Randomness and reproducibility

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One day at the Zen Center, I mentioned in a council that I am interested in understanding scientific reproducibility in the context of my Zen practice. In science, reproducibility under identical or essentially similar conditions is the main criterion for a phenomenon being "real". Are states of mind "reproducible" in the same sense that scientific experiments are? If not, in what sense are they "real"? It's a question I'm still reflecting on! But afterwards, someone asked me, "If quantum mechanics is truly random, how do you reproduce anything?" This is roughly the explanation I gave.

 

This is a deep question that gets at the heart of quantum mechanics. Basically, quantum mechanics is unpredictable in the sense that it's random, and it's predictable in the sense that it is not-random. More simply, quantum mechanics is both random and not-random in very special ways. 

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The results of quantum measurement are random measurement-by-measurement. They are non-random on average. This is much like Roshi Egyoku. Moment-by-moment, you never know what she's going to do or say. Sometimes, she really surprises you! She's like a quantum state in superposition, and when you interact with her, she'll go to one state or another unpredictably.

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But on average, you kind of know how she's going to behave. Whether she responds with kindness or coldness in a given moment, is sometimes unpredictable. But you generally know she'll respond with one of these from a place of wanting you to wake up. She is generally a very ethical and grounded person. If she consistently started acting from a place of selfishness, we'd all be surprised and confused in a different way, because her average behavior would have changed. She's random, but in a special way that conforms to the essence of who she is as an awakened person and as a Zen teacher.

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In truth, all beings are like this. In any moment, what we do is random / spontaneously arising, and yet there is also some continuity from moment-to-moment -- this is the nature of living beings. (Roshi Egyoku is just a good example because she explicitly manifests this nature!) Quantum mechanics is the same way. There is a quantum state, which reflects the "continuity" aspect -- there is an underlying, well-defined state of the system that governs its average behavior. However, depending on how you measure (what "questions" you ask), you may get random answers even though the state is the same. This is the "spontaneously arising" aspect. 

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Life always has both these aspects. Because there is continuity, there are beings and phenomena, space and time. Because all things are spontaneously arising, there are no fixed beings or phenomena, no static space or time. If one of these was missing, would life still function?

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When someone says "quantum mechanics is counterintuitive", I say, have you actually observed your life? In my opinion, it's closer to human experience than any other subfield of physical science. Touch your own continuity and spontaneous arising, and you'll appreciate quantum mechanics!