Quantum Conworlds

My approach to fiction is one inspired by (I am not arrogant enough to say 'based upon') the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Many people misinterpret the M.W.I. to mean that every imaginable universe must exist, while what it truly suggests is that every possible universe must exist -- and it is especially important to remember that this only applies at the quantum level. Of course, larger scales are ultimately determined by the smaller scales, but due to the degree of quantum difference necessary to produce mundane macro-world difference, most universes would differ from each other from our perspective almost not at all.

However, there are circumstances in which the quantum can have a very immediate effect on the macro world, and it is these differences that would immediately stand out to us. For instance, our thoughts depend on mechanisms at or very close to the quantum level, to such an extent that actions such as lifting your arm, which is a very macro action indeed, are very rapidly expanded from almost ridiculously smaller neurological events at the quantum level. That is, a single neuron firing rather few ions and electrons produces quite a large effect very quickly, and the level of observational indeterminacy here suggests that for every thought a brain produces, there is a universe in which the thought is different. Just as there is a universe in which one of the photons currently entering your left eye takes a slightly different course, so, too, is there a universe in which you have already stopped reading this.

How this relates to my fiction is that I try my best to not write anything impossible. I try to derive it all from imagining quantum differences, which includes thought (thus choice) as well as natural law.

Natural law, of course, is where this all becomes very difficult. We cannot, for instance, with much confidence, suggest that a universe must exist in which the Milky Way has already collided with Andromeda, as there may not have ever been a point in time at which the event determining the speed of this process was indeterminate -- or it may be dependant upon one or many event(s) which, if different in any way, would have destroyed the possibility of the two galaxies existing at all. On a smaller scale, it is difficult to suggest that there is a universe in which the Titanic struck the iceberg yet failed to sink (because, say, metals are harder in this other universe), only that there is a universe in which someone made a choice which made it possible for the ship to change its course early enough to avoid the iceberg, or that a very early quantum-level difference in the universe (perhaps necessarily in the Big Bang) allowed the climate to be warm enough that the iceberg was not there.

Needless to say, thought/choice is the easiest to justify, so most of the fiction is derived from that, as it is immediate in comparison to something that has to be traced back billions of years, which I also have a little bit of.

I recognise that most readers will/do/can not distinguish between what quantum mechanics allows to be possible and what it does not -- neither do I, in comparison to even a first-year student in the subject -- but this method keeps me interested and motivated.

Roleplaying for Psychology

I have received some messages in the past from people who were under the impression that I believed roleplaying could better teach people about the world than direct experience. I have received more messages of this sort recently and have decided to make something very clear.

Nothing surpasses direct experience. Yet there are many experiences which cannot be achieved in reality. There are challenges, questions, and decisions to be faced only in roleplaying. Therefore I believe that people learn not about the world, but a great deal about themselves via roleplaying. Most importantly, they learn that they are more complex, more unique creatures than they had ever (regardless of anything) believed. This improves the person and thus improves people.

I do believe this. Our minds have evolved to a point that we can understand even those things which are not possible, and there is extreme personal merit in those things.

Even as an atheist I take this sentiment to heart:

'We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed, only by myth-making, only by becoming a "sub-creator" and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic "progress" leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of evil.' -- J.R.R. Tolkien

Because it has everything to do with every one of my passions unless I am distracted by the word 'God'.

Chimaerician Contention

When musing the design of a world, I usually become stuck in an ideological struggle with myself between applicability and abstraction. The two are certainly not mutually exclusive, but interference does occur between them, and managing that is my greatest difficulty.

I enjoy abstraction because it can provide manifestation for thoughts. Abstract creations can embody an idea entirely inapplicable to reality yet nevertheless cognitively conceivable. Abstraction can also present applicable concepts in a way that encourages a certain perspective otherwise not easily attainable, if at all. In my mind, abstraction does not hinder applicability, but by opening new perspectives not necessarily pertaining to reality it can lead to unintended, unanticipated, and therein perhaps detrimental misinterpretation which may squander the intent of the work.

I am frustrated with this, tonight.

I have lately been designing a world I am currently calling Kimaera, from the Latin chimaera, which itself is from the Greek khimaira. I took a compromise. Anyway, Kimaera is, quite simply, my dreamworld. Not in that it is a world I would like to exist, but rather a world which has existed, for some reason, in my mind (while sleeping) for as long as I can remember. It is not particularly interesting in terms of storytelling possibility or visual intricacy; yet because it has been the realm in which all of my dreams have taken place seemingly since I was born, I figured that it may be worth exploring consciously.

A reality like this is naturally quite surreal, and I find myself asking why I am bothering to construct it. Like most of my creations, it is hardly the type of thing that one would sell. Stories and experiences are published, not the settings in which they take place. Kimaera is a new effort and I have hardly put the kind of work into it which I have poured into Aeramar, but this concern applies to both Kimaera and Aeramar, anyway.