The Wave Function

You can’t swallow you beer fast enough.

“No, see. That’s why the last two movies sucked.”

It’s late on a Tuesday night. Just you, the bartender, and your buddy Steve.

“What are you talking about?

You draw in a deep breath and exhale, allowing yourself a moment to collect your thoughts. “The first movie was all about heroism and sacrifice and liberation and fighting the system, right? But what made it COOL was watching Morpheus and Neo jumping between buildings and floating mid-air and dodging bullets and shit. It ends with Neo flying, attaining such complete control of himself in the matrix that he can bend practically every rule as he sees fit. Problem is, he spends the next two movies fighting to leave that all behind For what? In order to live in a world that’s virtually dead? To live underground and eat that runny-egg, snot-looking protein shit? To have a weird, slow-motion techno-rave every once in a while?” You shake your head. “The movies are so disappointing because the world they’re fighting for is much worse than the one they’re living in.”

“So, what? You’re saying that you’d stay plugged in?”

You waver. “Well, that’s a problem. The only way for them to have that power was to disconnect and enter themselves. Still, even if they were using you as a battery, at least the machines let you live in a world where you had a job, and friends, and could see the sun. Is that better than wearing rags and hopping around Zion?” You shrug. “I think so.”

“So, you’d be content to live in a computer program? In a fake world?”

“Morpheus was right about that, at least. What IS real, you know? I mean, there’s nothing to say that THIS reality isn’t actually a giant computer program run by, I don’t know. Our future selves. Or aliens. Or someone we’d call god. You saying that THIS isn’t real?”

“Dude…”

“Just hear me out. What if you could merge Vanilla Sky and the Matrix? What if you could live in a world that’s both suited to your taste—a world you could control—and was also populated by other sentient beings? So what if your material body sits in a vat or floats in space? Your experience of reality would be indistinguishable from your experience of the program. The only difference is, in the program, you could do whatever you wanted to. Doesn’t THAT sound more liberating than being bound by the laws of physics and a constantly-dying, decaying sack of meat we call a body?”

Steve shakes his head. “Dude, I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Thing is, you might not even need it to be a program.” You sip your beer. “Okay, so quantum theory suggests that, at the super-microscopic level, everything in the universe exists as a wave function with a predictable set of discreet outcomes to which we can assign a probability. The world we see is the aggregation of trillions of these wave functions assuming definite, rather than probable, positions, spins, and velocities upon being observed. Now, the effect is random, as far as we can tell, but what if we had the power to somehow manipulate those quantum events?”

“You can’t—”

“But if we could? There’s literally no end to what you could do. A pile of bricks could become a pile of gold. Real alchemy-style shit. THEN there’s the multiverse theory. Suppose that each quantum event DOES occur, in every possible permutation, in an infinite series of parallel universes. And suppose you could skip between them at will. The effect would be the same. Insofar as it’s infinite, everything that ever possibly could happen DOES happen, and you simply choose your universe based upon a series of desired effects. It’s—”

“It’s LATE,” Steve says, finishing his beer and throwing down a few bills.

You throw up your hands. “Come on! This is serious stuff!”

“No,” he says, putting on his jacket. “It’s ACADEMIC stuff. Unless you’ve stumbled upon a way to hack reality.”

You open your mouth, but have no retort.

“Well, till you do?” He claps you on the shoulder. “Just a pipe dream my friend.”

You spin around. “Scientists say we may only be a few generations away from creating completely realistic virtual representations of the past!”

He stops at the door. “Well, then say hi to King Tut for me. Good night.”

As he walks out the door, you settle up and leave as well. The spring air is cool, brisk, and you shove your hands into your pockets. But in spite of the chilly breeze, your mind is still racing. Not that you’re exactly competent in all of this theoretical science, but you follow, best you can, as a layman. It’s just so…compelling. The possibilities, what lies ahead, could completely alter the way we think of ourselves and the world. And you, you’re living in what might be one of the first generations to witness these wacky ideas proven first-hand. To reap their benefits.

But Steve’s right. It is all a pipe dream, at least for now. You still live in a shabby little one-bedroom apartment, alone. You get up, go to work, eat, maybe stop for a drink, and come home. Life could be, should be, so much more than this. It’s that hope that gets you up in the morning, even if it is the cold, hard reality of a lackluster life that puts you to sleep. So you lay your head on your pillow, exhausted, and go to sleep.