The Question I Can't Stop Asking

Quantum mechanics gets a bad rap because of one persistent myth: that "observation" collapses reality, as if consciousness itself were a physical force. It's a great story. It's also not what the physics says.

Decoherence, Not Consciousness

What actually happens is decoherence — a physical interaction between a quantum system and its environment, no observer or consciousness required. A photon hitting a detector, a particle interacting with air molecules — any physical entanglement is enough to collapse the range of possibilities down to one outcome. You don't need a mind watching. You need contact.

The Actual Mystery

Here's the part that actually keeps me up at night, and it has nothing to do with consciousness: nobody agrees on why interaction collapses possibility into a single outcome at all. Copenhagen says it just does — full stop, don't ask why. Many-worlds says it doesn't really collapse, it branches, and every outcome happens somewhere. Objective-collapse theories say there's a real physical process we haven't found yet. Three genuinely incompatible pictures of reality, and physics hasn't ruled any of them out.

Working Theories, Not Certainty

I don't find that unsettling. I find it energizing — because it's the same shape of problem I chase every day as a founder. I don't get to wait for certainty before shipping. I form a working theory from incomplete information, test it against reality, and revise hard when the evidence disagrees with me. Copenhagen, many-worlds, and objective-collapse are, in a sense, three competing working theories that haven't been falsified yet — exactly the state most of my product decisions live in before the data comes back.

I'm not chasing peace with not knowing. I'm chasing the answer. That's the difference between curiosity and resignation, and it's the same instinct that makes me actually enjoy the parts of building a company where nobody can tell you the right move yet.