Is it all correlation?

Biphoton state holographic reconstruction. Image reconstruction. a, Coincidence image of interference between a reference SPDC state and a state obtained by a pump beam with the shape of a Ying and Yang symbol (shown in the inset). The inset scale is the same as in the main plot. b, Reconstructed amplitude and phase structure of the image imprinted on the unknown pump. Credit: Nature Photonics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41566-023-01272-3

Quantum entanglement flies in the face of our quotidian “us-scale” reality. For that matter, post-Euclidian math and physics are for the most part, contradictory of the so-called “real world” and yet, humanity continues to live as though it knows what is real. In large measure, we don’t.

Am I making a claim that quantum mechanics is the truest depiction of reality? Well, let’s put it like this; it seems to provide a telling proof that things are not as we perceive them (which any artist or philosopher or mystic over the past 10,000 years would aver), but what conclusions would or should we come to?

People like to bandy around big words like God, universe, Dao, buddhanature, the Absolute, and on and on and on ad nauseam. All of these words have relative meaning and in any case, are not the thing they point to. No word is, but humans often mistake the word for the thing itself. Consequently, our realities are often just logocentric or conceptual, at best.

Since at least the publication of Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics, there has been a growing literature on the intersection of traditional doctrinal strategies and quantum physics. I won’t deny that Capra and others are persuasive. I would also go further back to the early fifties when scholars like Herbert Guenther began bringing phenomenological hermeneutics to the table when analyzing Indo-Tibetan Buddhist texts, particularly those of the Dzogchen and Mahamudra traditions. 

Latterly, these strategies have expanded to encompass and invite comparisons and equivalencies across other traditions, psychotherapies, and scientific discoveries. A number of questions arise: while similarities are interesting, are they merely a result of the human mind imposing patterns on diverse approaches to reality and while interesting, how important are these correlations? Are they true or merely patterns we impose? What is there ultimate significance if there is one?

Pattern recognition is what our brains do. The ability to perceive similarities in designs and situations were necessary for survival in early hominid eras and continue to be so to forecast dangers of both an individual and global scale. Aesthetically, patterns are found in design arts, in music, in all areas of behavior. Patterns infer a kind of predictability and any deviation from them serves to alert to the unusual, to the out of the ordinary, to a kind of shock that can wake the subject up to something outside the norm. A pattern can indicate harmony even between opposites (where clashing colors can be harmoniously wedded via repeating or interlocked shapes, for example); a pattern can itself be quite fascinating and hypnotic. 

Variation signals something else: impending disaster or just a shift in perception.

We become lulled by patterns; they become areas of safety. When a pattern breaks, it can be jarring but it can also be exciting or inspiring.

Similarity connotes recognition. This new thing looks like the other thing I’m used to; the new becomes more comprehensible. But is it really?

If you want equate - say - quantum entanglement with Jung’s synchronicity or the underlying Mind of God or the Dao - be my guest. But is the equation viable? Is it true? Is it real? These are three different questions.

Viability simply infers that there is a kind of usefulness in applying apparent similarities between different categories, patterns, strategies, and so on; at its simplest, this is reasoning by analogy and acting thereon. If it’s helpful to understand one thing by its similarity to another thing, so much the better. Still, there is a limit, a threshold of usefulness. At the end of the day, each situation stands on its own; each event needs to be experienced solely on its own terms. This requires a certain degree of openness, a willingness to engage from a space free of expectation or imposition of any kind. The viability of these equivalencies has a usefulness, a utility of some duration and importance, if only pro tem.

Reality and Truth are different. Reality might be easier to approach for a moment. For the moment, I’ll simplify what I mean by reality in terms of the reality-I-experience and reality-as-it-is outside my immediate experience. I don’t want to get into too much of the subject/object dichotomy nor do I want to start all this with discussions of subjective or objective reality, though that might come in handy.

If I accept that reality is more fluid and more gnarly than I perceive it, what does this do? If I say, conversely, that the world as I encounter it is only as I encounter it, what does this do? By “do”, I mean, how does this affect my behavior, how does this acceptance or non-acceptance determine how I go about my day, how does it govern (or not) my interactions with others? Does it have an impact on my ethics? Does my relationship with certain interpretations of how “the world” is constructed and/or of what it is composed/comprised alter my situation with that world and the beings that inhabit it?

There is a good chance the answer is in the affirmative; but if so, it’a a matter of degree and kind. We may say that we know that life is impermanent and that things and events, including ourselves, come into and pass out of existence and declare this to be real. How, though, does such knowledge affect how we relate to one another, the world, ourselves? 

An argument could be made that the most traumatic and destabliizing realization is that of one’s own demise. Consequently, it is said that we have built vast metaphysical systems to refute this very obvious declaration/observation. We have developed religious systems of God, gods, heavens, hells, and pantheon of pantheon to come to terms with everything from the change of seasons, agricultural cycles, to social justice and societal behaviors. Mostly, these constructions have arisen in response to that gnawing sense of persistent change in phenomena. Certainly, this is natural; certainly, we have held onto many of these doctrines stubbornly. 

Are they useful or helpful? They may be in some contexts, in others, they have led to darkness, bigotry, and destruction? They were necessary at one time; are they still? 

What we may want to consider is how much of our religio-mystical approaches/strategies have proven benign, if not useful. These may need to be weighed against the negative side; where insight ossifies into dogma and sectarianism and tribalism.

We cling to notions, assumptions, and our confirmation biases and these construct our unique experiences of/as reality. Thus, if I read that there are no solids or actual particles, that “particle” is a state of sub-atomic functions and that between these states is empty state vaster than that, proportionately, between the farthest planets and stars -- galaxies, even -- then how does that inform how I view the world, how does that inform how I act?

If I identify as something - as a Buddhist or a Daoist - I’m likely to say that this falls in line with received tradition and that I will still continue to work on being compassionate because I realize or grasp to some degree that impermanence that renders existence so very much precious. I suspect that if I am a monotheist, I may say that this is part of God’s grand design - but not being situated in the Abrahamic traditions, I don’t know how or if that information would impact my behavior or ethics. I wonder if proponents of traditions that traffic in eternal/permanent afterlives or soteriologies have a more difficult time with the passing of time and the decay of possessions and, for that matter, people? 

If I identify as an atheist, my assumption is that I’m probably more accepting of the eventual dissolution of myself - I may not like it, but I’m guessing that if one has taken the stance that this life is the only life, I am resolved to live as best I can. 

These are, of course, conjectural, if not idealized, scenarios. We exist on spectra of behaviors but I’d be curious to see how much those behaviors are results of adapting to changing information, developing data in the world outside of our immediate experience. In other words, is there some new information that occurs to an individual such that it alters their very perception of (their own) reality?

And what of Truth? Big word. Like God, the Absolute, and all those other big words of few letters, what do we with it in the face of a physics that renders matter insubstantial or so very different from what we encounter in our world of tables, chairs, cars, and Kleenex? Tables, chairs, cars, and Kleenex tissues are so many appearances and events constructed from one type of temporal organization of experience, a linear history, a linear trajectory that breaks down at quantum scales. Where is Truth in this? Or is Truth all throughout this?

Another approach would be to strip away the word, the concept. Stop with the projection, the imagining, the incessant conceptualization, and the cleverness that keeps it all in play; what happens when we don’t cling to our thoughts and projections and simply sit with what is before us, not accepting, not rejecting? Does that get us closer to Truth? I don’t know; but I do know that the brain gets quiet enough and over a protracted amount of time, behavior grows less reactive, at least until something comes along to show that I’m still not paying attention!

The point is to put Truth and all the other big words off to the side and openly welcome whatever comes. To not try to stuff the universe into God or not-God, to not limit experience and/or Reality into belief or non-belief, to maybe even treat everyone we meet with that kind of openness would approximate a more genuine type of love, free though, of the associations romantic, desirous, or selfishly needy.

What does that have to do with quantum entanglement? Maybe everything. Maybe we’re all entangled in this soup of quantum events; maybe we should act as if we are. 

All of this was precipitated by a recent article summarizing the visualization technique of the wave function of two entangled photons. The graphic used bears a striking resemblance to the yin/yang symbol of the taiji, the Great Ultimate, from Chinese philosophy, especially Daoism. I found myself wondering who’s going to run with this and say, “see? The Daoists were right!” in the same spirit as some Christians have seen Jesus’ face in the patterns of burnt toast. It’s a miracle! We all want some confirmation, some certainty, but if quantum mechanics has taught us anything, at a very fundamental level, there is uncertainty. This, above all, is the most freeing; what preconception is there to cling to, then? What stolid, stagnant, very often self-imposed worldview is there to impose on the world and all within it?

It isn’t science’s job to determine how we act in the world or how we behave toward each other; but we should have the depth of understanding to organize what we learn from science in ways that inform how we can understand better phenomenal existence and our place in it. Not only merely in it, but as phenomenal existents ourselves. There is something wondrous about all this and how different would this world be, would our lives be, if we could recognize that sense of the wondrous in reality as we live it and co-emergently, in each other?

Further reading:

University of Ottawa. Visualizing the Mysterious Dance: Quantum entanglement of photons captured in real-time. Phys.org. August 21, 2023. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-visualizing-mysterious-quantum-entanglement-photons.html.