The Future Is Blurry: Radical Optimism, Now.
FLOWerS
X / WRITING
Y / 2D
Z / 3D
W / 4D
QUANTUM DESIGN MANIFESTO
Before the information age, technology advanced parallel to human evolution. Post-internet, technology advances exponentially through the timespan of one social generation. Homosapiens have evolved via a blind designer with one goal; get our genes into the next generation (Wright 2017, 3). Our mental systems proliferate toward this goal. Now, the mechanisms we’ve developed are obsolete and contextually misplaced. They were developed in circumstances where technology used today did not exist. Valuing power, attractiveness, and likability were useful toward our evolutionary goal within spatial and temporal limits that we have largely transcended today. Making sure your immediate community likes you is a feasible task probably involving not much more than being a good person. Trying to get millions of people to like you across the world through performative social media is a different circumstance with its own consequences. These same qualities that allowed our species to thrive in a context without modern technology are leading toward our demise in a world inundated with technology.
We have a limited amount of time to get our brains and technology on the same page.
The information age, just like the Newtonian age, was driven by our “lizard brains” which value perception as reality. We are now entering an age where we must look beyond ourselves as the authority. This is the age of mindfulness. This is the age of quantum (IBM 2017).
Mindfulness and quantum thinking hinge on one idea; reality is not as it seems. This manifesto draws from quantum mechanics to analogize values that we must design in order to harmonize a future.
”Quantum mechanics deals with nature as she is — absurd” - Richard Feynman
Before I delve into values, I need to address a qualm of mine in design and technology discourse; the term ‘user’.
‘User’ implies a sense of agency that is not present in the current state of affairs in technology. It suggests that we design in a transactional vacuum allowing for blame and responsibility to be passed. We design for persons, animals, society, environments, futures, the universe, etc. Designers are responsible for the effects that their designs have on everything it interacts with.
I propose a new term - Interactor.
“Inter-” refers to the betweenness of experiences. Interaction or internet, we are designing connections that place components in relation to one another. ‘-Actors’ do, interaction is not done unto. The relationship between designers and what interacts with their design is a recursive mutual process. This term holds a representation of where we are and invites the potentiality of where we could be.
Superpositioning as mindfulness.
Albert Einstein explains “we have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena… but together they do…” (Einstein and Infeld 1938, 263). Evolutionary mechanisms illude us to a reality we perceive as true, while a completely different reality exists. Mindfulness is superpositioning perception and reality toward a truer sense of reality.
Designers must design in mindfulness and for mindfulness. As fallible humans, we must slow down to create space for awareness without judgment. We can then design experiences that don’t abuse interactors' cognitive systems but empower their awareness of their own experiences with technology.
An interaction that exemplifies a space to design mindfully is phone notifications. A notification is a change of stimuli in our environment that signals our attention. We are programmed to see significant changes in our environment as potential dangers. This shifts our mode of thinking from top-down (slower, more reflective) to bottom-up (fast, instinctive, subconscious)(Riley 2019, 5). Without mindfulness we are positioned to see notifications as urgent, distorting our present reality. The “Do not Disturb” function is a mindful intervention that allows us to have more robust conscious experiences.
Quantization as Transferability of disciplines.
Looking at the smallest constituents from multiple angles is necessary to paint a clear picture. Quantization is a process of mapping an infinite amount of quanta ( the smallest amount of any physical entity) to a finite scale. This contextualizes it to a relevant interpretable mode to unearth its potentialities. Transferability in social science is “the degree to which the results of qualitative research can be transferred to other contexts or settings” (Hammersley 2007). Transferability of disciplines is a mapping of information through a contextualized lens in an effort to see its potentialities. Biomimicry is an example of this. Designers look to biology and nature to find solutions to design problems. Design proved efficient in one context is mapped to a new context, enabling infinite possibilities for both.
The Uncertainty principle as soft-ignorance and childlike curiosity.
The uncertainty principle necessitates that measurement of certain pairs of physical properties cannot be precise. Measuring one side changes what is observable on the other side. As we design, we are working with uncertainty; measurements, outcomes, problems, solutions. Soft-ignorance isn’t aggressive, but a humble ownership of not knowing. “I don’t know” should be an empowering statement to a designer. Childlike curiosity makes the world our wonderland as we know nothing. It calls to never stop questioning and imagining.
Entanglement as Love.
Quantum entanglement is what occurs when particles entangled at conception remain entangled despite distance between them. Humans are spatially distanced by flesh vessels (bodies) that we have been conditioned to protect and value(along with those of our kin) more than anyone else. It is impossible that everyone is the most important person. This spatial distance is inconsequential because our self-actualization is entangled. Love is that realization and commitment to one another’s self-actualization that we all need (DeValve 2015, 8).
What we design has ample opportunity for love. We can ask ourselves “ will this design contribute to our interactors' self-actualization or will it harm them ?”. If you know me, you know I am a Headspace® zealot. This is an app that I can truly attest to contributing to my own self-actualization.
Lastly, this manifesto is framed for design, but it is applicable to all disciplines. Everything is design, if we choose to see it as such. Imagine the possibilities if we frame everything as design, as quantum design.
References
“Brain Science.” Brain Science. Accessed October 7, 2021. https://www.humanetech.com/brain-science.
Buchanan, Richard. “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking.” Design Issues 8, no. 2 (1992): 5–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/1511637.
DeValve, Michael J. A Different Justice: Love and the Future of Criminal Justice Practice in America. Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 2015.
Einstein, Albert., Infeld, Leopold. Evolution of Physics. Germany: Touchstone, 1938.
Hammersley, Martyn. “The Issue of Quality in Qualitative Research.” International Journal of Research & Method in Education 30, no. 3 (2007): 287–305. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437270701614782.
“Ledger of Harms.” Ledger of Harms. Accessed October 7, 2021. https://ledger.humanetech.com/.
Parr, Shawn. “How Childlike Humility and Curiosity Can Inform, Inspire, and Unlock New Ideas.” Fast Company. Fast Company, July 30, 2012.
https://www.fastcompany.com/1801410/how-childlike-humility-and-curiosity-can-inform-inspire-and-unlock-new-ideas.
Riley, Scott. Mindful Design: How and Why to Make Design Decisions for the Good of Those Using Your Product. Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2019.
Squires, G. Leslie. "quantum mechanics." Encyclopedia Britannica, June 1, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/science/quantum-mechanics-physics.
“The Future Is Quantum.” IBM Research Blog, February 8, 2019. https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2017/11/the-future-is-quantum/.
Wright, Robert. Why Buddhism Is True. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.