There is an old science fiction short story, which I have been unable to re-locate, whose plot centers around a daily community ritual that is designed to keep the society cohesive. I don’t remember the full story but the general gist is that the leader of this community starts to see cohesion fracture and the ritual stops becoming effective, resulting in the collapse of the community.

I’ve thought about this story fairly often over the years, in particular over the past few years, it feels like a perfect allegory for the times we are in and while the factors that have driven our social splintering are more complex and multi-dimensional, it feels that we have fractured so much that even the goal of cohesion seems mis-aligned with culture.

This topic has been explored through a generational, cultural and digital lens, but what has interested me the most is the lens of quantum mechanics and the dual implications that reality is a shared construct and that we have choice in how reality manifests.

Lanza contends that a network of observers is necessary and is “inherent to the structure of reality.” As he explains, observers — you, me, and anyone else — live in a quantum gravitational universe and come up with “a globally agreed-upon cognitive model” of reality by exchanging information about the properties of spacetime.

But how do we “exchange information about the properties of spacetime?” a recent paper in the New Scientist takes this idea even further:

When quantum theory arrived a few years later, things got even weirder. It seemed to show that by measuring things, we play a part in determining their properties. But in the quantum world, unlike with relativity, there has never been a way to reconcile different perspectives and glimpse the objective reality beneath. A century later, many physicists question whether a single objective reality, shared by all observers, exists at all.

Now, two emerging sets of ideas are changing this story. For the first time, we can jump from one quantum perspective to another. This is already helping us solve tricky practical problems with high-speed communications.

It also sheds light on whether any shared reality exists at the quantum level. Intriguingly, the answer seems to be no – until we start talking to each other.

All this work points towards a startling conclusion: that as people exchange quantum information, they are collaborating to construct their mutual reality. It means that if we simply look at space and time from one perspective, not only do we miss its full beauty, but there might not be any deeper shared reality.

So, at a quantum level there is no shared reality unless we actively co-create it. The only way for us to create it, is to interact, to communicate.

In today’s world, most of our communication seems designed to create more separation between us rather than less. The goal of cohesion feels naive at best and malicious at worst. Debates are framed as culture wars, information wars but they are actually more foundational.

Phenomena at the quantum level don’t manifest in a straight line to the macro universe. There aren’t rents in the sky or multiple universes colliding, but I think this quantum understanding offers better insight into the subtle, but important, distinction between differing perspectives and differing realities.

We benefit hugely from diversity in experiences and point-of-view, but we suffer massively when we cannot agree upon a common reality. But, as a shared reality does not exist unless we choose it; we must choose to construct a shared reality that has room for many points of view.

Unrelated to quantum mechanics; social scientists have grappled with the idea of a “shared reality” for a while. A definition that resonates with me, comes from a well-researched paper written by Gerald Echterhoff, E. Tory Higgins, and John M. Levine in 2009

In brief, we propose that shared reality is the product of the motivated process of experiencing a commonality of inner states about the world. Our conceptualization presumes that four main conditions underlie shared reality.

First, the commonality between individuals that is implied by a shared reality refers to their inner states and not just their overt behaviors.

Second, shared reality is ‘‘about something’’—that is, it implies a target referent about which people create a shared reality.

Third, shared reality as a product cannot be divorced from the process through which it is attained—in particular, the underlying motives.

Fourth, there is no shared reality unless people experience a successful connection to someone else’s inner state.

This coherence with inner states or emotional resonance is something I’ve written about before, but I am struck by the joint ideas of target referent and underlying motives. The authors note that there are two kinds of motives epistemic and relational that have figured largely in the literature. Epistemic - which is the shared desire to develop and maintain a rich and thorough understanding of (an object or goal) is particularly interesting as it implies that we can create a shared reality through a shared desire to learn and understand about the world.

The connecting ideas between the quantum and macro world are agency and choice. We participate in the creation of a shared reality. Reality does not happen to us, it happens because of us. A shared reality cannot happen without all of us.

Nothing exists apart from what we do with others. This is true at a macro level and it is true at a quantum level. I find that amazingly simple, yet amazingly profound.

There is an old science fiction short story, which I have been unable to re-locate, whose plot centers around a daily community ritual that is designed to keep the society cohesive. I don’t remember the full story but the general gist is that the leader of this community starts to see cohesion fracture and the ritual stops becoming effective, resulting in the collapse of the community.

I’ve thought about this story fairly often over the years, in particular over the past few years, it feels like a perfect allegory for the times we are in and while the factors that have driven our social splintering are more complex and multi-dimensional, it feels that we have fractured so much that even the goal of cohesion seems mis-aligned with culture.

This topic has been explored through a generational, cultural and digital lens, but what has interested me the most is the lens of quantum mechanics and the dual implications that reality is a shared construct and that we have choice in how reality manifests.

Lanza contends that a network of observers is necessary and is “inherent to the structure of reality.” As he explains, observers — you, me, and anyone else — live in a quantum gravitational universe and come up with “a globally agreed-upon cognitive model” of reality by exchanging information about the properties of spacetime.

But how do we “exchange information about the properties of spacetime?” a recent paper in the New Scientist takes this idea even further:

When quantum theory arrived a few years later, things got even weirder. It seemed to show that by measuring things, we play a part in determining their properties. But in the quantum world, unlike with relativity, there has never been a way to reconcile different perspectives and glimpse the objective reality beneath. A century later, many physicists question whether a single objective reality, shared by all observers, exists at all.

Now, two emerging sets of ideas are changing this story. For the first time, we can jump from one quantum perspective to another. This is already helping us solve tricky practical problems with high-speed communications.

It also sheds light on whether any shared reality exists at the quantum level. Intriguingly, the answer seems to be no – until we start talking to each other.

All this work points towards a startling conclusion: that as people exchange quantum information, they are collaborating to construct their mutual reality. It means that if we simply look at space and time from one perspective, not only do we miss its full beauty, but there might not be any deeper shared reality.

So, at a quantum level there is no shared reality unless we actively co-create it. The only way for us to create it, is to interact, to communicate.

In today’s world, most of our communication seems designed to create more separation between us rather than less. The goal of cohesion feels naive at best and malicious at worst. Debates are framed as culture wars, information wars but they are actually more foundational.

Phenomena at the quantum level don’t manifest in a straight line to the macro universe. There aren’t rents in the sky or multiple universes colliding, but I think this quantum understanding offers better insight into the subtle, but important, distinction between differing perspectives and differing realities.

We benefit hugely from diversity in experiences and point-of-view, but we suffer massively when we cannot agree upon a common reality. But, as a shared reality does not exist unless we choose it; we must choose to construct a shared reality that has room for many points of view.

Unrelated to quantum mechanics; social scientists have grappled with the idea of a “shared reality” for a while. A definition that resonates with me, comes from a well-researched paper written by Gerald Echterhoff, E. Tory Higgins, and John M. Levine in 2009

In brief, we propose that shared reality is the product of the motivated process of experiencing a commonality of inner states about the world. Our conceptualization presumes that four main conditions underlie shared reality.

First, the commonality between individuals that is implied by a shared reality refers to their inner states and not just their overt behaviors.

Second, shared reality is ‘‘about something’’—that is, it implies a target referent about which people create a shared reality.

Third, shared reality as a product cannot be divorced from the process through which it is attained—in particular, the underlying motives.

Fourth, there is no shared reality unless people experience a successful connection to someone else’s inner state.

This coherence with inner states or emotional resonance is something I’ve written about before, but I am struck by the joint ideas of target referent and underlying motives. The authors note that there are two kinds of motives epistemic and relational that have figured largely in the literature. Epistemic - which is the shared desire to develop and maintain a rich and thorough understanding of (an object or goal) is particularly interesting as it implies that we can create a shared reality through a shared desire to learn and understand about the world.

The connecting ideas between the quantum and macro world are agency and choice. We participate in the creation of a shared reality. Reality does not happen to us, it happens because of us. A shared reality cannot happen without all of us.

Nothing exists apart from what we do with others. This is true at a macro level and it is true at a quantum level. I find that amazingly simple, yet amazingly profound.