Dark Matter Mind

We move through life believing in a steady chain of cause and effect, as if each moment is simply the result of the one before it. Yet at the smallest scales, reality does not follow such a clear path. In the quantum world, particles drift in fields of possibility, their exact position and motion unknowable until the moment they are observed. This description of matter at its most fundamental feels familiar, echoing something in our own experience of choice and change. Perhaps our lives, too, unfold within such clouds of potential, each decision collapsing one set of possibilities and setting another in motion.

For every explanation of an electron’s behavior in classical mechanics, there is a parallel understanding in quantum mechanics. In the classical view, the electron’s pathway is consistent, predictable, and measurable, a neat reflection of how we perceive the everyday physics of our waking lives. In this world, movement follows rules we can trace.

In quantum mechanics, the picture changes. An electron’s pathway becomes unpredictable. Instead of a neat orbit, we imagine a cloud-like haze surrounding it, containing every possible route it could take all at once. This haze is the wave function, a mathematical description of probabilities, oscillating in space like a wave.

When I read about the oscillations of a wave function, I am reminded of the image I hold in meditation when I think about the collective consciousness, a cloud-like, oscillating space where non-decision resides, where non-existence lingers before the motion of experience emerges through choice. In the only language I have for it, the collective is a kind of Möbius, waving, oscillating, breathing.

We represent the wave function with the symbol ψ (psi). ψ contains every possible world, every possible outcome. For each potential position of the particle, there is a number, the amplitude, that describes the probability of landing there.

In classical mechanics, Newton’s laws describe the motion of objects. In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger’s equation governs the evolution of quantum systems. In short:

The rate of change of a wave function is proportional to the energy of the quantum system.

Wave functions contain multiple possible energies. High-energy parts evolve quickly; low-energy parts evolve slowly. When we measure a quantum property, such as a particle’s position or spin, we only ever get one of a limited set of results. We cannot know which one it will be in advance, but we can know the probability.

And here is the strange part: the moment we measure it, the wave function collapses, and a new quantum system begins.

The basic rules of quantum mechanics are surprisingly simple:

1. Choose a wave function (ψ).
2. Evolve it over time using Schrödinger’s equation.
3. Measure observable quantities like position or spin to get definite results.
4. Calculate probabilities by finding the amplitude of ψ for a given state.
5. Collapse the wave function upon measurement, leaving only the result obtained.

This collapse mirrors the act of choice. Every time we make a decision, we collapse a wave of possible outcomes into a single lived reality. The act of choosing confirms one version of the world and, in doing so, erases the rest from our personal timeline. Somewhere, perhaps, another version of us continues down the paths we left behind.

It may seem like an abstraction to compare the quantum behavior of subatomic particles to the workings of consciousness, but it may be nearer to our lived experience than we think. If reality operates under the same rules at its smallest scales, we may be the particles of a greater wave function, the collective consciousness. We move through timelines, collapsing possibilities with every action, every thought, every shift in intention.

The idea that a wave function collapses upon observation sits at the very foundation of quantum mechanics. It is the moment when all possibilities narrow into one lived reality. In this framework, every timeline exists, and every potential world is available for us to step into. When we make a decision, we are not simply choosing between options, we are selecting the version of the world in which that choice becomes real. All other versions fade, collapsing into untraveled potential. Then, life presents the next choice, and the process repeats. A new wave function rises, the one we are now moving through, until it too collapses into a singular experience. Over and over, we enact this cycle, shaping the texture of our existence as we move through timelines, stepping from one possibility into the next.