D: DETECTOR

In July of 1992, I read an article in Scientific American that “put it all together” for me in terms of quantum physics. (If you know anything about quantum physics, you get the joke: Niels Bohr was fond of saying that if you aren’t confused by quantum physics, you haven’t really understood it.) The feature article beautifully summarized the thought revolution that had occurred in science and it came at a time that I was also undergoing a thought revolution. Classical physics (the predictable kind that we learned in junior high) deals well with large, “slow” objects. But a completely different set of governing principles overrides the classical stuff when we deal with very fast and very small things! (I envision classical physics as the tracings of the universe as we, the observers, slow it down.) At the time I read the article, I was in the process of discovering that real life was a lot more quantum than classical, and therefore seemed to require a better “inner math”—one that far surpassed elementary statements of direct causality. I still have the original print copy of that article preserved in a 3-ring binder in clear plastic page protectors, as one would preserve a treasure from a distant land. The so-called double slit experiment is to quantum physics what Newton’s apple was to classical. It answers the question, “Is light a wave or is it composed of particles?” with an emphatic but ambiguous, “YES”! Light passing through two small slits either creates an interference pattern on a screen on the other side, which is a clear indication of a wave, or it hits the screen like a particle, creating discrete spots. What is crazy, my S.A. article explained, is that light ostensibly switches from “wave” to “particle” behavior based on how it “senses” the placement of DETECTORS—very practical things scientists must cleverly design to generate actual data! All experiments need detectors because we can’t “see” subatomic particles without them. During the emergence of quantum theory, numerous versions of the double-slit experiment were designed in an effort to “fool” the light into not noticing the detectors, even switching them on AFTER the light had committed to a slit (or not—effectively choosing wave or particle), but to no avail. It was literally as if the light “knew” the very INTENTION to set up a detector, even before the detector was placed. The mere threat of detection forced waves into particles! (Read that again and let it sink in if you possibly can!) In a gross but wildly useful oversimplification for my inner purposes, right then and there, I began to adopt this as a model for living. Every time in life something wavelike and wonderful collapses into a small disappointing blip on a screen, i.e., when flow disappears, and I, mystified, must ask, “What happened?” I remember the double slit experiment and I think, “Ah…you must have set up a detector.” And most times I’m exactly right. I lose the flow of living when I start over-assessing! In the Bible story about Peter walking on the water, it was not so much the walking part, but the sinking halfway through part that always captured me. Maybe it is because I feel I have defied gravity and walked above fears, hindrances and perceived circumstantial limitations so many times, only to find myself later switching to a sinking behavior, even after such a brave good start! Peter’s reconnection with gravity during his mid-storm walk happened when he began to look about at the wind and the waves—the reality check that jolted him from quantum back to classical! Peter set up a detector—or even just threatened to—and down he went. He was walking on the “waves” (pun intended) but he sank into the particles! The detector—the culprit—the killjoy—the thief of gravity-defying in our experience is just one thing: that dreadful performance orientation that makes us reassess our risks against our all-too-familiar inventories of shortcoming! Then, it is far too easy for the paralyzing fear of failure to blow in like the storm-wind and take us down! C.S. Lewis speaks at length in his autobiography about William James’ concept of enjoyment versus contemplation and its influence on him. Simply stated, James said that a person can “enjoy” a thing or a person can “contemplate” a thing, but he cannot do both at the same time. To contemplate a thing is to step outside of the experience for analysis and therefore lose the experience for that duration! Those who do this have simple set up a detector! There is nothing wrong with detectors or contemplation: the world is not advanced by the lack of them. But there is something ever so wrong with giving too much power to the detector and letting its evidence define your existence. (You’ll never get out of the boat.) The message of the detector as I hear it loud and clear is one shared by science and faith: Reality somehow bends itself around our expectations. As you go about your necessary data-gathering for life and living, never allow your detectors to drown your dreams. Your expectations must remain as available to the WAVE qualities of life as they are to the more detector-friendly “particles”. And sometimes, you just have to drown your “data” to save your dreams!