The Impact of a Passing Thought.
Greenville, SC 2025
It has been a minute since I have spent time with you. I apologize for my transgression. Countless days and thoughts have been lost to the ether of this universe.
And that is where our thought practice of the day begins! An interesting concept to explore: the impact of a passing thought.
Where do thoughts go when they are not pursued or remembered? With my basic knowledge of neurobiology and crude (at best) understanding of quantum mechanics and entanglement theory, I tend to believe that it may be possible for a passing thought to alter reality and the physical realm of existence.
“Woah, woah, woah, Daniel, there is no way you have the knowledge and understanding of these concepts to appropriately discuss this.”
You are right—but entertain me!
Simply by nature, your body uses energy to function. This is a fact. Your brain uses stored ATP and converts it to ADP during ATP hydrolysis when ATP is exposed to our good old friend H₂O, and a phosphate group pops off that molecule to give us energy.
This is the way our body powers cellular processes. From the tip of your toe to the top of your dome, this process is occurring constantly.
This is relevant because it is the same process your body uses to produce the energy driving all the electrochemical impulses in your neurons that allow your brain to think and to do its job as your ultimate ruler.
So in this primal, physical sense, a passing thought does impact the flow and form of energy in the universe. While negligible on the scale of a single passing thought, imagine the amount of energy used by one individual throughout the duration of their life simply on passing thoughts.
Now apply that same logic to the human race—now and throughout history.
The brain itself uses about 20% of all energy your body produces to maintain itself and function. While passing thoughts are a small subset of this 20%, it is still significant to attribute some value to them.
I would argue it is safe to conclude that a passing thought, in this capacity, alters reality.
If we dig a bit deeper and think of quantum entanglement—defined simply as this: “entanglement means two particles share a state such that a change in one instantaneously affects the other, regardless of distance”—and then apply the governing rules of subatomic particles as they are dictated by our understanding of quantum mechanics (the laws that control electrons, protons, and neutrons that make physical existence possible), I would argue even passing thoughts are encoded in the fabric of reality after they occur, and are never truly gone—just lost to an unfeeling universe.
These subatomic particles, the composition of our physical reality, are the base of every chemical that makes your neurochemical reactions possible.
So, the exchange of energy when you have a passing thought—backed by the chemicals made of subatomic particles that are entangled—in my mind/theory could indeed be encoded forever into the fabric of reality.
A passing thought branded forever into the subatomic environment that underpins our reality and universe.
This may all be heresy, and if someone in the biochemical or physics professional community reads this… please find joy in the laugh that my botchery of these concepts has led to!
I would love if in the afterlife (if there is one in whatever form), I am able to ask for a complete collection—dated and time-stamped—of my thoughts.
This plays into a larger hope of mine: that in an “afterlife,” I will be able to ask for the stats of life. I want my life by the numbers.
How many words did I speak?
How many steps did I take?
How many pounds of food did I consume—and how many… you know what happens to food after you eat it!
How many individual people did I lay eyes on in my life?
What was the one most impactful decision or choice I made—and what were the alternatives?
Who among those I know would have been my most compatible partner?
Who else did I never meet in my life that could have been a best friend?
Ultimately: What did I do to deserve such a privileged life?
Questions I’ll likely never know the answers to. But until then—I’ll keep wondering.
Date: May 9th, 2025
