chris Ferry. And when we look 00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:39.629 at the music entries... The tonal whiplash strikes 00:09:39.629 --> 00:09:43.429 again. Oh big time you have a 2009 song by the 00:09:43.429 --> 00:09:45.690 band morning wood from their album diamonds and 00:09:45.690 --> 00:09:50.409 studs and then a 2015 parody song by Chris Center. 00:09:50.409 --> 00:09:54.570 Yes a parody of the heavy sludgy Allison Chains 00:09:54.570 --> 00:09:57.549 grunge song man in the box, which is such a specific 00:09:57.549 --> 00:10:00.580 choice It creates the most chaotic mental image 00:10:00.580 --> 00:10:03.139 for me. Just picture this. Imagine trying to 00:10:03.139 --> 00:10:05.779 consume all of this media at the exact same time. 00:10:05.779 --> 00:10:08.059 Oh, no. You are sitting in a room blasting a 00:10:08.059 --> 00:10:10.240 pop rock track for Morningwood, trying to read 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:13.379 a 2019 book by Chris Ferry. And in the background, 00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:15.840 someone is aggressively singing a 90s grunge 00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:18.480 parody song about a cat. It's total sensory overload. 00:10:18.580 --> 00:10:20.919 It's the disambiguation page come to life. But 00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:23.159 look at how the mechanism of the metaphor changes 00:10:23.159 --> 00:10:24.879 when you strip away the visual element. Like 00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:26.960 in a movie, you can literally show a closed door 00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:29.299 or a hidden compartment. But in music, you only 00:10:29.299 --> 00:10:31.740 have audio and tone. Right. You can't show the 00:10:31.740 --> 00:10:34.360 box. So how does that work? Do you think these 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:36.299 authors and musicians are actively trying to 00:10:36.299 --> 00:10:38.659 make a highbrow reference to quantum mechanics? 00:10:39.320 --> 00:10:41.659 Like, is someone recording a parody of a grunge 00:10:41.659 --> 00:10:44.240 song genuinely thinking about Erwin Schrödinger's 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:46.960 critique of subatomic probability? Yeah. Or has 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:49.720 the phrase just become a convenient, catchy shorthand 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:52.559 for feeling trapped? It's almost entirely the 00:10:52.559 --> 00:10:55.240 latter, and it happens through a process linguists 00:10:55.240 --> 00:10:58.399 actually call semantic bleaching. Semantic bleaching? 00:10:58.440 --> 00:11:01.779 I don't think I've heard that term. Yeah. Over 00:11:01.779 --> 00:11:04.620 time, when a highly complex or technical term 00:11:04.620 --> 00:11:08.279 enters the mainstream vocabulary, its original 00:11:08.279 --> 00:11:12.120 rigorous meaning gets bleached out. Ah, OK. So 00:11:12.120 --> 00:11:14.620 the complex math of quantum superposition fades 00:11:14.620 --> 00:11:16.860 away, and what is left behind is just the raw 00:11:16.860 --> 00:11:19.860 emotional core. Which in this case is? Isolation. 00:11:20.039 --> 00:11:23.019 hidden states, or the feeling of being trapped. 00:11:24.039 --> 00:11:25.820 Morningwood probably wasn't writing a dissertation 00:11:25.820 --> 00:11:28.120 on particle physics, right? Definitely not. They 00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:30.259 were tapping into the emotional resonance of 00:11:30.259 --> 00:11:33.539 confinement. The actual science dissolves, leaving 00:11:33.539 --> 00:11:36.220 behind a purely emotional metaphor. Semantic 00:11:36.220 --> 00:11:38.720 bleaching, that makes total sense. The math bleaches 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:41.600 out, the feeling remains. Exactly. But there 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:44.080 is a limit to how much tension you can build 00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:46.620 when you are just reading about a character in 00:11:46.620 --> 00:11:49.840 a box. or listening to a singer feeling trapped. 00:11:50.080 --> 00:11:52.179 You are still just an observer. Right. Which 00:11:52.179 --> 00:11:54.759 brings us to the games section of the page. And 00:11:54.759 --> 00:11:57.139 this is where the dynamic fundamentally fractures. 00:11:57.460 --> 00:11:59.720 Because in games, we aren't observing the box. 00:11:59.919 --> 00:12:03.179 We are interacting with it. Yes. This section 00:12:03.179 --> 00:12:06.100 is arguably where the media most closely aligns 00:12:06.100 --> 00:12:08.100 with the actual mechanics of the original thought 00:12:08.100 --> 00:12:11.039 experiment. Really? Oh, absolutely. And the sources 00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:14.080 point to a remarkable convergence point around 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:16.460 interactivity. Look at the timeline for these 00:12:16.460 --> 00:12:18.620 game releases. Let's look. So we have Cat in 00:12:18.620 --> 00:12:20.940 a Box Games, a Canadian video game developer 00:12:20.940 --> 00:12:23.419 that published a game called Blue Defense. Right. 00:12:23.700 --> 00:12:26.100 Then in the year 2020 alone, we get two completely 00:12:26.100 --> 00:12:29.419 separate entries. There is Cat in the Box, a 00:12:29.419 --> 00:12:32.480 2020 RPG maker video game developed by Gustav 00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:34.799 and published by Psychoflux Entertainment. And 00:12:34.799 --> 00:12:37.279 the other one? There is also a 2020 trick -taking 00:12:37.279 --> 00:12:40.080 card game, also called Cat in the Box. Games 00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:43.100 are a medium that fundamentally rely on the management 00:12:43.100 --> 00:12:46.480 of hidden states. and revealed information. This 00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:48.799 is why the title is so mechanically perfect for 00:12:48.799 --> 00:12:51.779 them. I want to really unpack the mechanics of 00:12:51.779 --> 00:12:54.259 that because it's brilliant. Think about the 00:12:54.259 --> 00:12:56.879 last time you played a trick -taking card game, 00:12:57.059 --> 00:13:00.440 something like hearts or spades. Sure. That entire 00:13:00.440 --> 00:13:02.960 genre of game is built around hitting information. 00:13:03.460 --> 00:13:05.960 The cards you hold in your hand are essentially 00:13:05.960 --> 00:13:09.419 in a closed box. Nobody else at the table knows 00:13:09.419 --> 00:13:11.940 what you have. Exactly. Your hand of cards is 00:13:11.940 --> 00:13:14.000 in a state of superposition from the perspective 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:15.970 of your opponents. You could have the winning 00:13:15.970 --> 00:13:18.529 card, or you could have nothing. Right. And the 00:13:18.529 --> 00:13:21.110 reality doesn't collapse until you actually play 00:13:21.110 --> 00:13:23.750 a card onto the table. You are forcing the wave 00:13:23.750 --> 00:13:25.789 function to collapse every single turn. That's 00:13:25.789 --> 00:13:28.009 a great analogy. And in a role playing game, 00:13:28.190 --> 00:13:30.649 like the 2020 video game developed by Gustav, 00:13:31.090 --> 00:13:33.470 the hidden information is the code of the game 00:13:33.470 --> 00:13:36.370 itself. You are constantly opening metaphorical 00:13:36.370 --> 00:13:39.950 boxes, exploring new rooms, uncovering plot twists, 00:13:40.450 --> 00:13:42.309 testing the boundaries of the digital world to 00:13:42.309 --> 00:13:45.139 see how it reacts. The code is a a hidden state 00:13:45.139 --> 00:13:47.740 that only reveals its rules as you interact with 00:13:47.740 --> 00:13:50.120 it. Which makes me wonder, between a Canadian 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:53.320 video game developer for Blue Defense, an RPG 00:13:53.320 --> 00:13:57.259 horror -style game, and a physical tabletop card 00:13:57.259 --> 00:14:00.559 game, is a game essentially just an elaborate 00:14:00.559 --> 00:14:03.399 box we willingly put ourselves into to see what 00:14:03.399 --> 00:14:05.659 happens? I actually pushed that further. A game 00:14:05.659 --> 00:14:07.600 doesn't just put you in the box, it makes you 00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:11.409 the mechanism. Oh, wow. Does that interactivity 00:14:11.409 --> 00:14:13.909 ruin the nature of the thought experiment, though? 00:14:14.190 --> 00:14:16.509 What do you mean? Well, think about Schrödinger's 00:14:16.509 --> 00:14:18.389 original setup. The scientist, the observer, 00:14:18.509 --> 00:14:20.450 is standing safely outside the box, completely 00:14:20.450 --> 00:14:23.330 removed from the system. But in a game, you are 00:14:23.330 --> 00:14:26.049 inside the system. You are opening the box, but 00:14:26.049 --> 00:14:28.330 you are also subject to its rules. I don't think 00:14:28.330 --> 00:14:30.429 it ruins it at all. I think it evolves it. It 00:14:30.429 --> 00:14:33.149 changes the experience from a passive observation 00:14:33.149 --> 00:14:36.649 of uncertainty to an active manipulation of probability. 00:14:37.009 --> 00:14:39.230 Active manipulation? Yeah. When you play that 00:14:39.230 --> 00:14:41.409 trick, take card game. You aren't just sitting 00:14:41.409 --> 00:14:43.509 there waiting to see if the cat is alive or dead. 00:14:43.710 --> 00:14:46.110 You are actively using your hidden information 00:14:46.110 --> 00:14:48.970 to try and influence the outcome. Interactivity 00:14:48.970 --> 00:14:52.429 turns the observer into a participant. It's no 00:14:52.429 --> 00:14:54.429 longer just about witnessing the collapse of 00:14:54.429 --> 00:14:57.450 the quantum state. It's about trying to control 00:14:57.450 --> 00:15:00.600 the collapse. The illusion of control. We want 00:15:00.600 --> 00:15:02.679 to believe that if we just play our cards right 00:15:02.679 --> 00:15:05.799 or input the right commands, we can guarantee 00:15:05.799 --> 00:15:09.000 a favorable outcome. But the uncertainty is always 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:12.259 baked in. Always. Which is why we keep returning 00:15:12.259 --> 00:15:14.320 to the metaphor. This is why I love digging into 00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:16.980 these sources with you. We've mapped out unreleased 00:15:16.980 --> 00:15:20.100 90s movies, grunge parodies, and card game mechanics. 00:15:20.620 --> 00:15:23.899 But the Wikipedia page gives us one final crucial 00:15:23.899 --> 00:15:26.559 clue. The see also section. Yes. At the very 00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:29.360 bottom in the see also section, there is a link 00:15:29.360 --> 00:15:31.500 that connects this entire modern pop culture 00:15:31.500 --> 00:15:34.799 phenomenon to a much much older linguistic impulse. 00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:37.360 Letting the cat out of the bag. Exactly. The 00:15:37.360 --> 00:15:39.909 source defines this as a colloquial that means 00:15:39.909 --> 00:15:42.710 to reveal facts previously hidden. It's a brilliant 00:15:42.710 --> 00:15:45.210 piece of curation by the Wikipedia editors to 00:15:45.210 --> 00:15:47.809 link these two concepts, honestly, because it 00:15:47.809 --> 00:15:49.529 perfectly illustrates the thematic bridge we've 00:15:49.529 --> 00:15:51.350 been walking this entire time. You really do. 00:15:51.570 --> 00:15:53.990 Both cat in a box and letting the cat out of 00:15:53.990 --> 00:15:57.509 the bag rely on three identical elements. You 00:15:57.509 --> 00:16:00.750 have a feline, a container, and hidden information. 00:16:01.179 --> 00:16:04.519 But they represent two completely opposite halves 00:16:04.519 --> 00:16:08.440 of the exact same experience. Yes. Cat in a box 00:16:08.440 --> 00:16:11.039 represents the tension of the unknown state. 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:14.059 It is the suspense before the collapse. Right. 00:16:14.139 --> 00:16:16.960 The mystery is fully intact, the box is sealed, 00:16:17.179 --> 00:16:20.379 and the potential is limitless. But letting the 00:16:20.379 --> 00:16:23.080 cat out of the bag represents the irreversible 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:25.159 consequence of revelation. The wave function 00:16:25.159 --> 00:16:27.639 has collapsed. Exactly. The action has been taken, 00:16:27.700 --> 00:16:29.779 the boundary has been breached, and the hidden 00:16:29.779 --> 00:16:32.279 facts are now out in the open. You cannot put 00:16:32.279 --> 00:16:34.399 the cat back in the bag, just as you cannot un 00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:36.419 -collapse a quantum state once it has been measured. 00:16:36.779 --> 00:16:39.700 Okay, I absolutely love this framing. So, if 00:16:39.700 --> 00:16:42.840 Cat in a Box is the suspenseful, nail -biting 00:16:42.840 --> 00:16:45.779 build -up in a thriller movie, letting the cat 00:16:45.779 --> 00:16:48.480 out of the bag is the spoiler alert posted on 00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:51.120 the internet the day after the premiere. That 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:54.720 is a perfect modern translation. One is the intoxicating 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:58.519 anticipation of discovery. The other is the irreversible 00:16:58.519 --> 00:17:00.960 aftermath of the truth. But I have to ask the 00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:03.899 obvious question here. Go for it. Why is it always 00:17:03.899 --> 00:17:07.920 cats? Think about it. If the core meaning across 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:10.640 all of these decades, across science, film, and 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:13.599 games, is just about revealing hidden facts or 00:17:13.599 --> 00:17:15.900 dealing with uncertainty, why not a dog in a 00:17:15.900 --> 00:17:19.470 box or a bird in a bag? Why did human language 00:17:19.470 --> 00:17:21.710 and advanced physics collectively decide that 00:17:21.710 --> 00:17:24.009 the feline is the ultimate avatar for hidden 00:17:24.009 --> 00:17:26.369 information? Well, while our source text doesn't 00:17:26.369 --> 00:17:28.730 explicitly detail the etymological origin of 00:17:28.730 --> 00:17:31.029 the phrase, we can synthesize a pretty robust 00:17:31.029 --> 00:17:32.990 theory based on the behavioral themes we've discussed. 00:17:33.130 --> 00:17:34.650 Okay, I'm listening. Think about the nature of 00:17:34.650 --> 00:17:37.349 cats. They are notoriously independent, highly 00:17:37.349 --> 00:17:39.690 unpredictable, and fiercely curious. They do 00:17:39.690 --> 00:17:41.509 whatever they want, whenever they want. Right. 00:17:41.740 --> 00:17:43.859 They navigate the world entirely on their own 00:17:43.859 --> 00:17:46.420 terms. They constantly slip into hidden spaces, 00:17:46.819 --> 00:17:49.440 they deliberately hide in cardboard boxes, and 00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:51.799 they behave in ways that seem entirely inscrutable 00:17:51.799 --> 00:17:54.059 to human logic. They really are just walking 00:17:54.059 --> 00:17:55.799 superpositions. You never know if they want to 00:17:55.799 --> 00:17:58.160 be pet or if they want to bite you until you 00:17:58.160 --> 00:18:00.380 reach your hand out to measure the state. That 00:18:00.380 --> 00:18:04.940 is exactly it. The pairing of a notoriously unpredictable 00:18:04.940 --> 00:18:08.119 curious animal with a sealed hidden container 00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:12.170 perfectly mirrors human curiosity. The cat represents 00:18:12.170 --> 00:18:15.049 the chaotic, uncontainable, hidden nature of 00:18:15.049 --> 00:18:18.630 reality. And the box? The box, or the bag, represents 00:18:18.630 --> 00:18:21.089 our futile human attempt to put a lid on it, 00:18:21.349 --> 00:18:24.470 to categorize it, and to control it. Wow. Okay, 00:18:24.509 --> 00:18:26.589 this has been an incredibly fun journey. We took 00:18:26.589 --> 00:18:29.470 a single concept from 1930s quantum mechanics, 00:18:29.730 --> 00:18:32.109 a thought experiment designed to mock the absurdity 00:18:32.109 --> 00:18:34.549 of subatomic math, and we watched that one idea 00:18:34.549 --> 00:18:36.509 ripple outward through the decades. It's been 00:18:36.509 --> 00:18:39.549 quite a ride. It morphed into Valeria Gallino's 00:18:39.549 --> 00:18:43.150 unreleased 1993 film, a movie that perfectly 00:18:43.150 --> 00:18:45.109 embodies the thought experiment by remaining 00:18:45.109 --> 00:18:48.029 permanently unseen. It scaled up and down the 00:18:48.029 --> 00:18:50.849 television dial, finding a home in both the adult, 00:18:50.849 --> 00:18:53.630 secretive drama of You -Me -Her and the preschool, 00:18:54.109 --> 00:18:56.609 package -delivering animation of Super Wings. 00:18:56.730 --> 00:18:59.750 And we saw it linguistically adapt across mediums, 00:18:59.890 --> 00:19:02.309 giving a title to Gareth L. Powell's 2008 sci 00:19:02.309 --> 00:19:05.970 -fi short story, Morningwood's 2009 album track, 00:19:06.119 --> 00:19:10.140 Chris Center's 2015 grunge parody song and Chris 00:19:10.140 --> 00:19:13.859 Ferry's 2019 book. The semantic bleaching. The 00:19:13.859 --> 00:19:16.380 signs bleached away, but the emotional resonance 00:19:16.380 --> 00:19:18.940 of the boundary remained. Exactly. And then it 00:19:18.940 --> 00:19:21.039 collided in the interactive space, becoming the 00:19:21.039 --> 00:19:23.059 namesake for Canadian video game developers, 00:19:23.220 --> 00:19:25.859 an RPG maker game, and a trick -taking card game. 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:27.960 Proving that we don't just want to passively 00:19:27.960 --> 00:19:30.099 look at the box on a screen, we want to manipulate 00:19:30.099 --> 00:19:32.079 the hidden information inside it. We want to 00:19:32.079 --> 00:19:34.440 be the mechanism. Right. Finally connecting all 00:19:34.440 --> 00:19:36.140 the way back to the ancient colloquialism of 00:19:36.140 --> 00:19:38.519 letting the cat out of the bag. It really serves 00:19:38.519 --> 00:19:41.740 as a comprehensive map of how we process the 00:19:41.740 --> 00:19:45.880 unknown. And that leaves us with a final thought 00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:47.680 to ponder as we wrap up today. Well, let's hear 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:51.299 it. If a simple Wikipedia disambiguation page 00:19:51.299 --> 00:19:53.920 acts as a catalog of all these different cultural 00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:57.599 boxes we put this phrase into, what does it say 00:19:57.599 --> 00:20:01.519 about human nature? We are utterly obsessed with 00:20:01.519 --> 00:20:03.960 containers we cannot see inside. We really are. 00:20:04.019 --> 00:20:06.829 We just can't stand not knowing. Or perhaps it's 00:20:06.829 --> 00:20:09.730 the exact opposite. Perhaps we genuinely love 00:20:09.730 --> 00:20:12.490 not knowing. Next time you encounter a metaphorical 00:20:12.490 --> 00:20:15.569 closed box in your life, or your work, an unread 00:20:15.569 --> 00:20:17.809 email from your boss, a difficult conversation 00:20:17.809 --> 00:20:20.009 you've been putting off, or a creative project 00:20:20.009 --> 00:20:22.390 with a totally unknown outcome, ask yourself 00:20:22.390 --> 00:20:24.490 a question. What's the question? Is it the actual 00:20:24.490 --> 00:20:26.950 contents of the box you are drawn to, or is it 00:20:26.950 --> 00:20:28.950 simply the intoxicating thrill of the mystery 00:20:28.950 --> 00:20:31.950 itself? Because as long as the box remains closed, 00:20:32.370 --> 00:20:34.210 Anything is possible. Just don't let the cat 00:20:34.210 --> 00:20:35.930 out of the bag before you're ready. Thanks for 00:20:35.930 --> 00:20:37.450 joining us on this deep dive. We'll catch you 00:20:37.450 --> 00:20:37.869 next time.