Quantum Geek Leap

 

No, this is not another unsolicited harangue on water or waste, traffic or development, growth or greed, but a refreshing new version of ‘Better Living Thru Chemistry’.  Artificial Intelligence (Ai) is the latest rage, but Quantum Mechanics has been around for more than 100 years.  Ever since Heisenberg postulated with his matrix, and the wave-particle nature of light, that you can’t know position or probability at the same time we found out that the act of observation actually changes everything. Einstein famously countered with his thought that God does not play dice with the universe.  He was relatively wrong.  This was another great breakthrough in how we see the Universe.  Energy and very little matter are not continuous but occurred in interval bursts called ‘quanta’.  Hence the name.  Electrons jump from different, discrete, orbital clouds, giving off signature radiation of both particles and waves that were not predictable or observable.

Quantum extrapolations predicted alternative universes with folds in the fabric of the space-time continuum and begged for new mathematics beyond Newtonian Calculus to solve for the practical results we desperately wanted.  And so we applied it to lasers, transistors and quantum computers.  How cool is that.  Quantum computers are not binary but use quantum particles called cubits and photons to solve for an infinite range of solutions almost instantaneously.  This may be a great assistance to Ai in sensing new phenomena and performing critical matrix operations for better communication and security.  The photons involved, that carry the electromagnetic force enabling all chemistry and biology, use fiber optics rather than copper wire to transmit, uninterrupted, faster than the speed of light, without the heat byproduct that requires so much energy and cooling water.  Even our old fiber-optic internet network can be repurposed to create a future quantum network.  Once again for every problem we create, we find a solution in another dimension and direction.  Necessity is the mother. 

Not only that, but the instantaneously entanglement or influence at great distance, faster than the speed of light, implies a holistic aspect of the universe where all things are connected non-locally and influence each other.  This gives new meaning to John Muris theory that all things in nature are ‘inextricably hitched’.  This challenges the deterministic, isolationist and reductionist view that we are sperate independent entities and even the religious view that we have independent consciousness and free will.  Our passive self-awareness and subjective experiences are not from our own individual brains but are a part of the universal consciousness that we actively co-create.  We are all one consciousness in the universe, and our actions and observations influence and are influenced by everything else, instantly across great distance.  We make our Faustian bargains and count on Karma.   

This gets beyond the deterministic, predictable, touchy-feely physics and math we are all used to and accept.  It merges mind and matter, cosmos and consciousness.  We live life magically connected to each other where there is a collective-consciousness and there are no coincidences.  This to me is a quantum leap in our human development, much like fire, agriculture, the wheel, the a-bomb, the industrial revolution, the information age, the internet, cell phones and shaped skis. 

We live our lives in personal quantum intervals, performing in bursts and resting when tired.  We rest the uphill ski and leg as we shred, walk, run or cycle.  We appreciate the pause in music and the negative space in art.  We marvel at our interconnected synchronicity and serendipitous meetings with people we have been just thinking about or finding words we have been searching for. We wonder at the similarities of the atom and the universe, though the universe is deterministic and predictable while the atom is random and probabilistic.  Are we just an atom on a hair, on a mite, on a dog (god), in a world, in a solar system, galaxy and universe just like our own.  There is so much to know and so much to learn that we should keep our minds open to these universal theories that magically connect physics and math, philosophy and metaphysics, religion and God.   Amen.