Physics and philosophy

some ideas that might not make the book.

I’m in the process of writing a new book. When I write or create, it’s like I have all of these dots floating around in space in my brain. As I write on one of them, it connects to another one and another one until all these dots - that don’t seem to be connected - are connected.

One of the “drawbacks” of this writing style is that I can spend a lot of time writing about something that doesn’t connect with the big picture of a book. That doesn’t make it a rabbit trail. Although, maybe it does and I just don’t want to admit that to myself. I think it’s more like an additional dot that shows up in the connections between the dots. I don’t consider this an unimportant part of the process. It’s important to me to see connections and describe them as I’m writing. However, the editing process is also important to prevent me from becoming too abstract or impractical to people who will read what I write.

I have spent the past few weeks writing a few chapters that I’m not sure are going to make the book. I’m in a really practical section of the book and they might be too conceptual. This writing may not make the book, but I think they’re a worthy exploration. Let’s take a break from talking about money and talk about quantum physics.

Living a meaningful life requires an awareness, understanding and mastery of tension. Life is filled with contradictions, dualities and paradoxes. Take intentions vs. outcomes. A person can intend to do good, but the outcome of their intentions can be evil. We believe that God has a plan for our life, its his plan, not our plan. We also believe in the responsibility and freedom that we have to make choices. Both seem to be true at the same time. We must learn to have faith in God, but not allow that faith to prevent us from working diligently. We are individuals who need to learn how to think and act for ourselves. Yet at the same time, our lives cannot be fully meaningful outside of being meaningful to others. We shouldn’t be people-pleasers. But we also should worry about pleasing key people in our lives, like spouses, children, clients and bosses. Some things require immediate action, but some require patience. We must plan and prepare, but we must also learn to adjust our plans when necessary. We need to develop self-confidence, but we also must be open to correction. Some things in our lives need to be stable, and some things need to always be changing.

There are times where life seems ordered, structured and planned. There are also times where life seems chaotic, random and out of control. Has the outcome of our life already been predetermined, or do we have free will? Is it one, the other, or both?

As long as physics has been studied, physicists have been trying to understand the universe. A simple question they ask is: “is the universe chaotic, or is it ordered?” Initially when people study physics, they study everyday objects. They study balls rolling down hills, waves in the ocean, and physical objects interacting with each other. The laws of physics work everywhere we can see. At the scale of life experience, physics appears predictable. The apparent structure and order of the universe is what allows life to exist. However, when scientists look beyond the atomic level, things get less predictable. A problem arises once we enter the quantum world. The word “quantum” means the smallest possible amount of something. Particles can appear and disappear seemingly at random, and the math can only tell what is likely to happen, not what will happen. Quantum physics is one of the hardest things for human beings to understand. Physics at a quantum level is counterintuitive and unpredictable. There is no way to visualize what is happening.

A physicist often lives in the world of paradoxes. As does a philosopher. We often find ourselves stuck in a tension between two opposites that both seem to be true. One of the reasons we can often feel this tension is because we think that we are presented with a binary choice. Like a light switch in a dark room, we can only have maximum brightness or no light. The more we approach life as binary, the more tension we will feel between the “on” and “off.” What if we didn’t approach this tension this way? When a person wants greater control over the amount of light in a room, they install a dimmer switch. That way the light isn’t completely off, nor is it full brightness. Life most often isn’t “either/or” its “both/and.”

Life is not a series of binary choices. It is a spectrum of infinite possibility. When we treat our life like its binary, we limit our choices. And if we limit our choices, we limit our destiny. The challenge of navigating duality is choosing to embrace life as a reality to experience, not a problem to solve. Every situation that we will experience is unique and calls for a completely different response. Understanding this is simple but applying it is difficult. Knowing how to respond to the right person, in the right measure, at the right moment, for the right reason and in the right way is the challenge of a lifetime. To do this consistently is true mastery.

Life is not rocket science. It’s more like quantum physics. Rocket science is about finding the solution. Physics is about exploring the possibilities. Approaching life as a reality to experience is about understanding this duality, and making the best choice you can, for the situation you are in, with the information that you have.

The world of physics is both math and application. There are theories, like Einstein’s theory of relativity that are put together on chalkboards. Physicists use math to describe how they think the universe works. Einstein’s theory was developed using equations and reasoning long before it could be tested fully. After developing theories, scientists design experiments to see whether the universe works the way the math predicts. If experiments match the theories, then the theory helps us understand some of the inner workings of the universe. Experiencing the reality of life means that we see life as a great experiment. We can think things through in our head, we can see these dualities and think about them however we want to. We can ignore them, judge them as binary choices, or see ourselves as falling in a range between them. We also don’t have to think about them at all. We will then make decisions based on how we think (or not). Our thinking is like a theory, and our decisions are like experiments. Theories lead to experiments. Thoughts lead to decisions. Decisions and experiments both have outcomes. Experiments lead to results. Decisions lead to consequences.