Who Watches the Watches?
Be forewarned. This is another post that probably won’t make a lot of sense. Then again, you may be used to that by now. You see, I’ve started writing without a clue what I’m going to write about. I had an inkling of an idea, as you can see by the title, which I wrote first. Still, no idea. Let’s see how this goes.
So, anyway, who watches the watches? Does an unwatched watch keep time? Is it running when you’re not looking? If you look, does it, in a fraction of a millisecond, jump to the current time (or whatever time your watch shows–maybe you don’t keep it current) so that you’ll think it has been keeping time or has it actually been keeping time? And, how would you know?
Oh, you say it’s because someone else could see it. Well, if someone else sees it, that counts as being watched, no? What happens when no one is watching it?
You can hear it tick? Well, that is a form of observation. It’s not visual observation but it is aural observation, so it is still being observed. And, anyway, that only tells you that it is making a clicking noise. It doesn’t mean the hands are moving, does it? How would you know? If you flip it over to look at it, well, you’re back to observing it again, so how do you know it was keeping time otherwise?
What happens when you stick it in a box and stick that box in your drawer? Now, you can neither hear nor see it. Is it keeping time? How do you know? When you open it up to look at it, how do you know it didn’t just suddenly skip ahead to the current time? Are you sure the current time is really the current time? Time is relative, you know?
So, you say that’s just baloney. It’s keeping time. It has to. It just has to. Well, in that case, how do you know that it isn’t residual observation that is forcing it to keep going? You may not be directly observing it but there are forms of indirect observation which could force the watch to keep going not because it just keeps going but because it only goes when it is observed, even if observed indirectly.
For example, consider the watch is boxed up in your drawer. You can’t see or hear it, right? But, the ticking sends out sound waves, which impact the box and filter through. Those, in turn, bounce off the drawer walls, or whatever else is in the drawer. Those sound waves bounce around. Now, you may not be able to hear them, as they may be so muffled they don’t make a sound loud enough to register in your conscious mind, but that doesn’t mean the muffled sound wasn’t picked up by your ears, but the sound was so soft you effectively didn’t hear it. Yet, you were affected by it, indirectly, softly, pretty darn imperceptively. But, that was still a form of observation. The sound waves did make it; they just weren’t loud enough to hear.
Oh, you’re crying foul now, saying that’s not really observation, but are you sure? Sound waves cause vibration; vibration is motion; motion causes friction; etc. So, the box containing the watch is made to vibrate, ever so softly. Yet, that motion has an effect. Eventually the vibrations will cause the box to wear down over time. It may take a long time. The paper itself may disintegrate from age rather than the sound waves, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the sound waves are having some small, very tiny, very miniscule effect on the box and, in turn, the drawer itself. And perhaps even you!
Now, that may be imperceptively small, but it’s there. And because it’s there and affecting you, it is a form of indirect observation. You may not register it, but it’s there. And so it cannot be known for certain whether an unobserved watch keeps on going, because that watch can never be completely unobserved.
Thus, we have solved–perhaps–a physics conundrum. Maybe. At any rate, the question remains, who watches the watches?
Who, indeed.
I have NO watches in my shack, just for these reasons.
A watch is a watch, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a watch of course
That is, of course, unless the watch is the famous Dr. Shoal
Go right to the source and ask the watch
He’ll give you the answer that you’ll endorse.
He’s always on a steady course.
Talk to Dr. Shoal
People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day …………… ((( pause )))
But a watch will never speak unless it has something to say.
A watch is a watch, of course, of course,
And this one’ll talk ’til his voice tictocks.
You never heard of a talking watch ?????????????????
Well listen to this
I do not own a watch