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It is like seeing a landscape through a fog. You can make out shapes and perhaps movement, but nothing is quite clear. Then a breeze sweeps away the mist, and you now see things in a different light. Isolated insights weave together in a pattern that may still be fragmented, but is somehow better, more complete than what you had before. I had one such moment when Google recently announced, but then recanted, a claim that it had achieved “quantum supremacy.” At first I thought it meant that Google had released a new Jason Bourne film - anything would better than the last one. But after reading a number of articles on quantum supremacy, I realized that that was not the case. However, it also became clear that it would take a long time for me to understand the marriage of quantum mechanics and computer science that such supremacy would represent. However, since the claim quickly dissolved into a kind of Internet “Oops,” I wasn’t overly concerned. I’ll worry about it a bit more once we see a “We really mean it this time!” post.
What did happen, though, was that a number of previous, semi-connected “quantum-esque” musings came together in ways, that while probably still incomplete, seemed a tad clearer than before. Let me try to share them and hopefully retain at least a bit of that clarity. Let’s start with the “many worlds theory.” In this version of quantum mechanics there is no such thing as the path not taken. When we make an important decision - when path A is chosen, paths B, C, D, etc., - the other decisions we could have made - are also simultaneously taken, but those decisions play out in different worlds, in different - or at least somewhat hidden - universes. OK, hold on to that for a moment and let’s jump to the “human singularity.”
In the Big Bang theory of the universe, before the big bang itself, all matter, space-time, the whole enchilada, was compressed into an infinitely tiny small point - a physical singularity. Then quantum fluctuations within the singularity caused the Big Bang throwing all the contents of the singularity out into an inflation that, in an incredibly minuscule blink of time, resulted in the humongous universe in which we exist and can observe.
OK, trudging on to yet another quantum condition - entanglement. This is the one that Einstein initially resisted but later accepted and defined as “spooky action at a distance.” Wikipedia defines it thus:
“Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the state of the others, even when the particles are separated by a large distance.”
To simplify, particles that are “entangled” react to any stimulus identically and instantaneously regardless of their degree of separation - inches, miles, light years, makes no difference. Do something to one of a pair or group of entangled particles and the other entangled elements react identically and instantaneously regardless of their degree of separation. Thus, entangled particles seem to toss information back and forth playing fast and loose with the speed of light and other cosmic niceties. No wonder Einstein found it “spooky.”
I haven’t run across any sources that assert that the contents of the original physical singularity which inflated into the universe we know were entangled, but they certainly shared “intense spatial proximity” in the original singularity. So I wouldn’t be surprised at all to read that someone had discovered evidence that the entire universe is entangled. If that pops up, remember you heard it here first! Or drop me a note and let me know where you read about it years ago.
Anyhow, I don’t want to focus on the possible entanglement of the physical universe. Well, not directly anyhow. I am more interested in the possibilities of what I think of as the human singularity. Let me jump back almost 20 years to the original publication of The God Chord. Stealing from string theory, I asserted in that work that we were literally made of music. That our own unique Chord was the result of the vibration of the strings that formed the smallest unique divisions of each replicated particle in our bodies. Now, these couple of decades later, it doesn’t seem much of a stretch to posit that all these tiny harmonic particles in our body are “generated, interact, or share spatial proximity” in such a way as to be entangled. After all, the particles were generated together, constantly interact, and share the spatial proximity of our body. Seems a strong argument for “the body entangled.” There are obviously tempting possible paths here for medicine, genetics, science and physics here. But that is not the path that intrigues me. I am more interested in the metaphysical spin implied by these entanglements.
Let us assume that we are composed of entangled particles. Let us further suppose that the many worlds theory - or the multiverses theory - is right. So that when we make specific life choices that lead us down path A, entangled versions of our selves simultaneously head off down paths B, C, D, etc. I am willing to admit that that is strange. But not nearly as strange as this: if we are entangled with those other versions of ourselves shouldn’t we - at some level - be experiencing elements of the lives of those alternative choices? Down paths B, C, D, etc.?
What happens when we choose a major, a career, a partner? In a many worlds reality we simultaneously chose a different major, a different career, a different partner. When we marry “many worlds” with “entanglement” we simultaneously make all those different choices and entangled versions of our self are living those different lives in different worlds in different universes.
My most intense curiosity at the moment focuses on possible evidence of being able to sense - via entanglement - what is going on in my “other lives in other worlds.” Those entangled harmonic worlds I created by not choosing them. Do I experience them through dreams, sleeping or waking? Visions? Trances? Prayer? Creative impulses and works? Meditation? What are those intensely “real seeming” experiences that feature precious people in alien situations, or hyper-realistic dreams of familiar situations inhabited by strangers?
I said that I consider these musings to live more in the realm of metaphysics than traditional or classical physics. But that may well be a spurious distinction. If one world yields up its secrets to the probing of physics, might that choice in itself give rise to other entangled worlds governed by “spookier” paths to understanding? An alternate type of physics? metaphysics? philosophies? Why not? After all, Halloween is just around the corner!
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