A Quantum Theory of Conversation

João Sevilhano about the physics of human connection

Conversation is the lifeblood of our PolyOpportunity series, and today our column is by House of Beautiful Business member and future guest speaker in Tangier, psychologist and strategist João Sevilhano, who comes at the subject from an angle that is more CERN than kaffeeklatsch at your local. From a distant quasar to your morning latté——take it away, João.

“We’re on the same wavelength.” “There’s chemistry between us.” “Opposites attract.” “His personality is magnetic.” How is it that when we truly connect with someone, we reach for the language of physics to describe the feeling? Is it poetic intuition? Or are we somehow suggesting that the principles governing stars and atoms can tell us how minds relate?

A World of Events

In The Order of Time, physicist Carlo Rovelli argues that the world isn’t made of things, but of events. Even the most basic or obvious thing, a rock for example, is actually an event—atoms coalescing (and eroding) over a span of time beyond even our broadest understanding of the term. And this is what makes Rovelli’s conception of a world of events difficult to grasp—we struggle to consider what we cannot directly see or experience.

On the other hand, though, there are things that conform easily to Rovelli’s view, and conversation is one of them. A conversation cannot be described by its spatial coordinates or temporal dimensions or even its syntactical patterns. To try to describe a conversation, we must consider its totality and complexity, as well as the subjectivity of its participants. And we have to reckon with the change that is inherent to it, especially the change it makes for those involved in it—the ideas and feelings it awakens, modifies, and creates.

Think of a conversation that fundamentally altered your perspective on something important. Years later, what stuck with you? Probably not the exact words or the specifics of the setting in which it took place. But the transformation you underwent—how your thinking changed or emotional landscape shifted—that you’ll recall. Also the fact that what you absorbed continues to ripple outward, into other conversations, decisions, and relationships in your life. Like a supernova whose light reaches us years after the star’s explosion, the meaning of significant conversations often reveals itself long after the words themselves have faded from memory, or even consciousness.

When we conceptualize conversations as events rather than things, we free ourselves from the artificial boundaries of beginning and end. What transpired before the conversation, and what is recalled afterwards, become as integral to the experience’s effects as what was said during. The words exchanged become merely the visible part of a much larger invisible reality, like the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

The Physical Laws of Conversation: Time and Gravity

And where, in all this, is the foundational element of time? A conversation, in principle, happens when two or more people coincide at a mutually shared ‘now.’ But is this ‘now’ the same for everyone involved? And what about a conversation with three participants, where two are actively engaged, and the third is lost in his own ideas (“Spaced out”)? That third may be present in the same physical location, but moving at a different speed, and living in a separate ‘now.’

So if we take presence to be velocity in the physics of human connection (“Get up to speed, man!”), then attention is gravity. Just as massive objects curve spacetime around them, significant topics and emotional states exert a gravitational pull on conversation, bending its trajectory and creating orbital patterns of recurring themes.

The metaphor extends to the ‘dark matter’ of conversation. These would be cultural assumptions, power dynamics, unacknowledged emotions, biases, and conventions that each speaker brings to the table. They undoubtedly influence how a conversation unfolds, yet remain largely invisible, and immeasurable, during the exchange itself. They are also the cause of the gaps in understanding that exist in any conversation.

Quantum Leaps: What Is Heard Is Never Exactly What Is Said

These gaps bear a striking resemblance to the quantum phenomenon of uncertainty. Just as we cannot simultaneously know a particle’s position and momentum with perfect precision (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle), we cannot simultaneously transmit the exact content of our thoughts and their full emotional resonance. The more precisely we articulate complex ideas, the more we strip them of their emotional texture. And the more we emphasize emotional connection, the less precisely we convey intricate logical structures and arguments.

This isn’t a limitation of language, but the very experience of consciousness meeting consciousness. It also feeds into the quantum-like uncertainty of verbal intercourse, which relies heavily on implication. When I speak, what I imply may seem obvious to me but not to you. And the more I rely on implication (over explication), the wider the gap becomes. Yet some of our deepest connections are made when interlocutors bridge this gap—when you intuit what I mean without my having to say it directly. We might call this interpersonal quantum entanglement, a connection that transcends the limitations of explicit language.

Can we therefore say that intuition represents human cognition’s form of quantum tunneling—the phenomenon whereby particles pass through barriers that classical physics would deem impenetrable? Like other quantum phenomena, these intuitive processes appear to violate our understanding of how things work, yet consistently produce results validated by later reasoning. In a sense, they represent our desire to be faster than sound and light, faster than the time it takes for a message to cross the space between two people.

The Final Frontier

Digital communication introduces new dimensions to conversational physics, creating spacetime configurations that would have seemed impossible even a decade ago. We can now have conversations across vast distances with no temporal delay (video calls), and across significant time gaps with no spatial proximity (email). Where time in text messages is fragmentary and discontinuous, in social media time is nonlinear, as online comments might appear in orders that defy chronology. The old equation, Presence = Space + Time + Attention, can no longer stand as space becomes virtual, time elastic, and attention fragmented. Yet somehow, connection still occurs, suggesting that presence transcends its physical components. Just as Einstein’s relativity revealed that spacetime is made of malleable fabric, our digital age seems to show us that human connection includes many configurations of attention and intention. The constant isn’t in the media we use to speak with one another, but in our capacity to reach across whatever separates us.

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas suggested that ethics begins in the face-to-face encounter with the Other. In a world increasingly mediated by technologies that promise connection while only delivering a simulation thereof, cultivating a physics of presence, and creating a shared ‘now,’ might be among the most profound acts available to us—a small miracle of human consciousness, and a brief victory over time itself.

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You can find more of João’s writing on his “Useful Usefulness” Substack.

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The Berlin Salon: A Roaring Beginning

Photos by Ruslana Kumantsova

“We are not finished, not even close.”

In her goosebump-inducing talk, cyberpsychologist Elaine Kasket reminded us, with reference to Viktor Frankl, that there is hope (and agency) as long as we maintain our innate human capacity to make meaning.

Her line of thought marked a turning point from crisis to opportunity mode at the sold-out Berlin Salon, the first of the four in-person gatherings at the center of The PolyOpportunity, the year-long initiative by the House of Beautiful Business, Acosta Institute, and The Holon Institute to create a new story, economy, and politics in tumultuous times.

Before Elaine implored us not to surrender to the ‘learned helplessness’ that tech-overlords, autocrats, and doomsayers would impose on us, we had begun on a grimmer note. In a gritty industrial loft on the outskirts of Berlin, over potato soup, water, and bread, we looked the polycrisis in the eye, with author Andrian Kreye describing the fatal path to tech-dictatorship, and philosopher Carissa Véliz pinpointing the perils of surveillance capitalism and tech-enabled oppression. On their heels, though, we saw our spirits lifted by sociologist Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, who encouraged us to embrace the mechanics of speculation to create new conventions of truth and value in a post-truth world: if you can’t beat them, out-speculate them!

Amidst all this, performance artist Lori Baldwin, a.k.a. humanoid robot NEKRA, guided us through a moving meditation on death (and what it means to be alive), and Bibingka & The Babes, Mark Aanderud, Trent Voyage & Elena Moroder, and DJ Discotopian got us dancing the demons away and creating space for the interconnected positive forces of The PolyOpportunity, which were presented by Hicham Bouzid, Simon Berkler, Angel Acosta, Elaine Kasket, and Nisreen Elsaim:

• Open Curation

• Regenerative Economics

• Collective Healing

• Extended Consciousness

• Planetary Citizenship

The next day, we sharpened our senses at a mesmerizing concert by Duduk player Canberk Ulaş and deepened our exploration on Claus Sendlinger’s sumptuous Slowness campus.

The Berlin Salon was roaring indeed, a magical first chord in The PolyOpportunity, and we’re grateful for the passion of everyone who contributed and participated.

We have five ships set to sail. Destination unknown, but we are on our way.

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The conversations started this past weekend in Berlin were just the beginning! In a few hours, we are gathering again on Zoom to dive further into the opportunities within the polycrisis. We’ll be joined by attention researcher D. Graham Burnett, degrowth advocate Timothée Parrique, wellbeing economist Gaya Herrington, and the co-founder of TED Countdown, Bruno Giussani. We’ll also hear from nonprofit and corporate partners of The PolyOpportunity—TheDive and Renoorable—sharing how regenerative economics is already reshaping policies and industries. The session is free and open for all.

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Keen to take the conversations offline? We’re thrilled to announce that our Beautiful Business Conversations card game is back in stock! With no strict rules and no player limits, no winners and no losers, these cards are designed to help you build meaningful connections in the workplace and beyond. Hosting a workshop, needing sets for a corporate retreat, or looking to make a bulk gift order? Reach out to us at collaborate@houseofbeautifulbusiness.com for a bespoke offer that suits your specific needs.

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Ready for more conversation? The next stop of our year-long PolyOpportunity journey is the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, at the Garrison Institute, from April 11–13, where we will be engaging our whole selves—conscious, subconscious, left brain, right brain, individual, and collective—with some of the best minds and most provocative current thinkers and doers. For 695 Euro, the full Retreat Pass provides an immersive experience with all meals and accommodation included, ensuring a restful stay in this serene former Capuchin monastery. For those who prefer to commute from New York City or arrange their own accommodation, the Commuter Pass is now available for 395 Euro, including all meals and full participation.

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The author of this week’s Beauty Shot, João Sevilhano, is among many contributors joining us for the PolyOpportunity Festival in Tangier. On May 15–17, in the Moroccan city on the Strait of Gibraltar, we’ll explore the labyrinthine medina, meet the visionaries and innovators in its crannies and nooks, harness our collective intelligence, and draft the blueprint for our more-than-human future. For 1,295 Euro, the Festival Pass gives you access to three days of inspiration and experiences in the city ‘between the two.’

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The final destination on the PolyOpportunity map is Istanbul. On June 19–20, at a vibrant community hub right by the historical Feriye Palace, we’ll meet to depart to new shores. We’ll bring together our learnings and insights, strengthen our ties with one another, and start to drive real change in our organizations and the larger world. For 995 Euro, the Departure Pass gives you access to two days by the Bosphorus, getting you ready to make the leap into action.