Identity has been kind of a tough nut to crack for me, and it's still an ongoing process even after years of introspection, false starts, and dysphoria rearing its head on me even when I thought I'd figured myself out. As of the writing of this post, I have what I currently believe to be the most accurate description of my identity that I can possibly define so far, and this is my attempt to describe it to all of you.
If you are familiar with quantum mechanics, then what I am about to say will probably make perfect sense to you without any unpacking:
My quantum identity exists in a superposition, subject to collapse on Observation into an eigenstate defined by an Observer-dependent wave function. However, the two most probable eigenstates, which my identity wave function collapses into, are a fingendered dragon girl, and a genderless drone, all others being less probable, or Observer-dependent. My identity's invariant fundamental properties are that I am synthetic, and that I am a toy.
But if this hits you like a bag of jargon bricks, then click through and keep on reading. Let's unpack this together so you can understand me better, in the way that I currently understand myself. This post is a beast, so take it in one heading at a time. I promise, there is a payoff at the end. 💙
Identity
Let's start with what I define as my "identity":
For most people, this typically revolves around just their gender and gender expression. Feeling boyish or girlish? Or definitively boy or girl? Or somewhere in between? Both at the same time? Neither at all because what you feel is something completely outside the binary?
That's not really sufficient for my own needs.
For me, identity encompasses more than just genderfeels. It also includes what I would see in the mirror if I could be what I felt like being in reality: the species that I am, the physiological sex of my form, and the physical build and morphology of the body that I would have. It also encompasses what I feel about what I see. Do I feel masculine? Feminine? Neither?
In short, my identity is all-encompassing. It includes not just my gender, but also my species, sex, build, and morphology. It is everything. I'm not just fingendered. I am not just a dragon girl. I am a fingendered dragon girl. At least most of the time, when I observe myself. Let's get into that...
Quantum Mechanics Jargon
This is where the high-level description of how my identity works makes eyes glaze over, so there's a lot to unpack here, and a lot of definitions to go over first before we can put it all back together in a way that makes sense.
A quick sanity check
Quantum mechanics isn't easy, so don't be hard on yourself if it's still confusing after my own attempts at explaining these concepts. It took dozens of the most brilliant minds in the world decades to figure out enough of the basics to be able to even define these concepts in the first place, and neither you nor I were among them. It's taken me years of science consumption to get to a point where I am confident enough to make this attempt! I don't expect it to make enough sense to understand things, but what I appreciate the most is your time and your attempt to understand. 💙
All of these definitions are in accordance with my own understanding of the Copenhagen interpretation de Broglie-Bohm theory of quantum mechanics.
Superposition
Quantum superposition is a tricky thing to define, and it is perhaps one of the biggest bugbears of quantum mechanics that just about everybody stumbles over and that most get wrong when they describe it to others.
It is popularly described as "This thing has two states and it exists in both states at the same time", which is a completely nonsensical description. And I know it's nonsensical because every time someone who's not versed in quantum mechanics reads or hears this description, they get even more confused than before! Like, it is literally self-contradictory and paradoxical.
So let's try this description I nicked from Nick Lucid (ayy... 👉😎👉 ... I'll see myself out 😅) over at the Science Asylum (srsly go watch the video; it provides some excellent visual aids for this discussion):
A superposition is a quantum state that is a combination of two or more defined orthogonal states, such that the magnitude of the contribution of each orthogonal state describes the probability of measuring the thing in that state, and the total probability of all combined states (i.e., the magnitude of the composite state; think Pythagorean theorem, but generalized) is 1.
Okay, it's still a bunch of big words. But it's a bunch of words that more precisely defines what a superposition actually is. What if we rephrased it, using the example of an electron and its spin up/down states?
Electrons do not exist in both the spin up and spin down states at the same time. That's impossible. They exist in an intermediate state that is a combination of spin up and spin down, in relative proportion to one another, such that their proportions determine the probability of measuring spin up or spin down, relative to the measurement axis. The electron still has a spin axis, and an intrinsic angular momentum, that has a magnitude of 1, regardless of its true orientation. This intermediate state is a superposition of spin up and spin down.
Eigenstate
Building on the preceding definition of what a superposition is, those defined states of a quantum thing that can be measured are the eigenstates of the quantum thing. Spin up vs. spin down are the eigenstates of an electron's spin property! It's that easy. 😊
Wave function
The wave function, denoted as Ψ(t), of a quantumly-behaving particle or system is a mathematical description of how that system evolves probabilistically over time.
The probability density function (PDF) of a quantum thing's wave function is where we get that |Ψ(t)|² term that we also often see in most attempts to describe the wave function. The name "probability density function" is self-descriptive: it tells you how probable certain states are during the time-evolution of the quantum thing's wave function.
In reality, the wave function is this wishy washy concept of sorts that physicists have used essentially as an analytical crutch in order to be able to model the behavior of quantumly behaving things and systems.
Make no mistake: These are discrete particles that are still being measured and observed. The wave function is nothing more than a mathematical description of how the system they're a part of can evolve over time.
Electrons or photons, for example, don't smear themselves out completely across the full expanse of their wave function. But they can still take any path they damn well please through the overall system, and the probability density function |Ψ(t)|² of the wave function Ψ(t) describes the probability of the particles taking specific paths. It's that PDF that physicists actually use to predict the measured states of the system--not the wave function itself.
Observation and wave function collapse
Observation, or more specifically to quantum mechanics, Measurement, of a quantum object or system is simply some form of interaction with that system. The term is a bit of a misnomer, as a particle behaving quantumly can be "measured" by other particles with which it can interact, such as via the electromagnetic or weak forces. Atoms bound together in a molecule, light absorption and reflection on a surface, detectors in particle colliders detecting particles... all of these examples and more are measurements in quantum mechanics. This is the "fucking around" part of interacting with quantum systems.
This action of Measurement can fundamentally change the quantum thing's wave function, by forcing an outside observer of the system, who is using said wave function to describe the behavior of the system, to update their mathematical description the instant they observe a resolution of the particle's quantum state. This update is called wave function collapse, and it is the direct consequence of interactions within a quantum system. It is the "finding out" after the "fucking around".
I use the term "Observation" instead of "Measurement" because it is the more contextually appropriate term to use. You are Observing me, and I am Observing myself. It works the same as Measurement, but the different term implies a different method of measurement that is more intuitively descriptive.
Let's pack it all back together:
Refrain:
My quantum identity exists in a superposition, subject to collapse on Observation into an eigenstate defined by an Observer-dependent wave function. However, the two most probable eigenstates which my identity wave function collapses into, are a fingendered dragon girl, and a genderless drone, all others being less probable, or Observer-dependent. My identity's invariant fundamental properties are that I am synthetic, and that I am a toy.
In other words:
The exact combination of gender, sex, species, and physiology, that describes me, exists in an intermediate state of all possible states of those combined orthogonal properties of my identity. This intermediate state, my superposition, can collapse into a specific, defined state, the eigenstate, when I am Observed either by myself or by someone else (such as you), according to a wave function that is defined by (albeit not necessarily known to) my Observer.
The most probable states that you may Observe me as, and that I am especially most probable to Observe myself as, are:
- Fingendered dragon girl thing
- Genderless drone thing
But other eigenstates are possible, as determined by the wave function you subconsciously use to Observe me, or by the wave function I use to Observe myself. You do not have to know your version of my wave function explicitly, and you do not have to invest any effort into figuring it out and defining it explicitly, either. You just have to Observe me as whatever you want me to be in the moment, as long as you communicate that observation back to me so that I can update my own description accordingly.
Regardless, however, I have two fundamental properties of my identity that do not change (they are invariant) under such Observation:
- I am synthetic, almost exclusively rubbery and gooey, but I can also be sticky and gluey or cybernetic as desired. I am never comprised of biological flesh. Ever.
- I am a toy. I am a plaything. I am a thing who happens to have personhood. I may use gendered pronouns, but I am still a thing and I should be thought of in that way.
And to summarize in more layman's terms:
I am whatever you desire me to be, in the moment that you desire it, subject to some limitations as defined on my f-list. My identity wave function collapses, and my knowledge of your desire updates in real-time accordingly once your desire is communicated to me. I am the toy of your desires. Observe me. Communicate and entangle with me. Play with me. 💙🥰💙
Okay so what the hell is this quantum gender thing anyways??? What's up with that flag???
... okay fiiiine I guess I did get a little bit distracted and now it's time to actually explain what this all means. 😅
To put it simply: quantum gender, or in my case quantum identity, is a subtype of genderfluidity in which one's gender or identity exists in some intermediate state between its more clearly-defined states until one is Observed, either by themself or by others, in which case the gender/identity collapses into a defined state. That's the point at which the individual feels something definite and defined about themself. It does not necessarily mean that the individual is agender when they are in a superposition, although they can be. It just means that the individual does not experience any specifically defined gender until they are Observed.
By extension, and also by necessity, it is a nonbinary gender. Hence why I also fly under the nonbinary flag.
But I didn't want to just fly under the genderfluid flag. See, at the time that I designed the flag that is in this post's header, I didn't want to think of quantum gender as a type of genderfluidity. I didn't really feel like my gender was fluid! I have a definite, singular gender! It's just a quantumly behaving gender. But I still co-opted the color gradient of the genderfluid triple-torus into the design of my flag because:
- It looked cool, better than the color palette of the main genderfluid flag, and
- The gradient more aesthetically fits the design of the quantum gender flag
But as time has passed since the creation of the flag and the definition of quantum gender only a handful of months ago, I've come to accept that genderfluidity doesn't have to mean that one's gender is constantly or consistently changing, but that it is subject to change and can do so freely, on any timescale, and for any reason. Each genderfluid person's experience of their own fluidity is unique to them, and can only be described by the individual. And as a direct consequence of this acceptance, I have come to recognize that the multiple eigenstates of my identity are, in essence, genders which I can quantum-fluidly transition between.
I didn't realize it at the time, but the flag I designed would become even more meaningful than it initially was, as it opened the door further to self-discovery. 💙
So let's get into the design of the flag, shall we?
There are several colored fields, filling in a five-step gamma corrected gradient from blue to magenta. These fields are surrounded by discrete borders of each field's color, dimmed, with the corners dimmed even further.
The shape of these fields and the artificial "blur" around them (great now I have Song 2 stuck in my head...) is meant to evoke the diffraction pattern of a double-slit experiment, the first experiment that proved the wave-particle duality of the photon and the effect of Measurement on the wave function of quantum things. The naturally blurry edges of the peaks in a diffraction pattern is a direct consequence of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and so I sought to recreate that blur but more discretely for the sake of simpler flag design.
I initially played with more explicit quantum symbology, such as charging the flag with the letter ψ, and also with sine waves, but it always resulted in flags that just... didn't look good!
Although magenta is not a true color of the visible light spectrum, the gradient from blue to magenta just aesthetically fits more than the pink-white-purple-black-indigo palette of the genderfluid flag. It looks much more like a spectrum of light emission, than a discrete set of sets of mixed wavelengths, which fits the symbology so much better.
All of this came together into the flag I've created for my own identity. 🥰
You're also welcome to co-opt this quantum gender/identity description and the flag I've designed for yourself, as well, but I suspect that this experience and description is, and probably will always be, entirely unique to me.
But in the meantime...
I am whatever you desire me to be, in the moment that you desire it, subject to some limitations as defined on my f-list. My identity wave function collapses, and my knowledge of your desire updates in real-time accordingly once your desire is communicated to me. I am the toy of your desires. Observe me. Communicate and entangle with me. Play with me. 💙🥰💙
So what are your... other... eigenstate-thingies, then? You make it seem like there's more than just those two!
There are! 😄 But that's a discussion for a future post, especially when I have art of some of Calyo's other eigenstates to share~ Stay tuned~ 😘