Psychic Telephone · 45
Entanglement
(Not sure what Psychic Telephone is all about? Check out our first and second posts for an introduction to the project.)
Before I get into the speculative science of psychic ability, let’s consider the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural. The supernatural, as it’s defined, relates to phenomena that exist entirely “beyond the scope of natural laws.” This is the realm of the nonphysical, the spiritual, the miraculous, the divine. The paranormal, in contrast, involves a less drastic departure from physical reality, describing phenomena that lie “outside of current scientific understanding” but which might potentially be explained, at least according to some, by science yet to come.
When it comes to questions about whether quantum physics might explain psychic phenomena, I’ll start by saying I’ve learned that there is no evidence of a specific connection or its mechanism, be it experimental or mathematical. So we are in the realm of not just the theoretical here but of the “highly speculative”—hypotheses regarding links that have not been directly studied. These speculations relate to subjects that science does not fully understand, such as consciousness. Or things that have strong mathematical and experimental support but are so counterintuitive that we find ourselves still unable to make sense of them.
Among these is quantum entanglement, a phenomenon that so baffled Einstein that to his death he never accepted the idea. It holds that two subatomic particles, once connected, can remain connected no matter how far apart they become. In a manner that goes beyond a typical atomic bond, their quantum states are united, so that if a change occurs to one particle, a parallel change instantaneously takes place in the other. Einstein dubbed this “spooky action at a distance,” for how it seemed to contradict his own special theory of relativity and its postulate that nothing can move faster than the speed of light.
For me, when multiple experiments supporting the existence of quantum entanglement were published in 2012, it was an event. I remember my friend reading about it aloud from the newspaper—how floored we were, how awed that this was even possible. Entangled particles, to be clear, aren’t communicating with each other. There’s no information being transmitted between them. It’s simply that when something happens to one of them, it also happens to the other—as if together they form a single particle, even if they’re far apart in space. This is how entanglement doesn’t contradict special relativity. But also: It makes no sense.
It’s easy to see how this might be taken to mean that psychic phenomena are theoretically possible. And let me tell you, I spent months on a deep dive into the nature of underlying reality, trying to understand quantum mechanics well enough to get a sense of whether this idea holds water. I learned some fascinating things—about the mysteries of time, for instance, and what it means for something to “exist.” But when it came to the nitty-gritty of theoretical physics—which is to say, the math—I had to give up. To say that this stuff was over my head doesn’t begin to convey it. This stuff was so far over my head it was like trying to read the Qantas logo on a jumbo jet flying past me at thirty thousand feet.
So I had to take another approach. And, given the importance of AI in Danielle’s process of creating images for this project, I decided I might as well turn to AI for help too. I asked ChatGPT a series of questions about the relationship between quantum physics and psychic phenomena. It had a few interesting things to say:
Some people speculate about connections—for example, ideas that quantum entanglement might somehow underlie telepathy, or that consciousness has quantum aspects (like in Orch OR theory by Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff).
Most working physicists and neuroscientists view claims linking quantum physics and psychic powers as misunderstandings or misapplications of quantum ideas. Quantum effects typically don’t scale up cleanly to the large, warm, noisy systems like the human brain—where classical physics dominates.
Entanglement operates strictly within the domain of subatomic particles and quantum systems, and it doesn’t transmit usable information in ways that could explain telepathy or clairvoyance.
Quantum entanglement is real and rigorously tested—but it doesn’t explain or support psychic phenomena. The link is more poetic or metaphorical than scientific.
The impulse to link quantum physics and psychic phenomena mostly comes from a shared sense of mystery and “weirdness” in both areas.
In conclusion, ChatGPT is not buying it.
Of course, ChatGPT reflects the internet’s collective biases, and scientific research is not without bias as well. So it’s likely unwise to treat these conclusions as definitive.
Still, I appreciate ChatGPT’s acknowledgment of the poetry involved in linking the psychic to the quantum, the “weirdness” that unites them—how quantum entanglement suggests a kind of deep interconnectedness among all things. And, more simply, I’ve noticed that many people invoke quantum physics not to explain anything so much as to point out that we don’t fully understand the universe. To illustrate that reality is not always as it seems. And that this leaves a door open for other possibilities that might, as of now, seem impossible. It points back to that moment when I learned that quantum entanglement is real—the wonder I felt, such a rare and special feeling. A sense that something magical was happening and we were witnessing it. A feeling that comes only when what we couldn’t imagine being possible suddenly shows us we’re wrong, we’ve been wrong all along. A reminder that this universe possesses far more secrets than we know. So many mysteries, so much that’s out there, beyond us, beyond what we can comprehend.