What is the mind? What is an Electron? There are many such questions in this world that are unanswered. We are of course trying to find the answers to these questions, but what are we using to find these answers? Our brains; but this, when you think about it, is quite mind boggling because how can you try to understand the world with something that is part of it? How can we use our brains to understand other things when we don’t even fully understand our brains? This issue is related to quantum because in quantum there are many things still unexplained, for example: what is an electron and what does it look like? Why does it act the way it does? Just as we don’t know how exactly the brain works, and what the mind is we don’t know what an electron is.
In this art piece there is a 3D model of a brain (spray painted and made out of clay) looking into a mirror, asking itself what it is. Though, at the same time the question is also applicable to the images on the walls, it is asking what an electron is as well. The model of the sodium atom is your standard model of an atom; but it’s a model, meaning that the circle with a negative sign in it is most probably not what an electron actually looks like. The e with a negative sign is what we use to represent an electron in calculations. The same goes for the little guy in a jump suit, they’re all just a representations of an electron; the way one actually looks is still a mystery to us. The point of this piece is to make you wonder and think about those questions and ideas and for you to then realize there is so much still unknown. I hope the irony of a brain trying to think of what it is, is apparent as well.
The philosophical aspect of this is exploring the deep questions of our nature such as what is the mind, what is the brain, what are we? This is something we humans have been pondering since we first started to exist, and we still haven’t figured it out. The scientific/quantum aspect of this is going into the still concealed answers to what does the electron look like, why does it act the way it does? This is an important question not only because electrons are a very big part of our world but also because the answer would lead us to the answers of many other questions as well.