The Message that Matters

Can the idea of quantum social change be communicated without using the Q word? This week, I'm going to try to explain it in a simple way, because the message is simple and important: You matter!

It’s simple

“Can’t you keep it simple?” My mother asks me this question every time I use the word quantum in my newsletter. Since this newsletter focuses on quantum social change, I hear this question quite often.

I’m going to do my best to keep it simple. After all, what I’m interested in is how a quantum perspective on “mattering” can help us think creatively and engage differently with social change. It may sound complex, but it’s not that complicated!

I’ll try to explain this in a practical, easy-to-understand way, without using references or jargon — only simple metaphors and analogies. I’ll send the “wired-for-academic writing” part of my brain on vacation. Adios.

So, here it goes.

Reality as a machine

Once upon a time, many people believed that reality was like one big machine made up of separate parts moving through space. We believed that we could measure everything in the universe with great precision and determine future outcomes with certainty using mathematical equations.

Imagine reality as a mechanical cuckoo clock, with its cogwheels, pipes, bellows, chains, pendulum, and of course, the wooden cuckoo bird. From a mechanistic, deterministic perspective, we could predict the actions and interactions within the universal clock. As parts of the clock, we humans were thought to be as predictable as the cuckoo bird.

Okay, let me try a more common analogy; it’s as if our choices could be plotted like the trajectory of a billiard ball moving across a pool table. In fact, some people refer to this as the billiard-ball universe. According to this view reality, we humans are like a bunch of colorful balls waiting to be hit by a long cue stick. Ouch.

Whether we think of the universe metaphorically as a machine, a cuckoo clock, or a billiard table, this perspective leaves little room for free will or creativity. In such a universe, we don’t really matter.

Reality as participatory

The mechanistic metaphor is an outdated model of the universe, and many new discoveries have led to new interpretations. For example, over a century ago, scientists discovered that measurement is not a passive act—it interacts with and influences what is being measured.

Focusing on subatomic particles, scientists found that observing a system changes its state. This is not just a random event, but a fundamental property of reality: observation interacts with what is being measured. Think of opening the oven to check on a chocolate soufflé—the very act of checking affects the outcome.

Some scientists interpret this to mean that we live in a participatory universe, not a deterministic one. Our choices and actions actively shape reality. The Latin roots of the word participate mean to take part in, share in, give part in, or impart. In other words, we are active agents of change.

This realization has profound implications for how we relate to each other and to nature. We affect each other. We influence the environment. We transform ecosystems and we modify the composition of the atmosphere. We are changing the Earth’s climate.

The good news is that we have agency and can choose to do things differently.

Reality is entangled

In a participatory universe, our conscious choices and decisions influence the whole. Why? This brings us to one of the strangest discoveries in physics. Entanglement.

Entanglement describes a relationship between subatomic particles that can be located light-years away from each other. Each particle remains in an uncertain state until a measurement is made. When we measure one particle, we get information about the others. They are correlated — or co-related.

Although entanglement in physics refers to a specific mathematical relationship between small particles, it offers powerful metaphors and meanings that are relevant to our macro-scale world, particularly in relation to consciousness, communication, and the role of language.

Physicist David Bohm once described communication as a flow of meaning "among and through and between us." As Bohm put it, shared meaning is the glue that holds societies together. Without shared meaning, our world of potential collapses into different, often conflicting realities. Societies fragment.

Values matter

The values and principles that we embody and communicate influence the quality of our relationships and actions. Our conversations and actions have widespread consequences in a participatory, entangled world.

Watching the news these days, notice which political leaders embody and express values such as equity, justice, pluralism, inclusion, and respect. Or kindness, compassion, and love. Then notice which politicians treat people as if they were billiard balls, battering them with their cue sticks in order to achieve a determined outcome. Notice, because this difference matters.

A simple message

The Q word — quantum — refers to the smallest discrete units or parcels of energy and matter. Quantum social science tells us that in a participatory, entangled world, our deepest values and intentions are potential sources of individual change, collective change, and systems change.

A participatory universe is full of potential, and our smallest discrete choices and actions shape what happens next. They create ripples and resonance, influencing the whole.

The simple idea is that “you matter more than you think.” This message matters, especially at a time of political turmoil when we feel a diminished sense of self-efficacy, and when our shared meanings feel like they are becoming unglued.

I’ll end with my favorite John Wheeler quote about quantum theory. His words invite us to grasp the simplicity, beauty, and urgency of these ideas, and to live and act as if we matter.

Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it - in a decade, a century, or a millennium - we will all say to each other, how could it have been otherwise? How could we have been so stupid?

— John Archibald Wheeler

Image: from-ishigaki / Shutterstock