Observers Are Also Participants

Photos: At Citylink & Suntec City

We made a ‘grave’ mistake today, of assuming that the last day of the IT Show would mean there would mean there is only be a trickle of last-minute shoppers. The walkways to the fair slowed to a painful crawl at times. At one point, there is the dilemma of whether to turn back or to just trudge on, though turning back against the general direction was almost impossible.

At the distant end of the first photo above (which is blurred), what was probably an overworked escalator stopped moving, while the folks moving up on the flight of stairs between the up and down escalators were jammed. Quite a few on the stairs turned around to phone-photograph the crowd. This very stopping to snap action further retarded the pace upwards. (The photo is blurred because I didn’t stop to shoot!)

This phenomenon reminds me of the quantum reality that there are no mere observers in the universe – as the very act of observation makes the observers participants too. How we observe the universe affects how the universe is perceived. This is classically exemplified by the particle-wave paradox. (See a good cartoon explanatory video on this at http://tinyurl.com/dx2xk7) I have a Buddhist theory on how the paradox can be resolved. Hope to write on it soon.

A less mystified version of the paradox is the relationship between the reporter and the reported. A good reporter is supposed to be detached from that being reported. Yet, the very presence of the reporter to observe has some power to participate in and influence the outcome of the event reported. And their reports in turn affect those who pay attention to them. In the case above, the ones who snapped photos to ‘report’ the squeeze to their friends were part of the squeeze too. In fact, their very pausing to gather ‘reports’ (photos) aggravated the squeeze. Be mindful how you observe the world! It is how you participate in it too – which in turn determines what you observe! Have you got yourself caught in a vicious cycle of delusion, or are you spiralling up and out of it towards enlightenment?