4 Complexity and the quantum field (the organizing principle)
The previous chapter has opened a quest for a new paradigm, or even possibly for a new ontology. If we would like to understand the world differently we may need a new set of basic assumptions, beliefs that we hold about how nature itself functions. It is general y accepted that the world functions according to the laws of nature, original y given to us by Newton. We operate in a fixed time-space concept. Events are causal y related and we know with certainty what happened yesterday and how it influenced what happens today. Clearly, however, our relationship with the past is a much easier one than our relationship with the future. We know exactly what happened yesterday; we have little certainty of what will happen tomorrow. In reality, a Newtonian world does not seem to hold if we operate on the level of less rational decision making, emotions, feelings, etc. Nevertheless, our managerial thinking is still heavily based on causal thinking, even though management mainly deals with people issues of different kinds. We claim that we can only manage causalities, the interconnection between cause and effect. But in reality again, what a manager or leader deals with is the interconnectedness of people, and that seems to follow its own pattern of logic.
We have experienced the revolutions of relativity and quantum mechanics in physics during the previous century. How do the findings of quantum mechanics allow us to adjust our basic assumptions on the functioning of companies and markets?
Today, management theory and practice are facing the challenge that thinking about managerial problems in linear and deterministic ways may create more problems than they solve. Strategy studies, for instance, displays a growing interest in learning and organizational flexibility, and it gives importance to distributed cognition and adaptive systems. Management theorists are keenly observing developments surrounding the complexity and chaos theory in science; management researchers are attempting to apply emerging theories to managerial problems.
The idea that many simple, non-linear deterministic systems can behave in an apparently unpredictable and chaotic manner, is not new. It was first introduced by the great French mathematician Henri Poincaré. Other early pioneering work in the field of chaotic dynamics is found in the mathematical literature by scientists such as Birkhoff, Levenson and Kolmogorov, amongst others. More recently, Nobel Prizes have been awarded in this field of research to Prigogine and Kauffman. One of the difficulties for management theory and practice when engaging with complexity theory lies in its attachment to causality.
Complexity, as a growing organizational paradigm in the knowledge-based economy, primarily questions the concept of causality. Despite relativity and quantum mechanics, most physics (and certainly all managerial thinking) is still Newtonian; based on a fixed space-time frame. In the meantime, further developments have taken place in the area of biology (such as the concept of Sheldrake’s morphogenetic fields) and mind/body medicine that all seem to point to a merging idea of a quantum interpretation of social phenomena (non-locality, synchronicity and entanglement). Could a-causality form the basis for a quantum ontology of complex systems?
This chapter attempts to explore the essence of such a quantum ontology, which, afterwards, enables the development of a systemic concept of values-based performance and diagnostics that go with it.
The philosophy of quantum mechanics: Challenges and opportunities
The foundational concepts in the complexity realm emerge from such fields as neurobiology, cognitive sciences, physics and organizational theory. New developments in knowledge management such as connectionist approaches to complex adaptive systems for the visualization of emergence give promising results (Baets, 2005). In fact, instead of directional causality, it appears that the networked economy is ruled by synchronicity – appearing at the same time – in line with findings in quantum research. Could it be that the economy and management in general, and the more dynamic aspects of it like innovation, in particular, are indeed based on a quantum ontology?
The insight into complexity that developed over the last decade, and its consequences for management, discussed earlier in the book and in previous publications (Baets, 2006a and b), provides a platform for this chapter to explore the ontological basis of complex systems.
What Prigogine and complexity theory discussed in general, was fundamental y the existence of any causal relationship. In fact he was surprised that despite the two fundamental revolutions in physics in the last century, relativity theory and quantum mechanics, physics still remained mainly Newtonian. That physics presumes a fixed time and space concept in which the future is causal y related to the past, is a deterministic view that if certain conditions exist in certain ways there would be a determined outcome. Instead, complexity theory and quantum mechanics show the impossibility of this assumption.
In both the special and the general theory of relativity, the notion of causality, in which a cause precedes its effect, remains intact in the relativistic – subjective and without absolute objective truth – formulations of electrodynamics, mechanics and gravitation. In quantum theory, the usual meaning of causal connection between one event and another is therefore called into question.
The discontinuity versus continuity distinction can be seen as contingently rooted in philosophical commitments and in the physical phenomena studied. By the late 19th century, there were already significant, if not overwhelming, philosophical precedents for the concept of indeterminism or absence of causality (including the possibility of inherent chance) in nature. These opposed the straightforward determinism often associated with classical physics. Soren Kierkegaard believed that objective uncertainty can force one to make a leap into the unknown so that decisions cannot always, even in principle, be based on a continuous chain of logic. For example, one of Hoffding’s tenets was that, in life, decisive events proceed through sudden ‘jerks’ of discontinuities, an idea incorporated into Bohr’s view of atomic phenomena (Cushing, 1998).
As Schrödinger concluded: “this means nothing else but taking seriously the de Broglie-Einstein wave theory of moving particles, according to which the particles are nothing more than a kind of “wave crest” on a background of waves” (Klein, 1964). Einstein, de Broglie and Schrödinger shared a commitment to a continuous wave as a basic physical entity subject to a causal description.
There was a split in philosophical outlook along generational lines: on one side was the ‘older’, essential y classical world view of people like Einstein, Schrödinger and de Broglie; on the other was a radical y different, eventual y indeterministic conception of physical processes engendered by a general y younger generation (Bohr and Born being exceptions here), including Heisenberg, Pauli, Jordan and a new member of the group, Dirac from Cambridge University (Polkinghorne, 1990).
On the standard, or Copenhagen, interpretation of quantum mechanics and, in particular, the Schrödinger equation, there is no longer event-by-event causality, and particles do not follow well-defined trajectories in a space-time background. The theory predicts, in general, probabilities, rather than specific events.
Dirac argues that an intrinsic distinction between large and small is related to the effects produced on an object when it is observed. The act of observing the system – the cat in Schrödinger’s famous experiment (Schrödinger, 1935) – has forced the system into a given state (Dirac, 1958).
Beyond causality
This leads to one of the most profound issues in the interpretation of quantum mechanics, especial y for our purpose – that of causality (in the sense of a specific, identifiable cause for each individual effect). As Dirac (1958) observes, causality applies only to a system that is left undisturbed. If a system is smal , it cannot be observed without producing a serious disturbance, and hence observers cannot expect to find any causal connection between the results of their observations.
In this same spirit, Heisenberg too felt that, since the mathematical structure of quantum mechanics is so different from that of classical mechanics, it is not possible to interpret quantum mechanics in terms of our commonly understood notions of space and time with classical causality (Heisenberg, 1927). This sudden and discontinuous change of the state of a quantum-mechanical system upon observation or measurement, is an example of one of the central and long-standing conceptual difficulties of the standard interpretation. It is termed the “measurement problem”.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the lack of absolute predictive power are an inherent feature of quantum mechanics. In principle there is no deterministic scheme to predict the exact future trajectory of an electron. Bohr developed this idea further. Today, this dependence of the outcome of a measurement upon the means used to effect it, is referred to as contextuality.
An obvious rhetorical question now presents itself. What does the wave function represent? Is it our state of knowledge of the system (in which case quantum mechanics is incomplete), or the actual physical state of the system (in which case there must be a sudden change of the system upon our observation of it)? Although the system may appear in either of two states (or ‘components’) before the measurement, nature has (in the image suggested by Dirac) been forced to ‘make a choice’ when observed. Since the system is thereafter in a definite component, no subsequent interference with the other component is possible. The ‘col apse’ of the wave function has taken place. An issue of ontology, isn’t it?
EPR (Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen; 1935) introduced the deterministic hidden-variables theories. They assume that there is a set of variables, or as yet undiscovered properties of a system, and that the exact space-time behavior of the system is causal y determined by the values of these ‘hidden’ variables. The introduction of such a large number of hidden variables may seem to be a high price to pay to maintain locality and realism. John Bell proved a remarkable theorem in 1965. Simply put, no determinate, local hidden-variables theory can agree with all of the predictions of quantum mechanics. Consequently, it can now be asserted with reasonable confidence that either the thesis of realism or that of locality must be abandoned. Either choice will drastical y change our concepts of reality and of space-time (Clauser and Shimony, 1978).
It is general y believed that a causal interpretation of quantum mechanics is impossible, although no proof of this presently exists.
The standard, or Copenhagen, view of quantum mechanics is characterized as requiring complementarity (say, wave-particle duality), inherent indeterminism at the most fundamental level of quantum phenomena and the impossibility of an event-by-event causal representation in a continuous space– time background. So, on the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, physical processes are, at the most fundamental level, both inherently indeterministic and non-local. The ontology of classical physics is dead.
The heart of the problem is the entanglement (or non-separability) of quantum states that gives rise to the measurement problem. This entanglement makes it impossible to assign independent properties to an arbitrary isolated physical system once it has interacted with another system in the past – even though these two systems are no longer interacting. The non-separability characteristic of quantum systems can be seen as an indication of the ‘holistic’ character of such systems. Some claim the need for a new concept of causality, but it is not clear what that would be. Heisenberg long ago suggested introducing a new class of physical entity, potentia, into our theory (and into our ontology).
Eventual y, a Bell-type theorem is proven and taken as convincing evidence that non-locality is present in quantum phenomena. Quantum mechanics has undeniably introduced us to non-locality, entanglement and synchronicity; concepts that thus far have not yet been applied in economics, business or social sciences at large.
Extending spirit, the fifth dimension and other implications of a possible new ontology
Earlier work (Baets, 2006) has suggested that an interesting path of exploration might be to go as low as possible on the aggregation level, and work on the level of human emotions of team members to allow innovation to produce itself through the emergence of processes. In fact, we want to explore the quantum reality of management and, by extension, of any other social phenomenon. A double question remains: can you, and how can you, make the concept of, for instance, innovation a holistic one? The answer would encapsulate the personal emotional side. However, on a deeper level, this question can be asked with reference to conscience and causality, and the “seat” of consciousness (as discussed in chapter 2).
At a more grounded level, the questions are: on what level can we find consciousness? Is there something like a collective consciousness, for example, in a company on the subject of innovation? Does everyone have a sort of essential element of incorporated consciousness with a possibility of connection with others at the level of consciousness? These can be directly translated to companies: do consciousness, engagement, and emotions make a difference for a company? Does a company have a “soul”, a “consciousness”? Is there a link between this “consciousness” and the success of a company? Are vision, emotions and consciousness linked? More concretely, what determines the choice of a client who has a preference for one company over another? What lets potential clients make a distinction between two companies which essential y offer the same services, for example, two big banks such as BNP and ING, or two consultancy companies such as PWC and Accenture? And final y, can we arrive at an approach, accepted as scientific, that gives at least the beginning of a response to these questions? Although the questions are, of course, a little metaphysical, this does not prevent them from remaining important questions. This chapter will now explore some evolutions in different types of sciences, each interpreting the suggested new ontology.
Once holism, constructivism and emergence are accepted as fundaments of a new paradigm, a paradox emerges, perhaps the most important one in science. Despite the two great revolutions of the previous century – the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics – almost the whole scientific community is still focused on Newtonian principles, that is to say fixed space and time. Science still does very little with the space-time continuum that these revolutions have offered us. In the hard sciences, at least, there are groups of researchers working on this subject. In economic, managerial and social sciences this revolution seems to have been completely side-stepped. Our managerial thinking is still the Marshallian economic thinking of the 19th Century (Arthur, 1998).
At the end of his scientific career Wolfgang Pauli (as described in de Meijgaard, 2002) asked himself how we can know if human cultures can live with a clear distinction between knowledge and belief (an idea, moreover, of Max Planck). For this reason, according to Pauli, societies struggle if new knowledge arrives and puts the classical spiritual values in question. The complete separation between the two can only be a solution in the short term and one of facility. Pauli had predicted that there will be a moment in the near future when all the images and metaphors of classic religions will lose their strength of conviction for the average citizen. In that situation classic ethical values disintegrate and result in a period of hitherto unknown barbarism. He was touched by, and very interested in, what he himself called “background physics” – the spontaneous appearance of quantitative concepts and images in fantasies and dreams. He admitted he also had them himself. Their character was very dependent on the dreamer. Background physics has an archetypal origin and that leads (always, according to Pauli) to a natural science which will work just as well with matter as with consciousness. He was also sufficiently a realist to say that if a researcher in physics has observed a sub-system, the observations are as much dependent on the observer as on the instruments.
According to Pauli, the physical concept of “complementarity“ physics (de Meijgaard, 2002) il ustrated a profound analogy with concepts such as consciousness and the unconscious. Two extreme cases which can never be attained in practice are “someone with a perfect consciousness” (eastern philosophy suggests that this can be attained uniquely in death, also called Nirvana) and something like a “bigger spirit” which will never be influenced by a subjective consciousness. This “bigger spirit” is what eastern philosophy cal s the “consciousness”, and western psychology cal s “collective unconsciousness”. Pauli accepted that physical values, as much as archetypes, change in the eyes of the observer. Observation is the result of human consciousness.
Pauli wrote a book with Jung on this issue (1955). Where Jung talks about defined archetypes as primordial structural elements of the human psyche, Pauli introduced the notion of the “collective unconsciousness”. They both believed that humans were moving towards a joining of the psyche and the physical.
Ideas without borders (1): synchronicity
The introduction of the notion of “synchronicity” in this co-authored work is not only interesting in itself, but recurs in other authors and also other disciplines. According to Pauli, synchronicity – being united-in-time, appears in all the sciences and the techniques in which simultaneity plays a role. What must be taken into account here is that this is not about a causal coherence (from cause to effect) but about a coincidence (being together in time). This coincidence must be considered as useful even if the deep cause of the simultaneity cannot be explained. It needs to be remembered that references to synchronicity are always present if the events concerned occur in the same time period. The concepts of statistics or the theory of probability are of another order. Probability can be calculated with mathematical methods, which is impossible when speaking about synchronicity.
Synchronicity (according to Meijgaard) is considered the basis of many phenomena which are difficult to explain and which are often called non-scientific. However, they will not be considered further in this context. The concern here is that the widening of consciousness and the dissolving of borders is only possible when, besides classical energetic causal thinking, there is also a space kept for synchronicity and information. It is to Pauli’s great credit that he indicated the necessity to create space for the concept of synchronicity in scientific thinking. Jung speaks about this as the “a-causal” link. Sheldrake later confirmed these ideas with his theory of morphogenetic fields (a collection of cel s by whose interactions a particular organ formed).
Pauli and Jung proposed that the classic triad of physics (space, time and causality) be extended with synchronicity to then form a tetrad. This fourth element works in an a-causal manner and is, in effect, the polar opposite of causality. Pauli and Jung believed that these oppositions were orthogonal in time and space.
The idea of an a-causal link – or non-locality – are new concepts which should contribute effectively to the science of management (and specifical y to the management of innovation) to be able to make them more concrete. The term “non-local” comes, in fact, from the opposition taken by Einstein against his own grandchild (quantum mechanics). The majority view of researchers (Einstein excluded) concludes that the observation of one particle produces a direct and immediate effect on the second. In effect, there must be a “togetherness-in-separation: against the intuitive (a theory which was moreover refused by Einstein, who called it “spooky action at a distance”). Even Nature seems to attack pure and simple reductionism (Polkinghorne, 1990). The subatomic world can no longer be treated in a purely atomic way.
The implication of these observations is that the phenomenon of “entanglement” (non-locality) includes a real remote activity, not simply epistemological, but in fact ontological in nature.
The Bogdanov brothers (Bogdanov and Bogdanov, 2004) have published an interesting book that summarizes their PhD work (in theoretical physics and mathematics): “Avant le big bang”. In their book, which is discussed by many attached to more classical theories, they attempt to take the understanding of the quantum interpretation a step further. Their theoretical work makes an attempt to explore what could happen beyond Planck’s Wall (<10-43). Not only do they find non-locality, synchronicity and entanglement, but they also find a possible explanation for non-locality. It extends beyond our current acceptance of just four dimensions: three of space and one of time. Indeed they theoretical y observe a fifth dimension, which would be a fourth dimension of space, but expressed in “imaginary” time. Explaining the concept of imaginary time would take us too far, and it is extremely mathematical, but it has to do with the famous “i” in mathematics (the square root of a negative number). If they theoretical y observe this fifth dimension beyond Planck’s wal , it of course also exists before that “wal ”, which would mean that there is a kind of interwoveness between time and space. Time has a space dimension and space has a time dimension. Even if some scientists want to argue with this work the least one can say is that their observation and proof is elegant (even if it were not true). Although, their proof is rather convincing and their PhD juries were mainly Nobel Prize winners.
This development should not be misunderstood as an extension of the search in physics for the string theory. The latter is not concerned with the (Bogdanov) singularity, but accepts Planck’s wall as a fact of life.
Interesting also is that speaking about values, the values of interconnectedness, the spiritual connection, the contribution we make to the broader picture, the value added by companies to a wider societal good, etc., seem to be situated on that same kind of quantum level: a lower level of reality, beyond the world of molecules and atoms. Seeing values as these small building blocks – on levels of sub-atomic particles and unified forces theory, where they are elements of comparable nature, and that in interaction with each other, create an emergent reality – opens doors for a different, values-based leadership style.
Quantum interpretations and ways of knowing in complex social systems
One of the il ustrations of this quantum concept, and with the goal of doing a thought experiment, is developed in Mitchel ’s “dyadic model” as he describes it in his book The Way of the Explorer: An Apol o Astronaut’s Journey Through the Material and Mystical World (Mitchell and Williams, 1996). Stated simply, the concept of non-locality is derived from quantum physics (as explained before). In fact, in the experiments he demonstrated that particles (photons) stay attached in a “mysterious” manner, even if they displace in directions contrary to the speed of light.
The dyadic model is built on the idea that everything is energy. This basic energy is linked to information, or what Mitchell cal s structures of energy. The energy and the information form a dyad. The information, in this context, is the basis of the capacity of matter to “know” (and so has nothing to do with information as treated in information systems).
All matter contains a sort of “awareness” or, put another way, a capacity to “know”. If not, how can molecules “know” that they must join up with others to form cel s? In a subsequent state (a more complex state) it could be that in the human body/brain matter evolves such that it knows what it knows. It is therefore capable of self-reflection.
Another dyad in his model is ‘awareness and intention’, which equal y make up part of the evolutionary process that leads to consciousness. Consciousness and innovation, accepted elements of the energy-information scheme, are the basis of self-reflective consciousness.
The non-locality is il ustrated by the famous connection, proven and explained in more detail before, of the “entanglement” between partner photons which are sent in opposite directions. They still stay, however, in a position to immediately (“instantaneously”) communicate between each other over large distances. This has a relationship with the “knowledge” of these particles. Humans are equal y made up of these sorts of particles.
Ideas without borders (2): morphogenic fields and quantum arts
So how then, according to Mitchel , does such communication function? The groups of particles seem to have special characteristics of resonance and coherence which are evoked by the groups themselves. This resonance includes historical knowledge about universal matter. This idea strongly corresponds with Rupert Sheldrake’s observations. The body/brain can receive holographic information in the form of virtual long wave signals. Mitchel ’s dyad suggests that the particles “know” by their inherent qualities of consciousness and intention. The groups of particles communicate between themselves on the basis of quantum holograms (that Sheldrake cal s morphogenetic fields), which includes information about the universe. As the body/brain also works in a holographic way, it can recover this information. Apparently, nature does not lose its memory concerning its own evolution. Mitchell believes that it is intention, or directional attention, which links humans holographical y with the signals or non-local long waves.
The greater the experience of satisfaction, the more the consciousness of each cell in the body will resonate with the holographic information engraved in the ‘quantum zero point’ – the lowest possible state of energy, in an almost resting, but not quite, state (Polkinghorne, 1990) – of the energy field. This phenomenon refers to being ‘carried along’. If humans live in harmony with their biological rhythms (all sorts of rhythms), the body is in balance and the person will fall ill less easily. In the material world, it bears witness to a phenomenon of ‘being carried along’ when two pendulums are put beside one another. Although the movement of the pendulums in the two clocks seems at first to be total y arbitrary, after a certain time, the movements adapt to each other and move in harmony. The two clocks are ‘carried along’. In the world of medicine, a lot of these ideas are found in Ayurvedic (holistic) medicine.
This quantum approach of energy, information and communication, suggests causality at a much lower level of aggregation; that is to say, at a quantum level. In effect, it is synchronicity or coincidence rather than causality. This structure allows people to realize what they want to realize – whether it is, for example, to protect themselves against viruses or simply to survive or innovate as in the case of companies. It therefore becomes a question of elementary particles (say, the characteristics of people translated into economic behavior), which are linked in solid networks with all sorts of matter (the context), which in turn, interact with this matter and in doing so become part of the wider energetic field (morphogenetics) which contains knowledge and information. When more members of a team (or a company) are “carried along”, their actions will have more success, whether in project management or in product innovation.
Others (Caro and Murphy, 2002) have applied the quantum concept to art and aesthetics. And although this is not the subject of this chapter, it is interesting to see how the same principles of synchronicity, non-locality and quantum structure can be applied in art. The cradle of this quantum movement in arts is in Spain. Caro and Murphy’s book includes chapters on quantum art, quantum literature, quantum anthropology and quantum politics. Towards the end of the book the authors suggest that the quantum principle makes more profound sense and they integrate it with the understanding of societal phenomena.
Dal a Chiara and Giuntini (1999) tried to apply quantum logic to the concept of truth and interpretation in art. They firstly dedicated themselves to the subject of poetic force and asked themselves if truth in poetry is less ‘true’ than observed truth. Where quantum theory and orthodox quantum logic deal uniquely with problems of absolute clarity leaving no place for different interpretations, problems linked to language are evidently more vague. Humans are not clear and neither are absolute notions. What is it to “be honorable”? What is “important”? Quantum logic does not only work with well-defined unambiguous concepts. With these problems, semantic uncertainties are only the result of the fact that the problem is not completely defined in detail. The authors plead for a vague quantum theory (perhaps even to be compared with fuzzy logic). They refer to a piece of music. A piece of music does not only consist of a score, but a mass of different possible combinations between the same score and different musicians’ interpretations. It is therefore a combination of senses (emotions) and symbols, but although each combination is possible, each combination is not necessarily good.
Back to biology: Sheldrake and “implicit order”
The il ustrations above concern the use of quantum concepts, non-locality and synchronicity, as much in physical science as in the science of language and music. This section returns to Sheldrake’s theory which is founded on biology. Sheldrake (1995), who is a well-known Cambridge biologist, is now an affiliated Research Fellow at the Noetic Society. Although his theory is controversial