Schrödinger's Octopus
Hi again, friends. It's me.
Surprised? I thought so.
Do you have any favorite random things that you love that have nothing to do really with your work or everyday life, but you just love knowing about them??!?
Kangaroos? Cherry blossoms? Octopuses? Quantum physics?
I love all those things, but especially I will watch any video about the wild things an octopus can do, and I love reading books about quantum physics and spacetime and their buddies (the ones that are written for people like me who know nothing).
ALL DAY EVERY DAY I CAN'T STOP MYSELF.
(excuse me while I go watch octopus videos on youtube before finishing this post)
OKAY WE ARE BACK.
I think it's so important to be intrigued by the world around us.
And to be curious about things that have nothing to do with the 'work' that we do.
You can read my post about Stephen Fry and 'incuriosity' HERE.
As you might expect, curiosity is also my personal foundation for all our yoga and movement practices. What happens if we put one foot here? How does it feel when you try this thing? Would this other things feel better? What comes up in your mind when things get hard? When they get easy?
We stay curious. We ask ourselves questions and listen to the answers.
We observe, taking the seat of the witness.
WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO ONE OF MY OTHER FAVORITE THINGS.
Quantum Physics.
LOLZ. I know a lot of things, but I absolutely did not study enough advanced math and physical to actually understand what this sh*t is about, just so we're clear.
BUT. Thanks to curiosity in the world, plenty of very smart people have written books that make these concepts understandable for folks like me.
And one of my favorite things inside this favorite thing of mine is this idea:
Things exist and evolve over time and do their own thing, and all probabilities for that evolution exist, but as soon as we observe or measure the thing(s), their fundamental nature is forever changed.
(the next part of it all is that actually all possibilities continue to exist, in parallel evolving worlds and whoa it gets really intense and I love it)
Let's stick mostly with this idea that what exists and what we observe are not necessarily the same thing; and another angle on it, that when we observe something we are changing its essential nature.
I'm not going to try to make sense of it from a physics angle.
(if you're a physics professor don't be mad at me for how I use these next thank you forever love you kisses)
For today, I'm interested in how we can use these ideas in our daily lives. In our practices. In our individual and personal evolutions.
A. WHAT EXISTS AND WHAT WE OBSERVE ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE SAME THING
I see this as: we should not make assumptions that the tiny window we have on a moment, event, person, thing, actually gives us the whole picture and that we suddenly know everything. Maybe this connects to how we view and interact with other people. Maybe this is a reminder that we cannot know everything about another person's circumstance. Maybe this connects to leaving space for past observations to be replaced with new information, and knowing that just because we observed a thing one way before does not mean we have to observe the thing in the same way forevermore.
B. WHEN WE OBSERVE SOMETHING, ITS ESSENTIAL NATURE CHANGES
It's common in yoga/meditation to talk about "the seat of the witness." We cannot know who we are if we never look closely. By looking closely, by observing ourselves without judgment and with less connection to who or how we think we should be, we create the possibility that we can be different. If we observe certain learned reactions to situations and people (reactions that aren't serving ourselves or others well), if we can truly observe this, we can change the essential nature of this reaction.
Well. But. Don't these two things contradict each other? I'm sitting here saying, we should observe in order to change, but if what we observe isn't necessarily the reality, then WHAT are we supposed to be doing anyway??
I dunno.
Being human?
Being complex beings with complex realities and minds and emotions and relationships?
Probably that.
All the things can be true at the same time, they aren't necessarily the only truths, and we can only hope to discover more or change the world if we at least try to look more closely. If we make a mistake, a misstep? Keep going! Every single moment has an opportunity for a new observation, a new reality, a new choice, and a new evolution.
If you've been with me through these weeks, ya know I sometimes get a little lost in the weeds of my thoughts. Is it physics or philosophy who knows smarter minds than mine have also gotten lost in the weeds here. Thanks for sticking with me.
Things I know I know:
Curiosity is awesome.
The world is full of wonder.
It's never too late to see something new.
It's never too late to evolve.
There's no way to know everything.
There are a lot of different ways to know many things.
We should keep believing in the complex and the who-knows-if-it's-real.
