{"id":2152,"date":"2024-10-10T07:57:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T07:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quantum.closelycoded.site\/?page_id=2152"},"modified":"2024-12-17T09:31:05","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T09:31:05","slug":"backstory-world-apart","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/events.cqt.sg\/shorts\/backstory-world-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"Backstory: A World Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"2152\" class=\"elementor elementor-2152\" data-elementor-post-type=\"page\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-5922dc1c e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"5922dc1c\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-6683d3c4 elementor-absolute elementor-hidden-tablet elementor-hidden-mobile elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"6683d3c4\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;_position&quot;:&quot;absolute&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"92\" height=\"143\" src=\"https:\/\/events.cqt.sg\/shorts\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2024\/09\/pattern_top.png\" class=\"attachment-full size-full wp-image-591\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-66666dcf elementor-absolute elementor-hidden-tablet elementor-hidden-mobile elementor-widget elementor-widget-image\" data-id=\"66666dcf\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;_position&quot;:&quot;absolute&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"image.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"160\" height=\"177\" src=\"https:\/\/events.cqt.sg\/shorts\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2024\/09\/pattern_bottom.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-image-592\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-d31c074 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"d31c074\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-35255a5 elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"35255a5\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">Backstory: A World Apart<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-698dafe elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"698dafe\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"rtecenter\">A Q&amp;A with\u00a0<strong>Colm O&#8217;Shea<\/strong>, Quantum Shorts finalist<\/p><p class=\"rtecenter\"><a href=\"\/entry\/world-apart\">Read the story first: A World Apart<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-2bc8bc4 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"2bc8bc4\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><strong>Can you give a short introduction to yourself?<\/strong><\/p><p>I teach essaying to college students, and the essay\u2014ideally\u2014is a sandpit of ideas to play in. Conceptual play (exploring ideas just for the fun of it) is my favourite thing to do.<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>How did you come up with the idea for your story?<\/strong><\/p><p>The quantum theorist Paul Dirac said: \u201cA place is nothing: not even a space, unless at its heart\u2014a figure stands.\u201d I love that strange quote. I think he\u2019s saying that a reference point is always needed: there\u2019s no high without low, no left without right, and no \u201cnothing\u201d without \u201csomething\u201d (and vice-versa). I\u2019ve been carrying that idea around for a long time, but it didn\u2019t occur to me to use it as a seed for a short story until I saw the Quantum Shorts fiction invite. Since I\u2019m also intrigued by the possibility of sentient AI, I wanted to imagine what it would be like for an AI consciousness to realize that she isn\u2019t just the \u201cfigure\u201d in the story, but rather she is the interrelation of the space\u00a0<em>and\u00a0<\/em>the figure. She discovers she is the intersection of all possible computable worlds.<\/p><p>One final note on the idea source: I stole the fly image from an Emily Dickinson poem \u201cI Heard a Fly Buzz\u2014When I Died.\u201d It\u2019s a poem about an indeterminate state between life and death.<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>Your story makes interesting use of perspectives with a little twist at the end. Was it tricky to plan or write?<\/strong><\/p><p>No one knows where ideas come from, but my media diet plays a big role in what emerges on the page. For instance, before I wrote \u201cA World Apart,\u201d I had been doing math\/logic puzzles. One of the puzzles struck me as especially tricky, because the perspectives of the characters in the scenario\u2014what they know and don\u2019t know\u2014played a part in the solution. So although I didn\u2019t know exactly how to translate that experience into a short story, I knew that I wanted a radical perspective shift to occur by the end somehow.\u00a0<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>What makes you interested in quantum physics?<\/strong><\/p><p>Oddly, perhaps, I came to the mysteries of quantum physics when I was writing a book on James Joyce\u2019s\u00a0<em>Finnegans Wake\u00a0<\/em>and the Buddhist concept of non-duality<em>.\u00a0<\/em>Murray Gell-Mann, the CalTech scientist, was a fan of the\u00a0<em>Wake\u00a0<\/em>because it\u2019s basically a vast nest of puzzles. In fact, Gell-Mann coined the word \u201cquark\u201d from a line in the book: \u201cThree quarks for Muster Mark!\u201d<\/p><p>I know there are a lot of amazing applications of quantum theory yet to be discovered, but I\u2019m most excited about how it might help us understand what consciousness is\u2014about what\u00a0<em>thisness\u00a0<\/em>is.<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>What is your favourite science-inspired book?<\/strong><\/p><p>I\u2019m going to cheat and give three answers: one book that helped me teach my kids; one that makes me reflect on strange questions; and a final one that made me dream when I was a child. The first is a wondrous introduction to geometry by my friend the mathematician Paul Lockhart called\u00a0<em>Measurement<\/em>. This connects to my second choice,\u00a0<em>Shape<\/em>, by Jordan Ellenberg, which asks odd questions like \u201cHow many holes does a straw have?\u201d (He gives more than one possible answer.) Finally, the first science fiction book I read was Isaac Asimov\u2019s\u00a0<em>Fantastic Voyage<\/em>. That made me want to dream up my own fantastic voyages.<\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><p><strong>What does being a Quantum Shorts finalist mean to you?<\/strong><\/p><p>When I was a kid, I felt that school was a sorting mechanism, and the \u201carty\u201d people went in one group, and the \u201cmath-science\u201d people went in another. They were segregated tribes, almost. I\u2019m not denying that kids have natural inclinations, but to reinforce that art\/science division squanders an opportunity for children\u2014and by extension adults\u2014to explore the whole geography of the brain! I would say to both tribes that the best treasure tends to be buried in the place you don\u2019t feel you belong, or even feel afraid of. For me, for a long time, that was math and physics. Being picked as a finalist makes me want to reach out to people who think \u201cI\u2019m not a math\/physics person.\u201d Science and literature are everyone\u2019s birthright. If you shut yourself off from some of the most exciting ideas humanity has ever played with, you are depriving yourself.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Backstory: A World Apart A Q&amp;A with\u00a0Colm O&#8217;Shea, Quantum Shorts finalist Read the story first: A World Apart Can you give a short introduction to yourself? I teach essaying to college students, and the essay\u2014ideally\u2014is a sandpit of ideas to play in. Conceptual play (exploring ideas just for the fun of it) is my favourite [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2152","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Backstory: A World Apart - Quantum Shorts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/events.cqt.sg\/shorts\/backstory-world-apart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Backstory: A World Apart - Quantum Shorts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Backstory: A World Apart A Q&amp;A with\u00a0Colm O&#8217;Shea, Quantum Shorts finalist Read the story first: A World Apart Can you give a short introduction to yourself? 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