So, you may ask, what exactly do I mean by “quantum culture?”
Well, a couple of years ago, a friend left a book at my apartment entitled, “In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat,” by John Gribbin. It’s a book about quantum physics and reality. I was a little familiar with quantum physics, but I wasn’t prepared for the conceptual depths this book took me to. It blew my mind. Literally. I had to use a spatula to scrape my brain off the floor . . . and it’s never really been the same since.
I’m not going to get into the nuts and bolts of quantum physics here . . . that will be left for future posts:-) But there are two quotes from the book that I think can shed some light on what I’m pointing towards:
“The future is inherently uncertain – we do not know exactly where we are going; but the past is clearly defined – we do know exactly where we have come from. To paraphrase Heisenberg, “We can know, as a matter of principle, the past in all its details.” This precisely fits in with our everyday experience of the nature of time, moving from a known past into an uncertain future, and it is a feature of the quantum world at its most fundamental.”
With the aid of technology, our culture is the most self-conscious the world has yet conceived. We constantly look at ourselves, and then look at others looking at ourselves, and then look at ourselves looking at others looking at us. It’s like two mirrors facing each other – their reflections go off into infinity.
But one of the interesting side-effects of this hyper- observation and contemplation is that by becoming aware of ourselves and the world around us, we alter those things (for better or for worse). As Gribbin says in the book, “we have to accept that the very act of observing a thing changes it, and that we, the observers, are in a very real sense part of the experiment.”
We’re becoming a quantum culture – one that that has slowly become more and more aware of itself and the reactions that result from its actions – how the present constantly implicates the tomorrow. We have an unquenchable thirst for who we are and where we are from. As we begin to become more aware of ourselves and our surroundings, we slowly begin to alter our reality.
The quantum culture is one that is looking. We constantly seek input, data – and this information, while often wavering between disorienting and sedating, disheartening and amazing, is ultimately a small step toward enlightenment.
