Thinking about all the decisions I had to make just to write this sentence.
Posted on :
08-16-08 |
Why am I sitting here writing this? What brought me to this moment where I am sitting in front of my keyboard thinking about the quantum brain enough to want to try and write it down? How many thousands if not millions of decisions have gotten us to the point where you are reading this?
I remember where it started for me. Home improvement month at the Millar house this winter, and as I was cutting tile outside the garage and then heading back into the garage to go inside holding the cut piece of tile in my hand, wondering if it will fit or if I took the wrong measurements, I was presented with a very typical and common day situation.
Should I go right or left?
In front of me was the wheel barrel I put in the middle of the walkway to the door. For some odd reason, for the first time in my life, I actually felt myself evaluate the decision of going right, a path which appeared to have more room to maneuver, or left, which appeared to be the slightly quicker route, although would take a bit more dodging around the crap all over my garage. In that spilt second I felt myself analyze the options over and over again. I felt this buzz in my head, where I was putting ticks in a column… one for the left… one for the right… one for the right again… left… left again… right looks good.. put a tick there…
In this fraction of an instant, somehow I was able to tune into my brain, and observe the process of making a decision. I went to the left.
As the day went by I made more cuts on the tile, and walked by the same path over and over again. The first few times I felt the decision process. Now the second time, I had more information. I did indeed need to navigate a narrower path by going left, but by doing so, I picked up at least a second in travel time over the right path. I chose left again. The third time, I was not as much in hurry, so I choose the right path, and found the right path to be enjoyable as well. As time went on and I had made about 10 cuts, I starting not thinking anymore about how the decision was being made, but instead I was just rushing to get back in the house, and sometimes I would go right, and sometimes I would go left, and I found I wasn’t thinking about it all.
I had gone from a sudden and precise awareness of why for some reason I was going one way or the other, into forgetting about it all together as thought of tiles cuts filled my head.
Now physicists will tell you, anyone who thinks they can grasp the enormity of quantum physics clearly doesn’t understand it, but I swear, for a moment, I felt something.
We make decisions every day. All day long. Will I hit snooze? Will I get up? Do I need deodorant? Do I need breakfast? Should I go to work? Should I turn right, right now? Should I run this yellow light? Should I speed or get to work late? Should I turn the music up? Traffic is jammed, should I get off and back road it? Late. Should I walk in the front door or back door? Should I get a cup of coffee? Should I catch up on email? Should I smoke a cigarette? Should I find out what the boss wants me to do? Hungry. Should I eat now or wait til later? Which project should I start? Do I have time to do this today or will it take several days? Will I be interrupted over these several days? Can I do it if I get interrupted? Which color should I use? Which font looks best? Does this sentence make sense? Should I hit send on this email yet? Should I smoke a cigarette?
The highlights of the decisions we have to make for a few hours of our day are only one millionth of the subtle decisions we make in between every one of those. The sheer math involved calculating how many decisions were made in the last few hours to get everyone in one office of 50 people together and working together is impossible to fathom. And every second that goes by another million decisions just happened.
Does my finger move up and to the left to hit the “T” key? Should I grab that last donut? Is it cold in here? Is this guy on the phone serious? Where did I leave off a semicolon in this code? How many orders do I have to do today? How many leads do I have to get to keep my job? $29.95 times 6 units is… wait, I should use a calculator. When do I want to take lunch? Should I breathe now?
A myriad of thoughts from a small group of people, and then translate that out to just your state, or your country, or your world, and it becomes so far beyond any computing power known to man… except in our brains.
Quantum Theory suggests that for every outcome there are distinct possibilities. These possibilities all collide and do not necessarily dictate an outcome. Quantum theory suggests that any outcome can happen at any time for any reason. Well, within physical reason.
Some decisions link to others on a regular basis. Like if I decide to get out of bed and go to work, I pretty much know if I have a diet coke in the fridge, that I will be driving into work with a diet coke to drink on the way. If I don’t have any diet coke in the fridge, of course without stopping for one, I can’t drive in with a slightly caffeinated beverage, but if I do have some available, I usually choose to bring one. Not every time. Sometimes I only have one left, and I think I might want one when I get home later, but usually I will be bringing one with me to work.
Our brains are constantly re-evaluating the present, and making decisions to propel us into the future. From the very muscles we move to simply walk down the stairs, to the beating of our heart, to the endless ,”where do I want to be in a day, or two weeks, or in a year, or 20 years from now. There’s such a wide spread range of decisions that our brain has kindly hidden them from our normal daily view. Most things just happen automatically. Do I go right or left?
Some people have theorized, that for every decision we make, a new alternate universe emerges to allow for that decision, and let it run it’s course. Splitting the world billions of times a second into more and more Universes capable of handling each and every decision. Some people think that’s ridiculous, and that there can only be one universe, of course with multiple dimensions.
Probability. Everywhere. Every fraction of a second.
Should I keep writing? What comes next? Should I watch Mallrats or the Olympics or both. Should I get a beer? Should I smoke a cigarette? What did they just say? What should I do this weekend? Should I really meet her mother tomorrow? What can go wrong? Will she like me? Should I be myself or try and pretend I’m much cooler than I am? Do I watch my language? Do I try to be funny? Do I call her ma’am? Will that little filter guy in my head be on break? Will she like me? What if she doesn’t like me? What if she never likes me? Do I really have stray cats living in my bushes? Wouldn’t the dogs scare them? Do I like my job? Should I try and sell the house? Should I move out west near mountains again? Will baby boomers kill the stock market when they retire and start pulling their money out?
Questions. Probablilites. Answers.
Some questions are just cosmetic. The answers don’t seem to greatly change the course of your life. What to watch on TV? You’re not really planning on moving for two hours, so does it really matter which movie you watch? Unless… just maybe, if you meet someone down the road, and talking about that particular movie is what starts a friendship for the rest of your life. But it’s rather hard to put together all the steps from watching a movie one day, and then meeting a new best friend 4 years from now. There’s just too many little decisions along the way to screw up the first meeting.
But the big stuff matters. Where should I work? Should I change jobs? Should I move? Once you make those decisions, there’s no turning back. Once you move and sell the house, you can’t get the keys back. Change comes in pretty severe degrees. Edge right, edge left, finish your drink, move to Africa. If you edge right, you can change and go left. If you finish your drink.. well, you could throw it back up, I guess, but if you move to Africa, you have to get some shots, and those aren’t coming out.
Some people are more impulsive than others. Is that because they are more in tune with their quantum brains? Do they just do the quick probability calculation and just go with whatever comes up? I’m not like that. I think too much. I will pour over the big decisions for days, weeks, years sometimes, trying to slowly figure out all the advantages and dis-advantages of a particular move. Trying to do what my brain can do in a split second if I would only let it. Sometimes it makes it hard to get things done.
Scientists, Cryptographers, and I’m sure the NSA are hard at work trying to figure out how to emulate our brain in the form of a Quantum computer. Instead of just doing one simple calculation at a time… say 75-17=58, send signal down circuit 486, add one second to the internal clock… a quantum computer could in the space of a digital machine doing one calculation… do them all at once… coming up with the billions of ways an answer could come out, and which answers seem more likely than other. Why try to break a code one number at a time, when you can try all possible numbers at once? I don’t know if it’s even possible to make one, but it does seem like everything someone thinks of in science fiction, someday someone figures out it might be possible.
I can’t wait for the Quantum iPhone, so I could input in everything relevant about my life, and it could just tell me when I should move, when I should change jobs, and when I should just shut the hell up. |
