What do I mean by a Wave Function of Experience?

Wave Function of Experience is my provisional name for thinking about experience varying as a person moves through activities, environments, relationships and changing states. At this stage it is a metaphor and a research question, not an established scientific model.

What is supposed to vary?

The residency and the ceremony gave that question a concrete setting. A presentation, an uncomfortable exchange, product work during the night, a conversation about future collaboration and dancing with an intention are not interchangeable units merely because each occupies time. Their meaning also depends on the person arriving at them.

The six-node framework offers possible dimensions for describing aspects of that movement. Wellbeing Identity asks what the person brings forward: capability, values, history, narrative and current state. Observation and later interpretation are part of the account, rather than transparent windows onto it.

What would turn the metaphor into a testable model?

I would like to know whether a carefully defined model of these transitions could reveal something useful. That requires saying what is observed, at what time, on which scale and with what uncertainty. It also requires an alternative against which the model can be judged. A curve that merely looks plausible would not answer those questions.

What do these records leave between the points?

My records are too coarse to draw a continuous wave of inner experience. The median activity lasts an hour; eighteen records last at least three hours. Some bundle discussion, eating, work or travel. A boundary between records does not locate a switch in attention, and a category change does not measure the magnitude of an experiential transition.

“A timestamp locates the record. It does not contain the experience.”

Why does observation not establish a quantum connection?

Quantum language needs its own boundary. Physical quantum measurement can alter an experimental system through an interaction; that does not establish the same mechanism for a person reflecting on experience. I cannot infer quantum dynamics from the fact that observation matters in both contexts. Quantum measurement example¹⁷.

The current value of the metaphor is therefore limited and practical: it prompts me to ask about changes through time, the dimensions I have chosen, and the observer doing the describing. Its scientific usefulness remains to be tested.

Where could the inquiry become more specific?

One way to investigate further is to change the scale of inquiry. Instead of adding another broad line to the graph, I could return to one actual moment.