The Quantum Mind

 

 

QuantumMind-Web-01

Today’s blog is all about The Quantum Mind. I commissioned a piece of art to capture the whole concept of a quantum radical. When I hand my business card to people, many ask what the radical part is all about. The radical part is all about thinking about traditional things in new and exciting ways. I decided I needed a little help in describing the concept. And what better way than a work of art.

I worked with two artists to get the concept down on canvas. Paulette Gilmore is my designer–her company does all my branding and website work (Creative Visions International: www.cvint.com). Paulette is a great artist in her own right and was instrumental in launching the whole Quantum Radical branding three years ago. She is the one that created the wave function icon (Psi on a field of forces emanating from a central source of power). Joey Havlock (www,havlock.com) is the artist that specializes in surrealistic paintings. I saw some of his previous work and thought his style would be a fantastic way to capture the essence of the Quantum Radical.

The imagery in the painting brings together a number of concepts that when integrated provide the basis for my thinking about being a Quantum Radical. First, the shimmering water represents the phenomenal power that simple H20 has on life. Science is still finding new things out about how water behaves, especially when constricted inside nanotubes. If the nanotube diameter is small enough, the water molecules within the tube essentially take on the behavior of an electrical wire. It is a lot more complex than that, but think about what living cells have in them–lots of vary narrow nanotubes filled with water. Makes you wonder. I’ll talk about this more in a future blog.

The second feature of the painting is the model of an atom with electrons orbiting around the nucleus just above the water in front of the head. The atom is creating the light which is reflected off the water onto the face. From basic physics and chemistry, when an electron changes its orbit it either captures a photon (a piece of light) that raises the electron to a higher orbit (higher energy) or the electron emits a photon (radiates light) when it descends to a lower orbit (lower energy). That is how it works at a very basic level. This will become important later and is related to the electrical behavior of nanotubes and water. And it has a lot to do with how your business operates–yes, a topic for another blog.

The third major feature in the painting is the background. The background includes the artist’s impression of the double helix of DNA. But it also includes atoms and galaxies–subtle, but if you look for them they are there. This represents the interconnectedness of the universe. More on that also in later blogs. Everything is connected.

The next major feature is the two hands trying to grasp the atom. One of the defining features of homo sapiens is our ability to use our hands to build tools. The most powerful tools we have created come from the power of the atom–at the quantum physics level. And what is the most powerful tool we have ever created? Of course, it is our minds.

The final major feature in the painting is The Quantum Mind. Our minds are quantum computers–and the best ones ever created by Nature–to the best of our knowledge. Yes, your brain is a warm, wet quantum computer and it embodies the human mind, the most fabulous machine in the universe.

The head and face are central to the mind. The Psi symbol represents the power of our quantum minds. The eyes are gazing at the atom and the mind is trying to fathom the deep secrets of quantum physics to build even better tools to improve human civilization. It looks almost like the Quantum Mind is conjuring up powerful black magic. Well, to tell you the truth, quantum physics is extremely complex mathematically–and often seems like black magic–but it is quite simple and elegant in its concepts. I will use those concepts to help you think differently about your business.

That is what the Quantum Radical is all about–helping you see your business through a different lens. This painting captures all of the important elements that define the purpose in creating Quantum Radical Innovations–to help you fathom the depths of quantum physics so you can apply its concepts to the everyday aspects of your life especially in the business, leadership, and management arenas. I’ll take the complex mathematics out of the equation, and just bring you the simple, elegant concepts. And then, show you how they can fundamentally alter the way you think about your business. My next blog will give credit to pioneers in the application of quantum physics. I’ll take you to the beginnings of my thinking about starting Quantum Radical Innovations.

I hope you like the painting.

Q’Rad Randy

What is Quantum Thinking–The Bottom Line in your office

What does Quantum Field Theory tell us about the reality of our universe (and by extension everything in it)? And how might that apply to our business environments? And how should that shape our quantum thinking?

Good questions that cut right to the chase on what it takes to be a Quantum Radical. So let’s get down to it. First, Quantum Field Theory at its most basic interpretation is that the universe is composed of various energy fields and that all these fields are interconnected. Ok, that seems simple enough but what does interconnected really mean? Well, what that means to me is that in order to make decisions at the local level you need to consider the impact and influence from the global level and vice versa. How often in our business environments do we make decisions and then have to live with unexpected “unanticipated consequences.” The reason is that the original decision missed something–some subset of interconnections were not accounted for.

Let me give you a scenario to think about. I even hope it hurts your head a bit.

Decisions on office space, office furniture, seating arrangements, lighting, and all the related decisions that accompany making the Office are usually based on criteria like cost, durability of the furniture, vendor discounts, etc. In other words, the Office plan is based on various criteria that are relatively easy to calculate and cost out. What is usually not considered is the impact of the Office plan on your health because most managers and even building architects (not all) do not even know or realize that these other health interconnections even exist.

How often do employees complain of lousy chairs, poor lighting (especially fluorescent lights that sometimes buzz), and lack of privacy in their minuscule cubicles. Well, the traditional way of thinking is that people need to sit in chairs, and we need to provide light in the environment, and cubicles are cost-effective to provide the employee a place to do his or her work. The quantum way of thinking would consider the other important interconnections that might influence the Office plan. For example, humans are a very active species, so sitting down isn’t exactly what they are designed for, and in fact, there are studies out there that suggest a connection to ill health from sitting too much. Maybe an office with standing desks would be a better option than chairs. Also, our eyes have evolved to accommodate natural sunlight, not an artificial approximation of light. Perhaps that is a significant health mismatch over time as well.

So sitting down in a chair and dealing with artificial light in a constricted cubicle may satisfy the accountant but ultimately may lead to an unhealthy work force with attendant rising health care costs. See how all of this can be interconnected even if not obvious from the traditional way of doing business. All things are interconnected. Making one set of decisions (the Office plan) without considering another set of decisions (employee health) creates a significant mismatch. I believe there is growing evidence that our technologies (and office space is a set of technologies) are actually making us sick because they are often deployed without real consideration on the impact they may have on other criteria that are not considered in making the deployment decision. And the reason they are not considered is because, well, frankly, most managers are totally blind to these other factors.

I can point you to Jack Kruse’s website on Optimal Health. He has a number of blogs that go into great detail about these technological and health mismatches. Worth reading! In fact, he takes scientific findings from evolutionary biology and evolutionary medicine and is wrapping them hard in the language of quantum biology. Talk about discovering modern technology and health mismatches. Very fascinating stuff.

I believe that the enlightened corporation of the future will select worker health criteria as a principle criteria along with cost criteria when making the Office plan. Right now, my experience is that worker health is not a major consideration at all. And we wonder why health care costs go up–our office environments are un-designed from a health perspective and mis-designed because usually cost is the major/only decision criterion.

Here is a possible market opportunity. A holistic view of the Office using many more criteria creating a broader more interconnected place to be productive. The technologies deployed in the office of the future would be ones that are consistent with a healthy human and in fact, should enhance health and vitality.

Yes, quantum thinking can create new opportunities if we just think about things differently. Quantum field theory says everything is interconnected. Well how about making the connection that unhealthy working environments result in rising employee ill health. Maybe there is a connection. I think so.

Be a Quantum Radical and challenge the traditional office plan. A healthy working environment is undoubtedly good for the bottom line, if we just knew how to make the interconnections.

Quantum Radical

 

Is the World Flat or is it Round? Where are we today in our Quantum thinking?

At some point in the past, children went to school and learned that the Earth–the World–was flat. At some later time in the past, after it was discovered that the Earth was really a sphere, children went to school and learned that the Earth was round, and that at one time people held the silly notion that the world was flat. Aside: I wonder how many people on the planet still believe that the world is flat?

Today, children go to school and essentially learn that the universe is Newtonian and deterministic. Later, a few will discover in their higher education that there is this thing called Quantum Mechanics and they will have to deal with the fact that what they had already learned was essentially wrong–the universe is really weird and is definitely not deterministic but more along the lines of being probabilistic.

Is a Newtonian view of the world wrong? Well, yes it is! In my view, Newtonian physics is an incorrect description of the workings of the universe even if it provides a nice mathematical approximation for various classes of calculations. Learning Newtonian physics first is just plain wrong. It leaves a mis-conceptualization of reality.

Someday, our educational system will figure it out and learn how to teach at the very first instance that the world is Quantum (round) and that at one time we all believed the silly notion that the world was Newtonian (flat). I don’t know how long it took to transition our thinking from flat to round (I would guess several decades if not centuries). The transition to quantum thinking has certainly started, but we are probably near the beginning of this transition. We have a long way to go.

Howard Bloom in “The God Problem” describes the evolution of our conceptual thinking. We are still evolving. I can imagine that the educators that figure it out–how to teach grade school science from a quantum field theory perspective from the start–will lead that phase of our conceptual evolution. I predict that those students will have a distinct business and technology advantage in what is really (in reality) a Quantum World.

An encouraging fact is the rapid growth in the number of books (currently of mixed quality) that address various topics from a quantum perspective. I will be reading and reviewing many of these books in future blogs. In an upcoming Blog I will give you my reading list and my initial impressions of each book.

The Quantum Radical

Welcome to the Quantum Radical Blog & What Happened to Moore’s Law

I hope you, as a new reader of the Quantum Radical Blog, find what I have to say both entertaining and thought provoking. Because that is what it is all about–thinking better and thinking differently about the challenges we all face in our businesses and in our organizations and in our lives. Ultimately, you might think of this as bringing Moore’s Law to the art and science of leadership and management. Although our technology has been transformed over the last century from the discoveries and innovations derived from quantum physics, doesn’t it seem odd that our organizations and leadership and management models don’t reflect the same level of awesome innovation enjoyed by our technologies? What’s up with that?

Well, I have a long list of Blog topics that are intended to give you some insight into my experiences trying to answer that question. But first, I will need to set the stage. The next couple of Blogs will be a bit of a tutorial on the implications of Quantum Physics as they may relate to our everyday working environments. I am certainly not the first person to suggest the connection and I will point you to a number of great thinkers and writers who have very eloquently tackled this in their books. But, just a reminder, these Blogs are not about Quantum Physics–no complex math involved. Instead, they are about how to think  about the challenges of leadership and management within a backdrop of what quantum reality says about how the world really works–using real world examples. This will be no Newtonian walk in the park–forget deterministic approaches to complex issues. You will need to embrace complexity, ambiguity, sometimes chaos, and even some of those less tangible concepts like event horizons and consciousness.

Feel free to comment on my Blogs and challenge my thinking. I always enjoy a good debate.

Q’Rad Randy

“The God Problem” by Howard Bloom

I am now reading Howard Bloom”s “The God Problem.” Growing up, I always thought that science underestimated the magnificence of the universe. Howard Bloom has certainly made a noteworthy attempt to describe the underlying themes of nature that intersect to give us such a magnificent universe. One of the reasons that I studied Physics in college was to better understand what makes the universe tick. I enjoyed quantum physics and did very well in that subject. Today I have come to believe that we are at the threshold of even more dramatic technological and philosophical change based on incorporating more and more quantum field theory thinking into our daily lives. QFT will change everything including how we organize, lead, and prosecute human affairs. By taking a quantum view of things, especially during these radical times, I think we can begin to think of out-of-the box, beyond-the-envelope solutions to previously unsolvable human problems. Of course, eventually even QFT may be surpassed by an even better “theory of everything” (perhaps string theory?) and we will have to reinvent ourselves in the spotlight of the new theory. But for now, we live in a quantum world and we need to make the effort to reinvent ourselves as Quantum Radicals.