Life and Death as Variations in the Quantum Field

People who know me personally, know that I rarely keep things in the tidy boxes that others do.  In fact there is really nothing “tidy” about me.  I have never been one to file things neatly, or compartmentalize my life.  My work, hobbies, family, philosophy, politics, worldview and spirituality are all arranged in my life in the same manner that one arranges shredded lettuce, tomato wedges, cheese chunks, and carrot slices in a tossed salad.

As a consequence of this, I have absolutely no trouble relating seemingly unrelated perspectives, or seeing the commonality in things that seem to others to be polar opposites. Which is why I believe things like the Heart Sutra make perfect sense to me and the Tao te Ching reads like a recipe book. Likewise, I have never really struggled with relating the supposed mysteries of Quantum Mechanics with the workings of the everyday world. I have come to believe that the reason why Quantum Mechanics seem different from the mechanics of the commonly experienced world, is that we are looking at them as being different, rather than seeing the similarities.

A reminder of the similarities between everyday life and Quantum Mechanics, was painfully revealed to me in the recent death of my friend and Dharma brother Thích Tâm Hy (Scott Williams). I had just come in the house after our regular Wednesday evening practice session, to check my e-mail and status of my friends on facebook.  About three postings down the page was a picture of my dear friend as I saw him just this last summer, with a caption that read that he had died in a hiking accident the day before.  Of course, I was both shocked and deeply sorrowed by this sad news, and my heart instantly went out to all his friends and family. I immediately began thinking about him and while doing so came to the realization that, to me, his death and news of his death were one and the same event.  As far as I was concerned, Tâm Hy had been alive right up until the moment that found out that he had died, any time difference between the two events had no relevance to my experience of them. To me he had died at the very moment that I found out that he was dead.

It was while thinking about this, that I was reminded of the Quantum Mechanical paradox known as Schrödinger’s Cat. In this allegorical thought experiment the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, compared the strange nature of quantum superpositions, to the unknown state of a cat in a sealed box. Noting that in quantum systems, particles such as an atoms or photons can exist in a combination of multiple states corresponding to many different possible outcomes. This theory, which is known as the Copenhagen Interpretation, states that a quantum system remains a superposition of all possibilities until interacted with, or witnessed by, an external observer. It is only when the observer witnesses the event that the superposition collapses into a single state.  

In his rather Rube Goldberg description, Schrödinger imagines a cat in a box with a flask of poisonous gas, a radioactive source and a detector that shatters the flask whenever the random timing of a single atom decaying is detected. Since the atom really has no predictable time for this to happen, it could happen at any time, leaving the state of the cat unknown until the box is opened.  Under these conditions, the cat cannot be assumed to be either alive or dead, but must be considered both alive and dead until the moment either state is confirmed by observation.

I had to ask myself; how is this any different than what I had just experienced with my discovery of Tâm Hy’s death? As far as I was concerned, Tâm Hy was alive right up until I knew he wasn’t, so it occurred to me that Schrodinger’s seemingly bizarre scenario is actually an applicable analogy for just about everything we don’t know. All possible conditions (superpositions) can exist right up to the moment that our experience reduces them to one.  In the same way that the Heart Sutra interchanges emptiness with form, Schrödinger envisions a cat that is both alive and dead until proven otherwise. The ramifications of this realization should be obvious, especially to those of us who view the world from a Buddhist perspective.  Unless they are in contact with us at this very moment every living person we know, like Schrödinger’s Cat, is in an unknown state of Quantum Flux. 

Unless we are currently interacting with someone, they exist only in our memories. We cannot assume them to be alive just because we remember them as being alive, or sincerely wish them to still be alive. We must be prepared to know that all suppositions are equally valid until we know otherwise.  While we can have some solace in knowing that the probability of our loved ones being alive is favorable, we can never automatically take that assumption as fact until we hear from them again.   Even recent news of their good health is no guarantee. In the ever flowing evolution of existence everything changes from moment to moment, nothing remains the same, all conditions are impermanent.

So this is where the Scientist Miles meets the Buddhist Miles in the salad bowl, alongside the tomato wedges and carrot slices, are the Heart Sutra and Schrödinger’s Cat.  My world resides in a universe where everything is intricately interconnected and the more I have come understand existence in the physical plane, the more I have come to understand existence in the spiritual plane.  I can make no assumptions that my desires that no ill befall my loved ones will be fulfilled. Nor for that matter, can I ever assume that I really know anything for certain. I must simply live my life as if every moment could be my last and every encounter with a loved one as my last opportunity to let them know how much they mean to me.

While I know there is truly no separation between us, I must always admit that our relative coexistence is an ever evolving state of flux. I must always be aware that what was true just moments ago is not necessarily true now. Knowing this, how can I ever leave any of you without letting you know how much I really care?

With Love,

Miles