By Greg Egan. A hard sci-fi novel taking place in 2068. Published in 1992, it was quite compelling to me because of its most unique consideration of what it would actually take to use quantum effects in everyday life. A difficult book for many people, I suspect, both when it was written and today, because of its inevitably confusing explanation of quantum logic and the Alice in Wonderland world it creates. From the book:
"The lack of a positive result rules out nothing; computerized information is as evanescent as the quantum vacuum, with virtual truths and falsehoods endlessly popping in and out of existence. Deceptions of any magnitude are possible, on a short enough time scale; laws only apply to data that sits still long enough to be caught out."
"I have no doubt that the real strength of neurotechnology lies not in the creation of exotic new mental states, but in the conscious, deliberate restriction of possibilities, in focusing, and empowering, the act of choice."
I am reminded of a comment of Ingmar Bergman, hardly a quantum thinker in the conventional sense: "Explanations are simply clumsy rationalizations with hindsight."
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