The Senior Common Room had been unusually quiet.
This was rarely a good sign.
Professor Quillibrace had learned that silence in academic settings generally indicated one of two things:
Either everyone had reached a profound insight.
Or someone had used a word that nobody wished to define.
Mr Blottisham entered carrying his tablet.
"I have been watching a lecture about quantum physics."
Professor Quillibrace looked up.
"An ambitious undertaking."
"I found it fascinating."
"Excellent."
"Although there was one thing I didn't understand."
"Only one?"
Miss Stray smiled.
"What was it?"
Blottisham opened the tablet.
"The speaker said that the particle 'knows' which path it takes."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"Ah."
"You see the problem?"
"I see several."
Blottisham looked pleased.
"I thought you might."
"The first question is whether the particle possesses knowledge."
"Exactly."
"And the second?"
"Whether it has attended sufficient educational establishments."
Miss Stray laughed.
"I suspect the particle has not."
Blottisham looked at the screen again.
"But the speaker put quotation marks around the word."
"Did she?"
"Yes."
"Ah."
Professor Quillibrace settled back in his chair.
"The quotation marks are important."
"Why?"
"They perform a kind of intellectual apology."
"An apology?"
"Yes."
"The speaker says something like: 'The particle knows...'"
"Yes."
"And then immediately adds: 'Of course, it does not literally know.'"
"Exactly."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"So why say it?"
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"An excellent question."
The room became quiet.
Miss Stray poured the tea.
"Perhaps because the metaphor helps us imagine something unfamiliar."
"Possibly."
"But then the question becomes..."
She paused.
"...why this metaphor?"
Blottisham looked between them.
"I don't understand."
Professor Quillibrace stood and walked towards the blackboard.
"When we encounter something unfamiliar, we often describe it using familiar ideas."
"Yes."
"We say electrons 'move'."
"Yes."
"We say fields 'interact'."
"Yes."
"We say systems 'choose' or 'prefer'."
"Yes."
"And we understand that none of these are literally true."
"Correct."
"So?"
"So perhaps the interesting question is not whether the metaphor is true."
"What is it?"
"Why the metaphor appears at all."
Blottisham considered this.
"Because we need it?"
"Perhaps."
"Then it isn't just a mistake."
"Precisely."
Miss Stray looked thoughtful.
"Maybe metaphors are not only ways of explaining things."
"No?"
"Maybe they are ways of thinking."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"Now we approach the interesting territory."
He wrote on the blackboard:
REALITY → LANGUAGE → UNDERSTANDING
Then he crossed it out.
"Too simple."
He wrote:
REALITY ↔ METAPHOR ↔ CONCEPTUAL POSSIBILITY
Blottisham frowned.
"That looks more complicated."
"It is."
"Does it help?"
"Usually."
"That seems inconvenient."
"It often is."
Miss Stray pointed at the board.
"So a metaphor doesn't simply describe reality."
"No."
"It shapes what we can ask."
"Exactly."
Blottisham thought about this.
"So if we think of particles as little objects..."
"We expect them to behave like little objects."
"With locations."
"Yes."
"Paths."
"Yes."
"Identities."
"Yes."
"And if quantum physics doesn't behave like that..."
"Then our old metaphors begin to struggle."
Blottisham nodded slowly.
"So perhaps saying the particle 'knows' is a sign that we are trying to describe something outside our ordinary categories."
Professor Quillibrace looked mildly surprised.
"That is a remarkably good way of putting it."
"Thank you."
"Please do not become accustomed to such praise."
Miss Stray smiled.
"I wonder whether this happens often in science."
"Constantly."
"Really?"
"Consider gravity."
"Newton described forces acting at a distance."
"Yes."
"Einstein described spacetime curvature."
"Yes."
"Different metaphors."
"Very different."
"But both helped scientists think."
"Exactly."
Blottisham looked back at the tablet.
"So when physicists use words like 'knows'..."
"Yes?"
"They aren't saying the particle has a little mind."
"No."
"They're saying..."
He searched for the words.
"...that something is happening which our ordinary language finds difficult to express."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"That is the beginning of wisdom."
The clock ticked quietly.
After a moment, Blottisham spoke again.
"But I still have one question."
"Naturally."
"If everyone agrees the particle doesn't know..."
"Yes?"
"Why does nobody ask why they keep using a word that means knowing?"
Professor Quillibrace looked at Miss Stray.
Miss Stray looked at Professor Quillibrace.
"Because..."
she said slowly,
"...the metaphor may be telling us something about the limits of our current concepts."
Professor Quillibrace picked up his tea.
"Indeed."
"What do you mean?"
"Perhaps the particle does not know."
"Obviously."
"But perhaps our language is trying to tell us that the universe is not behaving like the kind of thing we once imagined."
Blottisham considered this.
"So the quotation marks are not the end of the story."
"No."
"They're the beginning."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"My dear Blottisham..."
"Yes?"
"You have just discovered that punctuation can be philosophical."
The college clock struck five.
Books were closed.
The tablet was switched off.
The three remained for a moment in the quiet room.
On the blackboard, the word remained:
knows
surrounded by quotation marks.
Not as a conclusion.
As a question.
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