The Quantum Metaphor for Life and Sciences

        Pasta or Pizza?

We can probably all relate to the following experience: There are five minutes left in a sports game (soccer, hockey, what-have-you) and your favorite team is ahead by a goal. 

You are anxiously looking at the clock hoping that your team is going to pull through with a win. A lot can happen in that five-minute interval, so you hold your breath. The seconds winding down feel like an eternity, and you wish you could move their hands more quickly to end the game and secure the much-desired win!

Now let’s switch and flip around the whole experience for argument’s sake. There are still five minutes left in the game, yet in this scenario your favorite team is behind a goal. 

Now anything can happen in that time interval as well, but the problem is five minutes that seemed an eternity in the first case now are flowing and flying by much too fast. You do not want to speed up time but would like to grab and tie its hands and stop it from moving further so that your team will be given enough time to score that essential and vital equalizing goal!

The constant of both situations is the time interval. In each case, we are allotting the same amount of time. Although time is relative, as suggested and proven by Einstein, it is still quite relatively constant and the same (at least on planet Earth) whether you are cheering for Team A or Team B. The only difference lies in our perception of time.

This, of course, is not merely limited to sports events. As a rule, any event that thrills us or brings us joy will make time fly and go too fast for our intents and purposes, whereas dreaded events seem to move at a painstakingly slow pace. The boring class that seemingly will never end; the work shift that is taking an eternity to wrap up and finish. In either case, objectively we are faced with the same amount and length of time, but subjectively, we experience time quite differently.

Yet our scientific view of things demands us to be objective in our observations. We say that regardless of the personal experience of time, the data that can be measured is exactly the same / identical for each scenario. That is a fact.

In the same vein, science needs quantifiable information: Today’s temperature of the weather is 25 degrees Celsius (or its equivalent 77 degrees in Fahrenheit). That may feel warm to you if you live in cooler climates or feel cool to you when you are accustomed to living in warmer and more tropical regions. Yet the exact measurable degree gives us and sets a benchmark to gauge the level of heat at that moment in time.

Or does it? This may take us to the medical sciences. There we have a disease that can be objectively diagnosed through specific tests, be it a blood test, urine sample or an X-ray. Based on the evidence, a person either has a disease or not. A doctor unlike an economist or even weather forecaster is not there to speculate nor to give us odds and probabilities whether a patient has a disease or not. We need scientific data or proof to corroborate the diagnosis.

The problem with this is that a given disease may be the same, but the personal experience of the disease is going to be quite different. Put differently, if a hundred persons have the exact same disease, its impact - that is the amount and strength of suffering, affliction, pain threshold etc. - is going to vary - at times rather substantially - from person to person and case to case. This experience, namely how ill the disease makes a person feel, is referred to as illness.

There are people who have a certain disease, but are not aware of it as they do not feel unwell, while others react to it rather strongly. This may depend on many factors, including the genetic, physical, and psychological make-up, the person’s life experiences as well as their ethnic and cultural background. No two people are ever alike, and their response to medication and treatment will also vary, which is why even medical sciences cannot always give us the clear quantifiable data we would like to obtain.

To complicate matters, there are many cases that are deemed functional neurological disorders or are diagnosed as conversion disorders, which are rather psychosomatic ailments that do not correspond nor can be traced to an organic cause.

People may suffer from pain or even paralysis in parts of their body without having a physical cause; rather their illness is stemming from often subconscious psychological issues or trauma. The book It’s All in your Head by neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan, which has also graciously and inadvertently provided some of the background medical information of my post here, gives insightful and detailed explanations of such cases.

But for our intents and purposes, we want to suggest and highlight that certain scientific data should be taken with a grain of salt. I am not saying that we should consider the clearly ludicrous notion that the earth is flat (it is not). But in the past, learned people claimed with stern conviction that this was so, and they have been later proven wrong with science. Now this shows us that supposed certainty does not necessarily mean that one’s view is or will continue to be correct.

No better way to prove this than with quantum mechanics. Suddenly, we are faced with dilemmas in which our regular understanding of the world is shredded and falls to pieces. Is Schrödinger’s cat dead? Yes. But can it be alive? Yes. Is it possible for it to be both alive and dead at the same time? Um, yes, it could be in a zombie state until the box is opened, which is the only time we would know for sure. Are you sure about that? Absolutely.

This is a time where objectivity does not give us the distance that we need to define and verify events. Light can be both a wave and a particle depending on how you look at it; it is not an issue of P or not-P, but it can be both at the same time! In this case, the subject becomes so involved and enmeshed with the object itself that one cannot simply be without the other! Put differently, they are as interconnected and intricately linked with each other as space is with time in the indivisible form of space-time, which, after all, happens to be not linear but curved.

In these instances, our logic seems to go out the window, and we may come to the uncomfortable realization that time and everything else for that matter is nothing but an illusion. The objects and colors we perceive then are nothing but atoms that move sometimes more or sometimes less quickly. The absolute kind of truth that we expect of Newtonian physics as well as the razor-sharp stiletto of logic will have to take a backseat for a moment due to the discoveries of the uncertainty principle since electrons and atoms disregard those rules and laws.

But there is a way out of this entangled mess. As humans we have always been prone to adapt to our surroundings and as humble and open-minded scientists we are generally quick to assimilate and respond to constantly changing circumstances. This does not mean that our previous scientific knowledge and discoveries are wrong (they are not) but there is still a factor we have been queasy about and that is the element of subjectivity.

Any human being no matter how well-trained and accomplished cannot escape their own subjective viewpoints and biases. And let us not treat it as a negative thing but actually embrace it. Let us rethink science and not see it as distancing the object from the subject but combine both in a mystical dance, where I lose myself in the flower I am contemplating and examining, and I am the flower and the flower is me.

Let us use our subjective capacity and empathy to identify ourselves with the object in question instead of carefully extricating and distancing ourselves from it. Let us consider - as it has been occurring in psychology – the person that comes to consult the therapist less as a patient but more as a client or agent who can benefit from the doctor’s knowledge, the same way the doctor can benefit from this interdependent interaction.

This is what could be called the Quantum metaphor. One can apply this mystical uncertain certainty as a union between object and subject, interior and exterior, self and not-self to create a new perspective or paradigm of the world around us.

It can be applied to anything from sciences, philosophy, politics to religion as well as daily life. When there is no definite yes-or-no answer or truth, one can see the world with different eyes. There is no good or evil per se but often changing circumstances. An immoral act of stealing or lying may be justifiable and even commendable in certain situations.

Let us listen to the other, our supposed enemy or threat and see them not in the biased and one-sided Us vs Them mentality, but let us notice the common ground that we share despite our perceived differences. Yes, we can have a love-hate relationship with someone and that is not necessarily a contradiction in and of itself.

I am not merely saying that one should inundate oneself with positive thinking. This is not merely a glass half-full, half-empty metaphor. In fact, positive thinking can do us more harm than good in some cases. Nor am I talking about pure rationalism that would justify philosophical trends like utilitarianism where the benefit of the majority supposedly can override the suffering of the few.

The quantum metaphor would simply allow us to think of the world less in a divisive way; it is not just about me versus them or my self versus the external world but rather a unity where both joyously complement each other, where harm to my neighbor will, in return, harm me as well. The quantum metaphor would also help us curb our hubris and overreaching ambition in which we may allow ourselves not only to be wrong on certain matters, but to even contradict ourselves and our stern principles when the situation requires us to do so.

To exemplify this in another way, let us look at language and experience. For example, anxiety is something we try to avoid as we see it as a negative emotion and experience. But we would be wrong to do so. 

Anxiety not unlike pain is giving us signals that something is up and that this something needs our attention. It points us towards a problem or issue that exists within us. Instead of avoiding it, we should embrace it and follow it and see where it leads us, the same way we do not ignore pain as it is alerting us to fix a health issue in our body.

Equally, the adjective anxious can be perceived in two contradictory manners. I can feel anxious in its negative nervous sense or I can be anxious for something to happen as an expected thrill or as a sudden rush and onset of emotions. Or I can simply be anxious for my team to win with only five more minutes left in the game.