Quantum Heroes
It feels like the world is entangled in a big mess. Classical heroes are not going to save the day. Now is the time for everyday heroes to use quantum superpowers to create a just and thriving world.
Saving ourselves
“I need a hero. I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night.”
The lyrics to this Bonnie Tyler song stream through my head whenever I read the news these days. Ironically, “Holding Out for a Hero” was written for the 1984 movie Footloose, which is about rebelling against conservative control (in this case, a ban on dancing).
The film, set in a small Texas town, exposes the dangers of authoritarian control disguised as tradition. It feels particularly relevant today, as authoritarianism extends its oppressive reach to national and global scales.
It’s tempting to want some legendary figure or warrior to show up and save us from the mess we’re in. In fact, if the current political situation were a Hollywood action film, a hero would show up just about now with a clever plan to lure the villains onto space ships and blast them to Mars. Then we would live happily ever after.
I’m not waiting around for Tyler’s kind of hero (i.e., “He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast / And he's gotta be fresh from the fight”). Classical archetypes are not going to save us. To be honest, they sound a lot like today’s villains.
We have to save ourselves. And to do so, we need a different type of hero. Quantum heroes.
Care-actors
A hero is more than a legendary figure. It is someone who is admired for their qualities, characteristics, and achievements. From this perspective, we are lucky. The world has millions of heroes who are deeply committed to a just and sustainable world. These everyday heroes are taking courageous action, even when it feels impossible. Why? Because they care.
Unfortunately, we live in a time when power is in the hands of characters whose “circle of care” spans no wider than the dot on top of a small i. They have little concern for people and nature, or for the well-being of future generations.
Sigh. These characters don’t care when a renowned scientist says that the 2C climate goal is already dead. They don’t care that many countries are backsliding on their climate mitigation commitments. And they don’t care about the massive death of olive ridley turtles in India. They just don’t care.
It’s not surprising that today’s true heroes — our “care-actors” — feel like underdogs.
Underdogs
Underdog. The word makes me think of a “humble and lovable” canine cartoon character from the 1960s. In his everyday life, this dog was meek and mild Shoeshine Boy. However, when villains showed up, he jumped into a phone booth and transformed into Underdog. This superhero’s theme song was Have no need to fear! Underdog is here!
When in this world the headlines read
of those whose hearts are filled with greed
who rob and steal from those who need
To right this wrong with blinding speed
goes Underdog! Underdog! Underdog! Underdog!
In this parody of Superman, one of the villains was Simon Bar Sinister, a mad scientist who wanted to rule the world. Simon Bar Sinister was the 1960s version of a billionaire tech bro with an insatiable need and greed for wealth and power.
The good news was that Underdog beat Simon Bar Sinister every time.
Underdog’s superpowers were strength and durability. Today, we need to be strong and durable, but that’s not enough. If underdogs are going to beat today’s villains, we need to invoke quantum superpowers.
What do I mean by this? I’ll let a quantum physicist explain!
Quantum Thinking
One of my quantum heroes is Vandana Shiva, an environmental thinker, feminist, activist, philosopher of science, writer, and science-policy advocate. She is also a passionate voice for regenerative agriculture. I admire her and her many contributions to biodiversity conservation and climate justice. Vandana Shiva did her PhD in quantum physics, focusing on “Hidden variables and locality in quantum theory.” How cool is that!
I recently listened to a recording of a talk she gave at a Symposium on Consciousness at the Pari Center in Italy, titled The Power of Quantum Thinking.
Her talk provides insights on the ways that quantum thinking can be used by underdogs to generate positive change. Listening to her talk, three points come to mind.
First, quantum thinking opens up possibilities that are invisible from a classical perspective. It focuses on potentiality, not determinacy. As Shiva puts it, “Every door that the mechanistic paradigm shuts down, quantum thinking opens up.” (5:59) This means going beyond classical solutions and imagining what is possible and benefits all — the whole.
Whereas the “Simon Bar Sinisters” of the world are blind to this potential, quantum thinking can empower the heroes who care and are taking actions to realize it, as in “make it real.”
Second, quantum thinking emphasizes that we are one with nature and entangled with everything in the universe. Entanglement is based on correlations, or co-relations. This implies that we are entangled with the so-called villains; facing the villains means facing our individual and collective shadows. It also implies that protecting nature means protecting ourselves — not in an instrumental, transactional way (i.e., classical), but in a relational manner (i.e., quantum). For example, in her talk, Shiva highlights the connections between the health of the soil and the health of our guts (which is also connected to the health of our brains).
Recognizing the entanglement of mind, matter, and meaning gives us tremendous power over the scoundrels of the world.
Third, quantum thinking recognizes that we live in a participatory universe. This contrasts with an anthropocentric and deterministic view that yearns for mastery over an inanimate nature. Shiva emphasizes that “seeking of determinacy was a seeking of control, and with it came arrogance” (28:51). In a participatory world, we have the power to reproduce healthy patterns “while changing all the time.” (25:05)
Today’s global challenges provide us with an opportunity to participate in the process of patterning a new world, both actively and with humility. To me, this is a beautiful description of social fractals.
Vandana Shiva ends her talk by reminding us that “opening up to the wonder of creativity, consciousness and life is the work for staying alive with other life on this beautiful planet.” (45:25) She points out that our world is full of potential waiting to happen. This is where our quantum heroes come in!
Quantum Heroes
A quantum hero is someone who takes oneness and integrity as the starting point for social change; who sees the power and potential of every person; and who cares about life.
A quantum hero recognizes that we are entangled, and that opening our minds and hearts unleashes the power of both individual and collective change. They recognize that we live in a participatory universe where small changes make a big difference.
There are many quantum heroes who, like Vandana Shiva, use principles like entanglement, potentiality, and nonlocality to actively disrupt entrenched social and cultural patterns. They do so by generating new patterns that resonate with the whole. I know many of them, and they need our support. Supporting quantum heroes, we support ourselves and generate quantum social change.
Quantum heroes may look like the underdogs right now, but they also know the one superpower that villains both lack and fear. Love.
And we will use this to change the world.
A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
— Joseph Campbell