Insights from the paradoxes of quantum mechanics: quantum football?

Destabilizing Multipolar Society through Binary Decision-making (Part #9)

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Information technologists are currently exploring the potential of quantum computing. Quantum computers are different from conventional binary digital computers. Whereas such digital computing requires that the data are encoded into binary digits (bits), each of which is always in one of two definite states (0 or 1), quantum computation uses quantum bits (qubits), which can imply the superpositions of states.

Quantum decision-making: To the extent that conventional democratic decision-making can be usefully compared with the binary operation of conventional computers, there is a case for recognizing the possibility that the insights into quantum computing offer indications to a mode of decision-making potentially more fruitful for global governance. Although many national governments and military agencies are already funding quantum computing research in an effort to develop quantum computers for civilian, business, trade, environmental and national security purposes, it remains unclear whether the relevance of such research for decision-making has as yet been recognized.

Given the important insights into "superposition of states", especially interesting is the possibility that some analogue could prove relevant to intractable territorial issues, most obviously with respect to Israel/Palestine, China/Taiwan. and the disputed islands of the China sea. At best discussions appear to be limited to 2-state solutions without consideration of the more subtle possibilities suggested by the thinking associated with quantum mechanics regarding superposition and entanglement. Such thinking is of some relevance to the challenge of Brexit to the European Project, and to independence initiatives such as that of Scotland.

Quantum psychology: As noted by The Economist, it has long been recognized that human reasoning is not necessarily "rational" (Quantum Psychology: equal and opposite, 8 July 2014). Psychologists are now exploring the possibility that it follows the more convoluted laws of quantum probability rather than classical probability. An extensive literature has emerged (J. Busemeyer and P. Bruza, Quantum Models of Cognition and Decision, 2012; Diederick Aerts, Quantum structure in cognition, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 53, 2009; Diederick Aerts, Interpreting quantum particles as conceptual entities, International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 49, 2010). Although the relevance to international relations remains to be highlighted, the implications for the social sciences in general are actively explored (Emmanuel Haven and Andrei Khrennikov, Quantum Social Science, 2013).

Experiments have now been conducted to collect evidence for "quantum cognition", as reported by Zheng Wang, et al. (Context effects produced by question orders reveal quantum nature of human judgments, 2014) :

Understanding human reasoning under uncertainty is fundamental for improving decisions about environmental policies, economic planning, public health, and many other important areas. Fifty years of behavioral decision-making research has established that humans do not always follow the "rational" rules of Bayesian probability theory. Recently, a group of psychologists and physicists have formulated new rules for human reasoning under uncertainty based on quantum probability theory

Although the focus of design of new computers, qubits are necessarily obscure from a binary perspective. This is even more the case with respect to qutrits -- a unit of quantum information that exists as a superposition of three orthogonal quantum states. Mnemonically there is some irony to the derivation of the qubit from cubit as an ancient unit of measure. The irony extends however to the possibility of exploring 3-state superposition in terms of a cube, as highlighted here.

Quantum governance? The world is variously recognized to be confronted by chaos by which conventional governance is much challenged. Brexit has enhanced this recognition (Thomas I. Palley, Brexit: The Day We Entered the Maelstrom, The Globalist, 28 June 2016). Confronted by analogous complexity, physics has long had recourse to unusual modes of thinking, exemplfied by the quantum worldview. Arguably the implications of superposition and entanglement should now be inspiring ways of transcending the constraints of binary modalities.

In the quest for the nature of global governance, it can indeed be indicated as the dynamically elusive centre of such a cube -- a Holy Grail (In Quest of Sustainability as Holy Grail of Global Governance, 2011). The "global" condition can however also be indicated by the circumsphere of a cube -- passing through the 8 extremes (as indicated below). Intriguingly, this can be related to that of the Bloch sphere as a geometrical representation of the pure state space of a two-level quantum mechanical system (qubit) or to a three-level system (K. Sandeep, et al. Geometry of the generalized Bloch sphere for qutrit, 2011)

Cube showing reflection planes and symmetry axes

Prepared with Stella Polyhedron Navigator software package

Toplogical transformation of "globality": The sense of globality is readly assumed to be associated with a sphere. However the subtlety required for future "global" governance may call for recognition of its complex relationship to a torus, as indicated by the following.

Animation of "degeneration" of a torus into a sphere (Reproduced from Wikipedia)

As the distance to the axis of revolution decreases, the ring torus becomes a horn torus, then a spindle torus, and finally degenerates into a sphere

The current importance of the toroidal form is evident with respect to the prospects of generating energy at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France. This suggests the merit of attention to a potential psychosocial equivalent, as argued separately (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006). How indeed is "cognitive fusion" be understood?

Quantum football? The cross-wise "superposition" of a second ball-game field, allowing an "alternative" game, would readily enable many to experiment in practice with some implications of quantum superposition and entanglement -- with "quantum football" !?

For those familiar with layers in Photoshop, overlaying one game on another (suitably rotated with choice of opacity) would suggest other perspectives of interest. The increasing accessibility of viewers enabling immersion in virtual reality would enable other such experiments, as indicated by alternative reality games. The binary decsion-making of conventional governance is as yet far from enabling the modes of thinking with which younger generations are either already familiar or find naturally engaging.

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