Sundararajan, Louise. "Ssu-k'ung T'u's Vision of Ultimate Reality: A Quantum Mechanical Interpretation." Ultimate Reality and Meaning: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Philosophy of Understanding 27, no. 4 (December 2004): 254-264.

Abstract

This paper attempts to explore a particular perspective on ultimate reality, a perspective which is best expressed by Heidegger's dictum: 'within the ontological sphere the possible is higher than everything actual' (Heidegger 1982, p. 308). According to this perspective, the path from the possible to the actual is that of degeneration from an original plethora to impoverished simplication. An eloquent expression of this perspective is found in the works of the ninth century Chinese poet/critic Ssu-k'ung T's. My hypothesis is that the poetic vision of Ssu-k'ng T'u shares something in common with certain theories of quantum mechanics. More specifically, I claim that the 'subtle chi' in Ssu-k'ung T'u's Sluh-p in the literary counterpart of 'Schrödinger's cat'. To shed some light on the parallelismbetween the 'subtle chi' and the quantum cat, I introduce a third variable, namely William Gray's theory of creative thinking, which will help us to locate quantum cats in the micro level process of thought.