Quantum Leap
In the midst of my solitude and boredom, a strange thought crept into my mind. I’ve been going stir crazy, pacing up and down in my home, with nothing to do, waiting for my face to heal. Tossing around in my bed late one night, unable to sleep, the thought struck me, maybe none of the stuff that happened to me with Alice, or trying to commit suicide at Harvard is real.
Eureka! I sat bolt upright in bed. I felt alive again. I’ve a new purpose in life. Strange thoughts came tumbling into my mind. I started thinking how some super genius might have constructed my whole world. Maybe this is a virtual reality world I lived in – not the real thing. Maybe everything that is happening isn’t my fault. I couldn’t stop thinking. Finally, I’ve something to occupy myself with, and take my mind off my problems. I decided to put my genius brain to work proving my new theory is correct.
I've got to know who has constructed the virtual reality world I fancy I live in to prove to myself that this is the fact. I’ve to decide why someone or something has gone to all this trouble. I decided to call this alien force the Game Master, calling on my broad knowledge of video computer games.
Figuring out how to create a virtual world was another matter. Then the thought crossed my mind: The Game Master must’ve used some version of what we know as Quantum Computing. That’s the only program powerful enough to allow him to do this, but why? Was he really what we’ve come to believe in as God or just some time and space traveler creating a game for his or her own enjoyment? Am I part of the game? And what about my concept of Dialectic Materialism? How does this virtual world concept fit in with my religious theories? The more I thought, the more confused I got.
Thinking about the concept of a virtual reality world caused more ideas to pop into my head. Hundreds of questions started streaming into my mind – some conscious, some not. I couldn’t stop thinking about this. Now I’m glad I’ve plenty of time. I spent most of the summer in my room attempting to replicate what this genius Game Master must’ve done. What better use could I make of my time? The task before me is almost inconceivable, but I won’t stop. I’m a genius too. I should be able to replicate this program, but trying to implement the concept is an unbelievably daunting task. How am I ever going to figure this out?
How to recreate the senses of sight, smell, touch, sound, taste, and combine these with cognitive capabilities, emotional context, and real time responses is a mind boggling endeavor. How did the Game Master do all this with the use of artificial intelligence, and still make everything appear so real? What was his motive? Where did he obtain the historical knowledge base necessary to do a project of this nature, and most important – how did he know how to populate this virtual reality world?
Where did the people come from? Who chose the races and the animals? Who created the scenarios we all play out? Is any of this possible? Am I just letting my over active imagination compensate for my human shortcomings? Am I giving my wild imagination too much credit for the ability to discern fact from fiction? Why approach the problem using Quantum computing? How else can I hope to recreate a virtual reality world? Quantum computing is the only application I can think of advanced enough to do the job of creating all the variables and all the randomness necessary to pass for reality.
I poured over information gleaned from searching the Internet through Google. What I learned about Quantum Computing was amazing, and made me think creating alternate reality worlds was possible. A Quantum Computer can run 1,000,000,000 times faster than our current silicon based computers. Using the Quantum Computing principals of Superposition, Entanglement, Wave technology and Quantum Teleportation could help make all the things I was hypothesizing about a virtual world possible.
Even with my genius mind, the concept is almost impossible to grasp. There are so many sub concepts. I don’t even understand what they mean. The thought occurred to me that maybe a superior form of intelligence was needed to create worlds and universes real or virtual, but I kept on trying. Geniuses don’t give up that easily. Sometimes I feel as if I’m on the verge of great discovery. Other times I get stuck in theory, and can go no further. The harder I try to understand the more confused I became.
Quantum computing is nothing like what I had jokingly described to my childhood friend, Billy, and yet in some respects there is great similarity. As best I can figure the theory out, Quantum Computing is our best hope of producing a program powerful enough to challenge our understanding of reality. That’s what I’m trying to understand, the theory of reality.
These are some facts about Quantum Computing that astound me:
Quantum Computers are reversible; therefore there is theoretically no net energy consumption. Reversibility allows programs to evolve rather than run, which also means that inputs can be inferred from outputs. How weird is that?
Quantum Computers can simulate true randomness giving veracity to our virtual world. I thought everything I do is random. Now I learn that someone is pulling my strings in this virtual world, which I may or may not be living in.
In terms of speed, if you submitted your name for a search to the Library of Congress in the entire context of unsorted databases, it would take about one hundred years to find, but using Quantum Computing, it would take about half a second.
Superpositioning using Wave Technology allows different electrons to occupy the same space at the same time. The actual wave form in Quantum Computing of two combined waves of a series of numbers is a set of amplitude probabilities. Are you kidding me? What the hell does all this mean?
Then there is more theory on Entanglements, whatever the hell they are, moving faster than the speed of light, which is impossible under current theories, Collapsing Vectors of 0 and 1 Quantum bits or Qubits, and Quantum Teleportation combining to allow the destruction of the original and the creation of an identical duplicate at a different location. I think that is what is happening to me.
All of this was in Einstein’s opinion, “spooky action at a distance” or resulted from some unknown or hidden variables, which produced a philosophy of reality contrary to science, leaving the quantum theory incomplete. Guess he couldn’t figure it out either. How do I expect to fathom all this?
Enough, that’s how I feel – incomplete and divorced from reality. This stuff is driving me nuts. I’m being overrun or evolved by quantum bits, and it’s tearing my thinking processes to pieces. And trying to wrap my head around Quantum Computers utilizing liquid crystal state nuclear magnetic resonance techniques to move molecules around, or Quantum Computers made with Electrons floating on liquid helium, while different elements occupy the same space simultaneously, requires more imagination then I can muster. I never said I was a mathematical genius. I’m a philosopher.
This crazy Quantum theory, as I understand, allows us to reduce new age computer chip replicates to the size of atoms, which have their own quirky characteristics including using 1 and 0 to mean different things at the same time, or to mean the same thing at different times. Boy is this confusing. The worst part is that much of this is still theoretical, and hasn’t been proven to work. How am I going to use this stuff to create a virtual reality world when it’s not actually working yet except in the laboratory? All I know is that this whole process dynamically increases the speed with which we can process information. That makes sense. How else can I possibly hope to program all the different bits and pieces of information necessary to make up a virtual world?
Everything I’ve learned so far shows me that the theory of Quantum Computing allows us to exist in different realities at the same time. That’s perfect for me. If I don’t like one reality, I can just switch to another. The truth is I think I do this already, I just don’t know how I’m performing this trick, but then I’m a genius, and much of what we know is instinctive on a sub-conscious level.
All of this thinking is getting me more, rather than less confused about what’s reality, and what part God and Quantum Computing play in this whole process. I don’t really know any more than when I started this whole experiment. All I know is that a higher power than I is necessary to have formed the universe and shaped our thoughts.
I took a quantum leap of faith and made a determination that would stay with me the rest of my life. I’ve decided that in my version of reality, God is the Game Master. I pray that’s so. This has been a humbling experience. Strange how us humans feel called upon to examine the nature of the world we live in. Why can’t we just accept what’s happening to us like other animals? Why must we always question our own existence? I guess that’s what sets the human race apart. I don’t feel much like a genius now.
God, if You’re listening, I believe in You. I’ve my doubts at times, but in my opinion You’re the Game Master. You’re the Man. I just want to be Your messenger.
Time has worked wonders. I’ve decided that whatever world I’m living in is the right one for me. My face is healed. No more pensive thinking for me, and speculating about the nature of what’s real. I’m ready to come back to the world of the living. That’s the reality I like best. I feel good again. The Game Master must be watching over me.
Thank You, God.
I’m glad I didn’t kill myself. I still don’t know the meaning of life. I still don’t understand the nature of my faith and I still don’t have a plan for the future.
What I do have, as Doctor O’Hara has explained to me, is some time, precious time, to look around and see the beauty in life. He says it’s all around me. All I’ve to do is look. You don’t have to be a genius to keep your eyes open. I’m starting to take a peek. I think I like what I see. Life still sucks, but I’ll hang around and see what happens.
Who ever heard of a bearded young guy with freckles getting the girl? It’s ridiculous. That’s me -- all image and fantasy. Am I just a quirk of nature or the real thing? Who will keep me company and give me love now in my paradox of discovery, as I surge from one reality to another, one quantum bit at a time?
Source: Quantum Computers: What are they and what do they mean to us? – Google – www.carolla.com/quantum/QuantumComputers.htm. Material referenced from Explorations in Quantum Computing by Collin Williams and Scot Clearwater
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