FAUST’S SHADOW: A Twice-Told Tale

by John Fast

  I rephrased the question.

  “You mean, how do the spinning atoms in the quantum computer arrive at a solution? Well, you have to run the problem through the logic gates …”

  “ … and when the spinning atoms fall into a certain pattern,” Michael interjected, “the solution is revealed.”

  “Exactly,” I replied, pleased he was beginning to understand.

  “Now let’s think big,” I added. “If the quantum computer works that way on the microcosmic scale, then maybe it also works that way on the macrocosmic scale. Maybe we live inside a cosmic quantum computer where the logic gates of time and space organize spinning atoms into patterns which form the stuff of our universe–everything from stars to galaxies to us.”

  “Then our universe would be a quantum solution that’s fallen into place,” Michael said excitedly.

  “A quantum solution that’s still falling into place,” I corrected him. “A temporal-spatial focal point within the flux of quantum indeterminacy.”

  “Wait! Aren’t you mixing metaphors here?” He inquired. “Quantum computers and focal points?”

  “I am,” I admitted. “Let me back up a bit and describe how I’ve come to think about it. In the beginning which has no beginning, a primordial stream of proto-quantum energy evolved, and is still evolving, a primordial set of logic gates, opening up the conditions for the possibilities of our universe. And the Big Bang was, and is, the leading edge of that primordial stream blasting itself into existence. Similarly, other streams evolved other gates, opening other universes. But wait, there’s more.”

  “There’s always more when I’m talking with you,” Michael said, laughing.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I scowled, although I was glad to see he had finally relaxed. “Okay, so you have this primordial stream that evolved, and is still evolving, the local logic gates of time and space. Then, eventually, you have us, on this little out of the way planet, observing that still fluctuating stream from within which we happened to have evolved–along with everything around us. The universe that we know, then, not only emerges from the primordial stream that evolves the primordial set of logic gates, but also from what we see, mark and read from within its ongoing, fluctuating dynamic. That is, on the one hand, you have an evolving set of logic gates processing dynamic resolutions; on the other hand, you have a self-conscious articulate species discovering focal points within these resolutions. The second part of this argument is really just a form of post-Kantian epistemology raised to the level of quantum cosmology.”

  “What the heck does that mean?” Michael sighed.

  “It means the universe that we frame with our mind’s eye is the universe that we inhabit. John Wheeler, a physicist who once taught across town, liked to explain the idea with a sketch of a large capital, ‘U.’ The, ‘U,’ represents the flow of timespace in our, ‘Universe.’ On top of the thin left arm of the, ‘U,’ he put a small funnel representing the Big Bang; on top of the thick right arm, he put a gigantic eyeball staring back at the funnel. The sketch suggests that our universe creates itself/us through gazillions of its/our temporal-spatial focal points. And so the universe that we know exists as it does, in part, because of the way we perceive it.”

  “And speaking of perceptions,” Michael said, “any chance of getting a cup of coffee?”

  “You sure that’s what you need right now?” I asked, worried about his nerves.

  “Caffeine soothes the beast.”

  “You should play more tennis.”

  “I’ve been too busy practicing for the concert.”

  “We can grab some coffee in the lounge.”

  CHAPTER 35.

  Ancient Paradoxes, Continued

  “I’m still thinking about the last thing you said,” Michael stated when we returned to the Q-Lab with our coffees. “You know, about how our perceptions define our universe.”

  “Yes?” I encouraged him.

  “Doesn’t that prove the artist anticipates the scientist?”

  “In what way?” I wondered.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he replied. “The impressionist painters knew, long before the quantum physicists, that it all comes down to the question of quantum bits and focal points. Think about it. Instead of plunging the linear perspectives of time and space into the depths of the canvas, the impressionist painters projected the nonlinear qubits of light and color onto the lens of the eye. That’s why each new encounter with an impressionist painting gives birth to a new world. In other words, the quantum universe is a gigantic swirling impressionist painting: nature imitating art.”

  I contemplated the metaphor for a moment.

  “And by the way,” Michael added, “do you really think there’s more than one universe? I mean, that’s what Mom’s been working on all these years.”

  “And I think she’s right,” I said. “You’ve heard her talking about Everett’s, ‘Many Worlds,’ theory? He also worked here in Princeton for awhile and, way back in 1957, he suggested that all the different quantum paradoxes could be explained if all the seemingly contradictory aspects of them, like the particle/wave behavior of light, belonged to different worlds, or universes. Feynman elaborated on this suggestion in the 1980’s, with his, ‘Many Paths,’ theory of light. And, of course, the cosmologists have been talking about all the different possible configurations of the multiverse for a long time. That’s what Mom’s been trying to map. And as wild an idea as that sounds, it would solve an embarrassing problem.”

  “Which is?” Michael inquired.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” I replied. “Remember the cosmic constants? Mom talked about them all the time when we were kids: the speed of light, the charge of the electron, the rate of radiation, the density of matter, the force of gravity, the power of electro-magnetism, etc. Change just one of these finely tuned and delicately balanced ratios and … no stars, no planets, no life, no us.”

  “So what’s the embarrassing problem?”

  “If our universe is some kind of quantum computer, why did it generate these cosmic numbers in the exactly right ranges and combinations which enabled us to evolve?”

  “Good question.”

  Michael thought about it for a moment, then he remembered the follow up.

  “But why is that embarrassing?”

  “Because most scientists don’t like to think of our universe as a computer matrix, in the original sense of the word.”

  “What original sense?”

  “‘Matrix,’ derived from the Latin,‘mater,’ mother. It means ‘womb.’”

  “Oh, yeah, I knew that,” Michael said. “So we’re talking about the old argument from design, with a new technology. Instead of the universe-as-cosmic-watch, we have the universe-as-cosmic-computer. And most scientists find that embarrassing because it suggests the universe was programmed to incubate us. How does the Multiverse Theory correct that idea?”

  “It suggests that our universe, out of perhaps countless others, just happened to develop the right matrix, which just happened to allow life to evolve on this little out of the way planet. So then all of reality wouldn’t have to be anthropic, and our particular universe would only just happen to be minimally anthropic. Instead of being a computer matrix that was specifically programmed to incubate us, our universe would be, like every other local evolutionary event, just one more expression of dynamic integrated complexity amidst all the other expressions.”

  “Is that what you think?” Michael wondered.

  “Our universe seems so volatile and chancy to me,” I replied, “that I just don’t see how we can think of it as our personal incubator. But then again, the argument can be turned around: maybe the matrix of our universe is exactly right for us because we are another expression of the matrix. That is, we are another expression of the nonlinear process of dynamic integrated complexity that created our particular matrix in the first place. Of course, we’re not the inevitable, pre-planned result of that process, rather we’re the res
ult of an uncountable number of evolutionary circumstances. And yet even those circumstances express the dynamic parameters of the possible as defined by the matrix. So maybe our universe is just right for us not because the matrix is anthropic, but because we are expressions of the matrix. Just as a sea anemone expresses the local, global and universal eco-logic of the coral reef, so too Homo sapiens sapiens expresses the local, global and universal eco-logic of the earth. And, furthermore, perhaps we are that part of the matrix that has become aware of itself; perhaps we are code contemplating code; and perhaps that reflexive dynamic lies at the heart of our self-consciousness.”

  “In other words, we’re qubits that talk!” Michael concluded. “And since we are talking meta-physics, then let me ask one more question. If there are multiple universes, can we travel from one to the other?”

  “If we had some way to access the various logic gates of time and space,” I replied. “And if those other universes had planets with earthlike ecosystems. Pretty big ifs, except in science fiction.”

  “Then an atom could marry one event in one universe, and marry another event in another universe …”

  I remembered, too late, that that overloaded metaphorical freight train was still chugging down the track. And I couldn’t step out of the way.

  “ … and so you’re saved! You can marry Takla in one universe, and Alexa in another universe, and give birth to lots and lots of little universes!”

  “Very … very … very funny,” I said slowly, trying not to smile.

  I thought about Takla and Alexa again. And I thought about how Takla and I would have four children in just a few weeks. And I realized, this time, Michael had got it just right: each new child a new universe.

  “Seriously, though,” Michael continued, interrupting my revery, “it’s a beautiful idea. I can write parallel concertos, each a variation of the other, for two pianos playing simultaneously. I’ll call it ‘Parallel Universes.’”

  “How about ‘Quantum Concertos?’” I suggested.

  “I like it,” Michael replied.

  I liked it too because Michael had reminded me of yet another metaphor: our universe as an ensemble of tiny strings of quantum energy vibrating in complex patterns, a jazz symphony streaming from the past to the future. I’d always admired Michael’s musical intelligence, and now I was glad he had come too early. I looked forward to his concert.

  *************

  As I sat with my family in Alice Tully Hall later that evening and listened to Michael perform, my mind drifted back to our conversation in the Q-Lab. I wanted to build a quantum computer that would emulate the cosmic computer. And I wanted to run my quantum algarithms on that quantum computer in the hope that they would evolve ever more complex neural nets and pattern recognition programs that would lead me to the key to all codes. However, the technical difficulties seemed insurmountable and I realized it might take another hundred years before they could be overcome.

  I watched Michael play and envied his talent and success. Michael wrote Newtonian music for Newtonian pianos, while I wrote quantum music for quantum pianos. And yet if I failed to build a stable quantum computer, I would never be able to play my compositions. I would never know if they cohered. And I wondered if I was just writing algarithmic gibberish, foolish imaginings of interest to no one but myself. I wondered if I was sitting in my office, night after night, writing for a machine that would never be built, for a future that would never converge at that precise focal point.

  CHAPTER 36.

  The Mystical Sciences

  I met Aster at a café on the Upper West Side a few days later. She was deeply engaged in the MD/PhD Program in Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center.

  “I hear your work is going well,” Aster said as we settled into our window seats.

  “Oh?” I replied.

  “I called Michael last night to congratulate him on the great reviews he got for his concert, and he told me all about the cosmic Kama Sutra.”

  Aster’s gray eyes glimmered and she leaned forward in her chair like a cat that was about to pounce.

  “Please, not that again,” I groaned.

  “Revealing though, isn’t it? Like Freud said, you can read a lot into jokes and slips of the tongue.”

  I jumped at the chance to talk about her work.

  “Freud?” I said. “I thought psychiatrists didn’t take him seriously anymore.”

  “We do and we don’t,” Aster said. “He was a brilliant theorist and an awful practitioner. He imposed his universal psycho-mythology on each one of his clients, while distorting, or just plain ignoring, the specific trials and tribulations of their everyday lives. And he often bullied his clients into accepting his analyses. Instead, we focus on the genetic-cellular structures and the electro-chemical processes of the brain. We study the hardware and the software.”

  The waiter arrived and we ordered our croissants and coffees. Then I pursued the new topic of conversation before Aster could return to the old one.

  “So if contemporary psychiatrists view the brain as an organic computer with a million year old built-in operating system, why are you still quoting Freud?”

  “Because he reminds me that we’re all myth-makers and that even the empirical science of contemporary psychiatry is a myth-making enterprise.”

  “That sounds like another contradiction in terms.”

  “Okay, forget psychiatry for a minute,” Aster suggested. ”Let’s take an example from your work. Quantum physics is both an empirical and a theoretical discipline, right?”

  “Of course. We design experiments every day to prove or disprove our theories.”

  “But have you ever wondered how myths and metaphors shape your theories and facts?”

  The croissants and coffees arrived and we started to eat.

  “Like what, for instance?” I asked between bites.

  “Cosmic Kama Sutra?” Aster inquired.

  “That was just a joke!” I protested loudly, wondering how we’d circled back to that topic.

  I took a sip of coffee to hide my annoyance.

  “A joke about the paradoxical behavior of atoms and a joke about your paradoxical feelings for Takla and Alexa,” Aster gently suggested.

  Then I got it. Instead of turning my quantum metaphor inside out, like Michael had, Aster was offering to listen to the whole story. But I didn’t like talking about my love life with my sister when we were younger, and I liked it even less as I got older. So I rebuffed her.

  “Listen Aster,” I said forcefully. “You know very well that I love Takla and Alexa, and you know they have their lives and I have mine. In other words, there’s no great melodrama unfolding here. So please, drop it.”

  I thought I knew what was coming next. Aster was going to evoke Freud’s theory of repression, then she was going to ask me some more questions about my deeply conflicted inner feelings. Yet, to my surprise, she didn’t do either of those things. Instead, she sat back in her chair and apologized. And that made me feel guilty for being so abrupt with her, so I returned to her original point.

  “So how do myths and metaphors shape the science of quantum physics?” I asked.

  “Well,” Aster began again. “Think about it: classical physics describes the rational forces, familiar atoms and logical structures of our universe; quantum physics describes the irrational paradoxes, strange particles and illogical contradictions of our universe. It’s a perfect example of what Edward Said once called, ‘Orientalism.’ The rhetoric of classical physics evokes the rational law and order of the West, while the rhetoric of quantum physics evokes the irrational mystery and inscrutability of the East. In other words, it’s Dick Tracy vs. Fu Manchu all over again.”

  “Denis Nayland Smith,” I corrected her.

  “What?”

  “Sir Denis Nayland Smith vs. Dr. Fu Manchu. The stories and novels first appeared in 1912-13, and they were followed by a number of films. ‘The Mask of Fu Manchu,’ for example, one of the
best in the series, opened in 1932. It starred Boris Karloff as a maniacal Fu, and Myrna Loy as his delicious dragon-lady daughter.”

  “You carry some amazing stuff in that brain of yours,” Aster said, smiling as the tension between us eased.

  “I’m the pure American product of hysterical realism,” I declared. “I stream, therefore I am.”

  “And you wonder why I worry about you?” She asked, laughing.

  “You’re not really suggesting that quantum physics is politically incorrect are you?” I said, getting back to the point.

  “No, I’m arguing that the science of quantum physics is deeply mythologized, deeply embedded in our Western modes of thinking. And while quantum physicists study the effects of human perception on quantum quirkiness, maybe they should take another step back and consider the effects of our cultural metaphors.”

  She leaned forward in her chair again, willing me to understand her.

  “You mean,” I began, “that we’ve imagined the exotic quantum universe in comparison and contrast to the familiar classical universe?”

  “And vice versa. Some pop science writers like to compare the classical universe to a clockwork mechanism and the quantum universe to a Zen riddle. Of course, most physicists dismiss these analogies out of hand, while they continue to employ similar binary metaphors.”

  “So my cosmic Kama Sutra joke is just the metaphorical tip of a mythic iceberg?” I said, summing up her argument. “I think of quantum phenomena as exotic because I’m so invested in the familiar logic of the classical universe?”

  At that moment one of Aster’s Med School friends came over to our table and asked about a lab assignment. I took the opportunity to go the men’s room and wash my face. I needed to clear my head.

  CHAPTER 37.

  The Mystical Sciences, Continued