Melanie Swan
Change is an undertheorized topic as there is a lack of standardized tools for thinking about change in any field. Hence, this work develops a multidisciplinary theory of change with philosophy as a literature, physics, neuroscience, and markets. The Oxford English dictionary defines change as the act of becoming different, which implies a time before and a time after. Change is observed through time, and time is observed through change.
The Quantum Mindset is posited which is thinking in terms of quantum properties to solve problems (quantum properties include superposition, entanglement, interference, symmetry, and topology). Such a quantum mindset is relevant in science as quantum studies fields are starting to proliferate (e.g. quantum chemistry, quantum biology, quantum neuroscience, quantum astronomy) and in the arts as quantum humanities extend digital humanities by studying art and literature with quantum methods (such as quantum machine learning) and by identifying examples of quantum concepts in art and literature.
I: The Philosophy of Time and Change: The Event, Difference, Uncertainty
We might wonder which fields have thought about change explicitly? There is philosophy. Certainly, the social-political change that drives the human experience is important to a general understanding of change. First, there is the philosophy of the event (characterized by Badiou, Derrida), that describes the time-change relationship through notable occurrences after which everything is different, moments such as the French revolution, the atomic bomb, 9/11, the Moon Landing, and the discovery of DNA. The amalgamation of events is history, seen as Foucauldian epistemes (knowledge regimes determined by power) and Hegelian shapes of spirit. French theorists (Deleuze, Baudrillard) consider philosophies of difference that distinguish between appearance and reality. For Kant, we cannot know the thing in itself, only our representations of it, which we see through the time-space “goggles” we cannot help but wear as the synthetic a priori unities that are the conditions of possibility for our experience of the external world. Change is phenomenologically doubled in the Bergsonian sense of an objective measurable clocktime externally and an inner subjective time consciousness; a “deep change” concept could accompany “deep time” to consider the longitudinal geo-scale changes of the Earth. However, perhaps most useful for the current endeavor is Nietzsche, who encourages us to be more comfortable with uncertainty through historical philosophizing, applying a perspective that is both in and beyond our time. So, from philosophy, we see different ways of thinking about change through time. What can we learn from science?
II: Quantum Information Science: Time as Controllable Feature and Probabilistic Reality
Scientific research findings in foundational physics inform our broader understanding of reality. Any knowledge acquired with the scientific method is the result of a measurement having been made with regard to change - but strangely, whereas everything else in science has a rigorous, if not reductionist, definition, change does not. What is new in one of the most contemporary areas of science, quantum computation, is that time is being regarded as just another property to be engineered. At the quantum scale, time is reversible in certain ways, which is quite different from the everyday experience of time whose unidirectional arrow does not allow a broken egg to
reassemble. At the quantum scale of atoms, though, a particle retains the history of its trajectory, which may be retraced before being collapsed in measurement.
Quantum scientists use time malleability to evolve a system forward or backward to earlier or later time to apply an action and see what happens (with out-of-time-order-correlation functions). Time reversibility is related to symmetry breaking (phase transition) and with Floquet engineering, periodic systems can be directed to avoid or enter a phase transition. Quantum systems are entangled in time as they are in space, with temporal correlations exhibiting greater multiplicity than spatial correlations. The chaotic time regimes of ballistic spread followed by saturation are implemented in quantum walks (the analog of random walks) for faster search and heightened cryptosecurity. In quantum neuroscience, seizure may be explained by chaotic dynamics and normal resting state by Floquet-like periodic cycles. Time has the same kinds of periodic and repeating structures as space (described by entanglement, symmetry, and topology), differently instantiated, and controlled with various quantum computational levers.
The core idea in quantum mechanics is probability. Quantum reality is probabilistic. A particle (or superpositioned data modeled by quantum product managers in today’s corporations) literally exists in all possible states simultaneously before being collapsed in a measurement. Scientists might prefer quantum reality to be more deterministic, but it is probabilistic. Einstein resisted the idea saying that “God does not play dice” but the superpositioned nature of quantum reality has been proven numerous times with the double slit experiment – quantum objects behave as both a wave and a particle at the same time, occupying two different states of reality. The property of superposition is used to send cryptographic keys on quantum networks for secure login. The point is that quantum reality is probabilistic, nothing is fixed and determined ahead of time, and this could help us think about change. So, from physics, we obtain the idea that time is a feature that can be specified, manipulated, and engineered as any other, and that quantum reality is probabilistic.
III: Clinical Neuroscience and Stock Market Trading: Probability evaluates Change
Thinking about change through probability is the canonical approach taken in the applied areas of experimental neuroscience and stock market trading. Probability is calculated to predict the possibility of change happening, the likelihood of uncertain future events occurring, in an attempt to control risk, whether in medical diagnosis and treatment, crop failure, or speculation. The key message from both neuroscience and markets is that real-life events are non-Gaussian, meaning that they are not normally distributed in a neatly packaged regular curve like those that describe height and weight. However, Gaussian statistical models are used as the basic means of representing event distribution even though it is known that the map does not correspond to the territory. In clinical neuroscience (EEG and fMRI imaging), the collective behavior of neurons in the human brain in neural signaling produces unknown statistical distributions. Whereas the behavior of a few neurons may result in a statistical distribution that is Gaussian, or recognizable as a power-law or bimodal distribution, the collective behavior of whole-brain neural signaling results in unknown statistical distributions that require new mathematical models (and implicate quantum computational modeling) (Breakspear, 2017).
In markets too, the same situation occurs. Stock market returns are most easily modeled as if they are Gaussian, but real-life data shows they are not. The first-line modeling technique, the industry stalwart model is the Black-Scholes formula, work that received the Nobel prize, but has Gaussian assumptions. Practitioners know that indeed real-life returns are non-Gaussian and the model is just an approximation (garbage-in, garbage-out). Critics have drawn attention to the fact that the Black-Scholes option pricing model relies on Gaussian assumptions, and over-reliance on these kinds of models has been cited as a potential factor in market crashes. The critique is encapsulated in the Black Swan idea that just because you have not seen a black swan does not mean that they do not exist, as explorers found when they went to Australia (Taleb, 2001, 2007). In market parlance, the Black Swan means that outsized events such as market crashes occur with much greater frequency than humans generally perceive. Thus, the Black Swan financial theory calls for non-Gaussian modeling based on fat-tails that incorporate the occurrence of outsize events. Other work extends the Black Swan even farther in the Blank Swan idea, arguing that future market prices are fundamentally unknowable and no attempt should be made to model or estimate them (Ayache, 2010; Meillassoux, 2008). For the purposes of considering change, the point is to acknowledge that humans are not good at probabilistic thinking, and thus models that help us think about change through probability, even if not organically intuitive, might be helpful.
Conclusion: The Quantum Mindset
Concluding, we can consolidate the conceptual resources obtained in the different field-based investigations to specify the Quantum Mindset. In the general sense, the Quantum Mindset refers to a thinking stance in terms of quantum properties to solve problems (e.g. superposition, entanglement, interference, symmetry, and topology). Here, the Quantum Mindset is extended as a multidisciplinary theory of change which embraces the Nietzschean acceptance of uncertainty, incorporates the Floquet engineering idea of quantum mechanical time as a system feature to engineer as any other, and acknowledges the non-Gaussian Black Swan thinking of outsized events occurring with greater frequency than assumed. The Quantum Mindset is applicable to the acceptance of change in our encounter with everyday macroscale reality, and also in the changing face of the university. Science is increasingly segmented into classical and quantum domains, and the quantum humanities may extend the digital humanities (Hone, 2019). The emerging field of quantum literature both traces physics formulations in literature that predate and facilitate comprehension of the quantum domain and applies quantum computational methods to the study of literature. The Quantum Mindset is a flexible performative attitude towards non-intuitive concepts, informed by the quantum domain, engaging these ideas to enhance our understanding of change. The Quantum Mindset can be propelled into a macroscale-theory of change through its connotation of a more flexible, malleable, probabilistic interface with reality. Change becomes less rigid. The idea of manipulating quantum systems provides an empowering frame for the acceptance of change.
References
Ayache, E. (2010). The Blank Swan: The End of Probability. West Sussex UK: Wiley.
Breakspear, M. (2017). Dynamic models of large-scale brain activity. Nat Neurosci. 20:340-52.
Hone, K.E. (2019). Quantum Social Science. Oxford Bibliographies.
Meillassoux, Q. (2008). After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. London: Continuum.
Taleb, N.N. (2001). Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets. New York: Random House.
———. (2007). The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House.
Biography
Melanie Swan, Research Associate, Quantum Technologies, University College London has a PhD in Philosophy (German Idealism) from Purdue University, an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA from Georgetown University. Her research focuses on conceptual advance in literature, physics, biology, and smart network technologies.