When we watch sci-fi films about alternative worlds or read guides to \u201cquantum self-improvement,\u201d we are rarely looking for the truth about electrons. More often, we are trying to escape the existential aches of everyday life<\/strong>. If a physicist on YouTube says that time is an illusion, people sometimes receive it almost as dogma. The difference is that, instead of fear of damnation, they may feel a kind of existential relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scientists and popularizers themselves often feed this hunger. When they write about the \u201csymphony of strings\u201d<\/strong> or the \u201cholographic universe,\u201d<\/strong> they are not practicing pure science, but literature. They use poetic images to describe something that, in reality, takes the form of cold, dry mathematical notation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The great French physicist and philosopher Bernard d\u2019Espagnat wrote about the idea of \u201cveiled reality.\u201d <\/strong>He argued that objective reality exists, but in its deepest structures remains fundamentally inaccessible to knowledge. The harder one presses upon the world, the more it dissolves, answering only the questions researchers ask of it. D\u2019Espagnat\u2019s term is usually rendered in English as \u201cveiled reality,\u201d describing a concealed dimension of existence that our measurements reveal only partially and abstractly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Niels Bohr, one of the fathers of the discipline, is said to have put it in 1 sentence:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, quantum physics does not describe the world in itself. It is only a map of reality, not reality itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In pop-cultural fantasies, it is easy to see the search for a cure for very specific human fears. Quantum mechanics simply offered a new language for describing what slips away from everyday struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hugh Everett\u2019s many-worlds idea is a perfect example. Everett\u2019s theory \u2014 the many-worlds interpretation, in which quantum measurement leads reality to split into parallel branches \u2014 became, in popular culture, a metaphor for unrealized life choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The creators of Everything Everywhere All at Once<\/em> understood the metaphorical potential of the multiverse perfectly. They presented the many-worlds not as a technical curiosity, but as a direct reflection of decision paralysis and regret. The vision that somewhere out there exists another version of the self<\/strong>, one that chose a different career path, another partner, or avoided a life mistake, works like psychological anesthesia. It removes the crushing responsibility for decisions made here and now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The instrumental treatment of science in so-called quantum spirituality works in a similar way. New Age movements and pseudoscientific self-improvement guides eagerly use Heisenberg\u2019s uncertainty principle as alleged \u201cproof\u201d that human consciousness can literally control reality<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this narrative, quantum physics becomes a magical tool. Since subatomic particles display fluidity before the moment of observation, self-help gurus promise that, through the right thoughts and \u201cvibrations,\u201d one can freely manifest success, health, or wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This radical simplification turns physics into a form of contemporary shamanism. As a result, phrases such as quantum physics<\/strong>, spirituality<\/strong>, and manifesting success become synonyms for the promise of absolute control over fate through pseudoscientific theories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Physics also serves as a bandage for loneliness. In an age of deep social atomization, quantum entanglement \u2014 the phenomenon in which 2 particles remain correlated regardless of distance \u2014 quickly became the most popular metaphor for closeness<\/strong>. Slogans such as \u201cwe are all connected by energy\u201d are nothing other than a desperate attempt to rationalize the need for community and escape the harsh fact of individual, physical isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem is that this entire \u201cquantum spirituality\u201d<\/strong> rests on a fundamental misunderstanding: an error of scale. The attempt to transfer the behavior of individual atoms directly onto everyday life has no basis in fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPhysics as a new religion?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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A pop-cultural remedy for fear<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Manifesting success as pseudoscience<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The scale error, or the trap of the microcosm<\/h2>\n\n\n\n