Is Quantum Queer?

Big questions for a small world

Visual images created and licensed by Sasha on Shutterstock using DALLE-E 2 and EXAONE.

A sci-fi framework

This past week I was drafting a special but difficult chapter for The Extraordinary Rise and Relocation of the Smart Animal, but now I’m turning my attention to working out a very important conceptual framework for both the story and me personally. 

I’ve put it off but it's becoming clear that I can’t fully craft my story, plot, or characters without developing this framework. 

A science-fiction concept of quantum mechanics and theory.   

Now I’m definitely not a scientist and I can just imagine scoffers scoffing, but that doesn’t matter. Early in my life I  formed an oppositional personality, so negativity does not scare me off although I’ve been working to moderate it so it doesn’t compel me, either. In other words, I’m updating that internal push-pull machine inside my head to become a controlled dialectical system so it can be a really useful tool and not just a sledgehammer.

Now that might be its own sci-fi story! 

Quantum mechanics excites me like nothing else for several reasons. I think anyone who understands exactly what it means and how it works feels the same. By that I do not mean technically comprehending  the enormity of both its power and nuance.  I mean conceptually comprehending  even a hint of that. I also know it is possible to personally and experientially comprehend it. 

Some people might think that’s a big claim, but it's actually a small one 

Speaking of small, a tiny child or even an ant can understand and experience exactly what I am talking about. It is much harder for us adult humans with our big brains. 

Now, who am I to judge the great protein-fat-nerve mass that made greater human civilization? Well, I’m not anyone to make verdicts and judgment is not my jam (as the guilty always say) but it is possible to discern certain internal tendencies and the quality of a machine based on its output. All our minds together create a collective mind which makes our reality. On a larger scale, that reality, or realities as it is now, is a lot of the output, or at least the most visible part – just like an iceberg. 

Could it be that a lot of its truth is underneath?

Speaking about my own brain where I have more direct and immediate access, I know it can get very distorted. When I’m stuck in my own head, shutting off my body and the world it’s embedded in, my output is very poor. 

My consciousness is impaired. 

In my opinion, division and isolation is  not actually not the way consciousness works properly. I do not believe consciousness is just an element of the human mind. Nor do I think it is a product of matter or materialism. 

I believe, as do others, that consciousness is everything and everywhere, the essential form.  I also think that consciousness and quantum mechanics are linked, just as the quantum and the cosmological are.  

The abstract image above could be a representation of either a cosmological event or a quantum event, and it can even be both, with one reflecting the other. They both share many characteristics and behaviors.

The Cosmic-Quantum Dance

• Interconnectedness 

• Uncertainty and probability 

• The exchange and transformation of energy

• The role of fundamental forces (gravity or the strong and weak nuclear forces)

• The presence of unsolved mysteries (dark matter, dark energy and quantum gravity)

What does this all mean for my story?  

Everyone who knows anything about quantum mechanics talks about how hard it is to understand because it seems so counterintuitive to our experience of reality. 

That makes it the perfect subject for science fiction, which begins with what if questions. Here are some of mine:

• What if the concept of reality – consensual reality – is not correct, but a distortion? 

• What if some of us were to stop consenting? 

• What if we could become aware and active in a fuller, more complete form of existence? 

• What if this was not just certain people or groups, but consciousness itself opening back up?

• What if transitioning made it necessary to let go of your traditional beliefs about life and the world, from ego to religion and society? 

• What would the big difficulties be and how would the world look as this transition began?

• Most excitingly, what kind of innovation, creativity, and spiritual growth would be possible in a world filled with abundant resources and energy?

All of those what’s and what ifs are a huge part of what my story is about. 

Of course, the rise of a different reality and the experience of becoming aware and engaged in it is not the only consideration I have to think about.

• How does quantum energy and spirituality intersect?

• What about consciousness and the cosmic-quantum (or is it the quantum-cosmic)? 

• What kind of technology is used?

• What does the fuller or complete reality look and feel like and what is its name? 

• What happens in the end?

These are the big creative questions that I’m tackling right now. Of course I have ideas but it is time to pin them down. 

I’ll be honest.

Naming and defining these elements for my story makes me a little nervous and anxious.

The Risers and Keepers

In my story there are two groups, the Risers and the Keepers. The Risers are the first ones to cross over and the Keepers are committed to their traditional world and its beliefs and systems: the material world and ego desires. 

Since this new awareness and form of existence is  rooted in consciousness, nature is a huge part of its new beginning. This fuller existence has always been around, and some have always existed in it. I’m telling the story with a focus on certain animals and people who are strongly connected to them. The story does go a ways back with the Risers remembering and embracing their full beingness.  

However, in the end the consciousness of everything and everyone plays a part. 

This ties into a big idea that is an important part of my narrative and life. The concept of all, of everything and everyone. The collapse of duality and ego. These ideas are rooted in a lot of new science, old science, spiritual concepts and philosophical thinking across time. 

Sometimes I call this the Singularity, or simply queer. Both those words have a whole lot of political and conceptual baggage but to me queer is everything, all the differences, all together. 

Duality collapses. 

Quantum is very queer!

This story is not about the erasure or division of self and world but about coming together. 

Perhaps it is that time, not just in my story, but in my own life.

Thanks for reading!

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